For Immediate Release
July 23, 2009

Barrett steamed over McGuinty dropping third party review on e-Health

Simcoe – Local MPP Toby Barrett says that news of Health Minister David Caplan dropping the third party review of the e-health scandal is just more of the same from the McGuinty government.

After the Official Opposition blew the whistle on the spending scandal at eHealth, the government said they would have Price Waterhouse Coopers investigate the procurement practices at the agency working to create electronic health records for Ontario taxpayers. Yesterday, it was learned that Caplan wrote a letter to the new chair at eHealth, agreeing to drop the outside review as it would be duplicating the work of Andre Marin, Ontario’s Auditor General.

“This is show and sham politics at its best,” Barrett said. “This is all about buying time and protecting Minister Caplan’s job – this Minister should have stepped down long ago or Mr. McGuinty should have fired him.”

Barrett went on to say that the problems at eHealth just don’t seem to go away but in fact get worse.

“It’s not enough that there was $5 million in untendered contracts and $2,700 a day consultants billing hardworking Ontarians for drinks and snacks, now we have the Minister blowing even more money by hiring a firm and then putting the brakes on them part way through the investigation,” Barrett said. “While the Minister spends his time dodging this scandal, there’s less effort being put into creating electronic health records.”

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For more information please contact MPP Toby Barrett
at 519-428-0446 or 1-800-903-8629