TORONTO – In his highly anticipated report, Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter on Wednesday slammed the province for spending more than $1 billion at eHealth and it’s predecessor agency, Smart Systems for Health Agency.
The two agencies have been charged with bringing the province’s health records online.
The Smart Systems for Health Agency came under heavy criticism for spending more than $600 million over six years with little to show for it. Spending excesses continued when eHealth was established in September 2008.
McCarter says the effort lacked "strategic direction" and relied "too heavily on external consultants."
"Ontario taxpayers have not received value for money for this $1 billion investment," he concludes.
The scandal, the worst in Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s two terms at the helm of the province, has already prompted multiple resignations.
It now has felled health minister David Caplan, who formally resigned his office as of Wednesday morning.
At eHealth, that spending included lavish executive pay as well as tens of millions in untendered contracts, often to Liberal-friendly firms.
Some of those controversial contracts were unearthed this spring by the opposition Conservatives.
Caplan courted criticism when he abruptly cancelled a much-vaunted third-party audit this summer only days before it was due to report.
EHealth CEO Sarah Kramer resigned in the wake of the spending scandal, parting ways with the firm in June, 10 months after she began, with a $317,000 severance package.
Dr. Alan Hudson, eHealth chair, resigned from his volunteer position shortly thereafter.
For months, however, Conservatives called for Caplan’s head, to no avail. Conservative party leader Tim Hudak called Wednesday’s resignation "long overdue."
Ottawa Citizen
CNS 10/07/09 9:28:51
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