Alberta government officials have amended assessment to enable the former Premier Alison Redford, Minister of Justice, to choose a consortium of lawyers ranked lower to represent the province in its pursuit of $ 10 billion against the tobacco industry, says an exclusive survey of CBC News.
According to the survey, the International Tobacco Recovery Lawyers (ITRL) selected for that lucrative contract had personal and political ties with the former leader of the provincial Conservative Party.
The ITRL is led by Calgarian firm JSS Barristers, whose ex-husband of Alison Redford, Robert Hawkes is a partner. Both were divorced for 20 years, but continued to maintain links. Great supporter of the former Prime Minister, Robert Hawkes had directed the transition team named Alison Redford after winning the leadership of the provincial Conservative Party in 2011.
last ranking
Internal documents from the Department of Justice obtained by CBC News confirmed notably qu’ITRL was ranked last for “lack of depth” and had been eliminated from further consideration by an independent committee.
The committee composed of lawyers from the ministries of Justice and Health was mandated in 2010 to make this assessment. The province had to pay millions of dollars in fees to the consortium retained if successful the lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
Note modified
The committee sent to the administrative assistant Alison Redford, Jeff Henwood, its negative assessment in favor ITRL and two other consortia. But a day later, he sent her a new version of the assessment that no longer evoked the wrong position ITRL Ms. Redford and recommended to select from the three consortia in the running. Nothing indicates neither reason nor the author of the change from the original version.
The former Prime Minister has refused to grant an interview with CBC News on this issue. It nevertheless issued a statement through his lawyer. “Any allegation that the Ministry would have informed me of the latest position of ITRL evaluated candidates from three firms, is false,” said Alison Redford, adding that the selection process had been duly examined by the Ethics Commissioner Alberta.
Moreover, nothing in the documents to indicate that the former Premier would have seen the first note evaluation of the selection committee.
The ITRL consortium was not the “best choice”
Emails including CBC News has learned show that some members of the Independent Committee considered that the second note was incorrect because it omitted the mention of the low ranking of ITRL compared to its two competitors.
“The removal of this reference suggests that the third consortium was on an equal footing as the other two and it was not the Committee’s conclusion,” wrote spokesman of the Ministry of Justice, Lorne Merryweather in a December 8 email sent to the Deputy Minister of Justice, Grant Sprague.
In response, Grant Sprague wrote that the minister then missing an important piece of information. Lorne Merryweather then tells him that in his opinion, the justice minister at the time, Alison Redford, has understood. But the second note was signed without being corrected.
On December 14, Alison Redford sent a note announcing that on the basis of the note of the committee, JSS Barristers ITRL and were selected to represent Alberta in its lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
Department of Justice officials have informed the consortium December 22, 2010.
Other emails obtained by CBC News show that officials from the Department of Justice have documented their concerns on how to characterize Alison Redford choosing ITRL. However, these representations have been made only after the decision she argued.
Selective Disclosure
The lawyer Michel Drapeau, an expert in access to information, think that politics played a larger role than the law in the decision of the Department of Justice to disclose the note to Alison Redford on the choice made by omitting other documents that contradicted this choice. “The part of history that has been disclosed is rather in the sense of his version of events and decision making,” says the expert.
“They prevented the public to discover the truth,” says his side, Arthur Schafer, director of the Business Ethics Centre and applied to the University of Manitoba.
According to an exclusive report from CBC Investigates.
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