Georges L Dumont public hospital in Moncton, N.B., on Oct. 8, 2020.Marc Grandmaison/The Canadian Press
A New Brunswick legislative public accounts committee took one last shot at pushing for a public inquiry into expensive travel nurse contracts after the province refused to establish one last month.
Saint John Lancaster MLA Dorothy Shephard made a motion Tuesday to ask New Brunswick Auditor-General Paul Martin to dig deeper into the province’s contracts with private nursing agencies by using powers under the Inquiries Act to summon witnesses under oath and obtain documents. The motion was unanimously supported by MLAs from all three parties.
Mr. Martin, whose recent report found exorbitant fees, questionable billing and lack of oversight with those contracts, which have cost taxpayers $173-million, hasn’t yet determined whether to call a public inquiry.
“An inquiry gives us more than we have now. And right now we have many unanswered questions,” said Ms. Shephard, who abruptly resigned from Premier Blaine Higgs’s cabinet last year, though she remains in the Progressive Conservative caucus.
“I believe an inquiry will reveal gaps that future policy or legislation could correct.”
Much of Mr. Martin’s report focused on contracts between the Vitalité Health Network, which runs the province’s francophone public medical services, and Toronto-based Canadian Health Labs, which supplies temporary health care staff, also known as travel nurses, from other parts of the country to places that are short-handed – a booming industry owing to the pandemic.
The practices of CHL triggered reviews by auditors-general in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador after a Globe and Mail investigation into the contracts was published in February.
Last month, the public accounts committee requested the province launch a public inquiry – a call that was echoed by the New Brunswick Federation of Labour and the New Brunswick Nurses Union – but was denied by the chief clerk of the executive council, Cheryl Hansen, who told members that there had already been an inquiry into the issue.
“I respectfully disagree,” Ms. Shephard said Tuesday. “I believe we do not have a complete picture of what happened. I believe the public does not accept we know as much as we could know.”
She said travel nurse contracts, particularly those with CHL, were heavily weighted to be beneficial to the vendor in ways that seem extreme. After examining the Auditor-General’s report and noting his frustration at the lack of documentation and information provided by Vitalité and CHL, and hearing him say his office was looking into whether it could investigate further, she decided to make the motion at a public accounts committee meeting.
Travel nurse contracts have been effective since Jan. 1, 2022 and do not end until February, 2026.
Ms. Shephard, a former minister for the Department of Social Development, which was responsible for some of the travel nurse contracts, also noted that the department signed ones worth almost $3-million without cabinet approval. Any amount over half a million must be signed off on by elected officials, she added.
She said she was also troubled that a 2017 auditor-general report highlighted several procurement concerns in the department.
Mr. Martin, the Auditor-General, released a statement after Tuesday’s meeting, saying he holds the committee in high regard and supports its mission to scrutinize public expenditures.
“Our office will be taking time to carefully review this motion and decide on next steps,” the statement says.