Alberta working on agreement to send Turkish pain medication to Ukraine: Smith

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government is working on a deal to send scores of its controversial stash of unused children’s pain medication to Ukraine.

Smith told reporters Friday that an unnamed group had approached the government with the idea, and the province is now seeking Health Canada’s approval.

“We’ll have more to say if we come to an agreement,” she said.

Her comments came after the Globe and Mail reported that Alberta was considering spending up to $275,000 to ship more than 500 pallets of the scandal-ridden medication to Ukraine.

Alberta’s government paid $70 million to MHCare Medical for the medication in 2022 during a countrywide shortage.

The province only received about 30 per cent of the shipment and, since the spring of 2023, has been sitting on 1.4 million bottles after health officials determined the medication posed serious health risks when given to infants.

In a statement, Opposition NDP health critic Sarah Hoffman questioned the timing of the plan and said sending the medication to already vulnerable children in Ukraine is a bad move.

“This medicine wasn’t good enough for Albertans. Why on Earth would (Smith) think it’s good enough for children suffering in the middle of a war-zone?” Hoffman said Friday.

Health Canada spokeswoman Marie-Pier Burelle, in an email, said an application had been made by Alberta Health Services to export the medication. It is currently being assessed, she said.

It would take nearly two months for the children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen to reach Ukraine by boat, according to government briefing notes cited by the Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail also says the medication will expire in a year.

The Edmonton-based company contracted to provide the medication made headlines last year after owner and CEO Sam Mraiche provided cabinet ministers and government staff with luxury box tickets to Edmonton Oilers NHL playoff games.

Mraiche and his company are embroiled in a provincial contracting and conflict of interest scandal.

Last month, the former head of Alberta Health Services filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the province and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange. Athana Mentzelopoulos alleges she was fired for looking into inflated government contracts awarded to private surgical companies.

The lawsuit mentions MHCare multiple times, but it is not named as a defendant. The statement of claim says an AHS employee was found to have an MHCare email address while he worked for and helped negotiate the medication deal for AHS.

MHCare has said any allegations of wrongdoing on its part are “unwarranted and unjustified.”

The allegations from Mentzelopoulos have not been tested in court and have prompted numerous internal and external investigations.

Doug Wylie, Alberta’s auditor general, is reviewing government and AHS procurement procedures. Smith’s government also announced Monday that former Manitoba chief judge Raymond Wyant would investigate on the government’s behalf.

On Thursday, the Alberta RCMP announced that it too was investigating after it received a complaint last month. Mounties didn’t offer details about the scope of its probe.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2025.

Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press