Health region sues contractor over invoices

The Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region is suing a local contractor over work done at Regina Pioneer Village.

In March, a health region staff member raised concerns regarding potentially inappropriate invoicing at Pioneer Village, and the region started an intensive investigation.

On Wednesday, the region officially filed a complaint with the Regina Police Service and initiated a civil litigation claim against a local contractor who has performed significant work at the facility over a number of years.

“The complaint we’re filing with the Regina Police Service as well as the civil litigation we’re pursuing is in part to get additional information that we require in order to be able to fully understand the potential issue in front of us,” health region CEO Keith Dewar said.

A statement of claim was filed at Regina Court of Queen’s Bench on Wednesday against AB Electric Corp. and Adrian Bechard, the company’s sole director and president. Statements of claim contain allegations not proven in court.

A statement of defence has not yet been filed. When contacted, Bechard declined to comment.

According to the statement of claim, the company provided electrical contracting services to Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region at Pioneer Village beginning around January 2011 until early 2017.

Over that period, AB Electric provided invoices to the health region for electrical contracting work totalling about $1.958 million.

During that time, the claim says, AB Electric issued approximately 1,611 invoices to the health region for electrical goods and services supplied at Pioneer Village. The health region alleges it made payments to AB Electric totalling $1,956,651.82.

In the statement of claim, the health region alleges numerous billing irregularities, including multiple invoices for the same work; billing excessive hours for a journeyman and apprentice electrician to do the same task; billing excessive hours worked for routine electrical tasks; grossly inflating hours worked per employee per day; issuing invoices for work not performed; billing for services performed by a subcontractor at an unreasonable markup; and charging the health region for materials actually supplied by the health region or for materials previously invoiced to and paid for by the health region.

The region said there is no evidence to suggest there are concerns with the safety or quality of the work performed by the contractor.