Revolving CEO door at Alberta Health Services continues as Andre Tremblay replaced

After being replaced in the health ministry, Andre Tremblay is also no longer the head of Alberta Health Services — a role he took on less than a year ago when the previous AHS CEO was fired while looking into allegations of private health-care contract corruption.

Tremblay is on a leave of absence from his role as CEO and official administrator, AHS confirmed Wednesday.

A different member of the AHS executive team has been promoted to lead the province’s front-line health agency by Matt Jones, Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services.

Erin O’Neill, senior vice-president of finance and shared services, is now the chair and CEO of AHS, Provincial Health Corporation, on an interim basis.

AHS said O’Neill has 20 years of experience in emergency management operations and government administration, including five years at Alberta Health. She has served as the assistant deputy minister of primary health care.

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O’Neill served as the AHS executive director of research and innovation, where she led the project management office for the Alberta Surgical Initiative, which aims to increase capacity to reduce surgery wait times.

“AHS is confident that Ms. O’Neill’s leadership will help deliver on its core mandate of providing high-quality, hospital-based services to Albertans across the province,” a statement said.

2:09 Concerns raised about Alberta health executive’s ouster amid contracts probe

Tremblay was a deputy minister for several ministries under former premier Jason Kenney’s government and in 2023, was made deputy minister of health by Premier Danielle Smith. That same year, he was appointed to the board of AHS.

This past January, Tremblay became the interim AHS president and CEO after that role’s predecessor, Athana Mentzelopoulos, was fired.

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The entire AHS board of directors was dismissed soon after that, and Tremblay was appointed official administrator to oversee all remaining activities to transition AHS to its role as a service delivery provider.

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Mentzelopoulos alleges in a lawsuit she was wrongfully dismissed by Tremblay from her job for looking into questionable contracts pushed by government officials as high up as the premier’s office.

She alleges she faced political pressure, including from the premier’s then-chief of staff, Marshall Smith, to sign off on surgery deals despite outstanding questions surrounding excessive costs and who was benefiting.

Mentzelopoulos was appointed CEO in December 2023 amid a time of drastic change at AHS and a revolving door of leaders.

In April 2022, previous CEO Verna Yiu — who’d held the CEO position since May 2016  — was dismissed.

Mauro Chies was brought on as interim leader, and in March 2023 the interim title removed  — only to be replaced eight months later amid an AHS executive team shakeup.

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In November 2023, Sean Chilton, vice-president and chief operating officer of clinical operations and information technology, was named acting president and CEO.

A month later, Mentzelopoulos was hired, only to be fired 13 months into a four-year contract.

Statements of defences by AHS and Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange claimed Mentzelopoulos was failing badly in her mandate to downgrade the health authority from its role as the provincewide leader of frontline health delivery to one of many agencies that would oversee care under a new governance model.

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In February, as the allegations of inflated private surgical contracts being awarded by the province grew, Tremblay was replaced as deputy minister of health but remained head of AHS.

1:52 Premier Smith defends health minister amid corruption scandal, accuses Alberta Health Services staff of blocking changes

At the time, Smith said the government is setting up a “legal conflicts wall” to separate the ongoing work of those named in the allegations, including Tremblay and LaGrange.

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That ongoing work included reducing AHS to a hospital services provider under one of four new governing agencies that report to government cabinet.

Since the matter became public, the RCMP launched an investigation into AHS. Auditor general Doug Wylie has announced his own probe, and the province initiated a third-party investigation, spearheaded by a former judge, who released his findings this fall.

2:20 Report on Alberta Health Services contract corruption allegations finds conflicts widely known

Former Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant wrote in his report it was widely known two staffers were in “real or perceived” conflicts of interest but no steps were taken by senior health officials.

Wyant said he found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Smith, her ministers or other political staff but said the limited powers afforded to his investigation meant he couldn’t make any definitive statements.

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Why Tremblay is now on leave and when he went on it is not known.

“As this is an internal AHS HR matter, we cannot comment further,” AHS said.

— With files from The Canadian Press

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