Provincial workers fired for taking free trips

The NDP is calling on the Saskatchewan government to release a list of all vendor-sponsored travel done by provincial employees.

Three employees of ehealth, which handles information technology and vital statistics for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, were fired after it was discovered that they had taken trips paid for by companies receiving government contracts.

Lexmark Canada, WBM Office Systems and Dell Canada were, according to the NDP, paying for ehealth employee trips across North America at the same time the companies were being awarded public contracts. The employees went to Las Vegas and spectator events such as golf tournaments and the Indianapolis 500.

“It’s a pretty concerning behaviour, and it’s a concern that is part of the culture of this government. We’ve got a government that has granted millions of dollars in contracts to companies that have donated to the Sask. Party,” said NDP Leader Ryan Meili.

“Now we see that culture permeating the rest of the ministries. That’s really concerning to me,” he added.

Now Meili is asking the province to release the list of all vendorsponsored travel across all government ministries and Crowns. He is also calling for the province to release an investigation completed by an external law firm into the ehealth employee travel, which resulted in the three people being fired.

Health Minister Jim Reiter confirmed three employees had been terminated following the investigation.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that while it wasn’t criminal in nature, those employees lost their jobs,” he said, adding it is important to trust senior management to deal with such issues.

Meili said “not criminal is not good enough” and demanded more transparency.

Reiter cited inconsistent policies of the now-amalgamated health regions as “troubling” and one reason why the vendor-sponsored travel may have occurred.

He told reporters Wednesday he has asked that a policy review being done by the SHA be expedited so there is more “consistency” on travel policy. The minister also suggested more documentation related to vendor travel could be made available.

“Unless there are some extenuating circumstances I don’t know about, obviously more transparency is better,” he said, later adding, “I’ll talk to our officials, see what we have available and certainly we’ll do our best to accommodate” the release of all vendor-sponsored travel.

Reiter also assured the public can be confident no such travel is currently taking place.

“The obvious answer to that in my mind anyway is, the employees who took the trips were terminated,” he said. “The message, I think, has been delivered loud and clear to senior management. I’m told that they’ve delivered it loud and clear to all employees, and we need to trust our senior management all across this government to ensure that those policies are followed.”