Alberta's education minister cleared in ethics investigation but 'unanswered questions' remain

An ethics investigation has cleared Education Minister Adriana LaGrangein the selection of acompany in her riding that supplied reusable masks to schools throughout the province.

Ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler launched an investigation after a complaint was made in January over acontractawarded toIFR Workwear Inc.

IFR was one of two companies that supplied 1.7 million masks for students last fall. The bulk of the orders, valued at$4.2 million, were with the U.S. multinational Old Navy, which supplied 1,550,000 masks at a cost of $2.30 per mask.

IFR a family-owned business in LaGrange's Red Deer riding provided 150,000 masks at $4.24 per mask, the report said.

The complaint accused LaGrange of breachingthe Conflicts of Interest Act by using her role as education minister to benefit a private UCP donor in her constituency.

Trussler said a campaign donation of $2,000 by Reg Radford, a member of a family involved with IFR, was permissible under the Elections Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act and irrelevant.

'Unanswered questions'

In her29-page decision dated Aug. 12, Trussler said "there are unanswered questions" about the procurement, noting that there "is no doubt that the minister's office had some involvement with the process."

She said it was not possible to find LaGrange interfered with the process improperly due to "the lack of memory of several key people, even though there are grounds for suspicion."

According to the findings,on May 16, 2020, Erin Buckland, president of IFR, emailed the government expressing concern that the province planned to provide 40 million masks for free when businesses had made changes to import and produce masks to survive.

On July 7, 2020, LaGrange and the premier toured several businesses including IFR but masks were not discussed.

On July 27, 2020, Alberta Education asked the Provincial Operations Centre to procure reusable masks for students and staff. Four potential cloth mask suppliers were identified, not including IFR.

The next day, deputyeducation minister Andre Corbould's office emailed Erica Wolfe, deputy head of logistics for POC,to ask whether IFR was an existing vendor.

Michael Walter, an assistant deputy minister in the education ministry, later admitted he asked the POC to include IFR as a supplier. He said the direction came from Corbould, who saidhe could not recall receiving material from IFR or passing it along.

Walter said that ultimately he and Corbould made the decision to order masks from IFR, somethingCorbouldalso could not recall.

No direction from minister

The investigationalso looked at a July 30 meeting between the minister, Walter, and Corbould's acting chief of staff.

In her interview, LaGrange said she did not recall the meeting but would not haveinstructed her department to look into procuring from IFR.

The report says Corbould'sofficeemailed Wolfe after the meeting, saying there was still interest in IFR.

On July 30, the POC received a quote from IFR for a million reusable masks.On July 31, anemail went out from Amanda Dalton,director of logistic services, recommending proceeding with IFR and Old Navy.

Trussler said Dalton felt pressured to use IFRwhile Wolfe was under the impression there was direction from the minister's office.

Trussler noted that impression did not amount to factual evidence directly implicating the minister.

"The Minister claims that she was not part of any discussion," Trussler wrote.

"It could be that she is not being forthright or it could be that, given the relatively last minute decision to put students back in the classroom and with the pressure and quantity of work involved, she did not remember what appears to have been a short discussion."

The report notes that while IFR masks were more expensive they were one of only a few that met all the specifications so there was "an objective basis to pursue and select IFR."