For nearly a year, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith has waved off any suggestion of a scandal involving Alberta Health Services.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Back in October, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wiped her hands clean of any scandal involving Alberta Health Services (AHS). Seven months earlier, the Premier had tapped retired Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant to probe alleged political interference involving the procurement of children’s medicine from abroad, and contracts for private surgical facilities in the province, both of which had ties to a man named Sam Mraiche, owner of MHCare Medical Corp.

Around that time, former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos (who had been fired in January) filed a lawsuit alleging inflated contracts and political pressure involving the agency and the province’s health ministry (the allegations have not been proven in court). So the government did what any administration with nothing to hide would do: it said it had fired Ms. Mentzelopoulos for “alarming” incompetence, and then launched an inquiry – one that was limited in mandate, devoid of subpoena power, and without the ability to question interviewees under oath. So of course Mr.........

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