Officials at Ontario's air ambulance service have bowed to requests from the province's health minister to provide financial information to investigators, CTV News learned Wednesday.
Health Minister Deb Matthews had been expressing concern that the salaries of ORNGE executives who make more than $100,000 a year were not posted under government regulations.
Matthews was urging ORNGE executives to co-operate with the investigators in the interest of transparency and accountability.
"As I also clearly and repeatedly indicated, given that ORNGE is an organization receiving significant public dollars, Ontarians expect and deserve a high level of transparency and accountability. As you know, transparency and accountability are central priorities of our government and our health care system," the minister wrote to executives earlier this week.
ORNGE receives $150 million a year from taxpayers to operate the air ambulance service.
But the air service which flies sick and injured patients to hospital across the province argued that since it had a for-profit arm as well that it was not bound by the disclosure rules.
However, ORNGE spokesman James MacDonald told CTV News late Wednesday afternoon that it has complied with the government's request providing the government with the information that it needed.
CTV's Queens Park reporter Paul Bliss has submitted a request for that information but ORNGE said it is up to the government to provide that information.
However, the government contends it is up the air service to provide the documents and legally cannot disclose them.
The service came under fire earlier this year after concerns were raised that its new aircraft did not have enough room inside to perform life-saving CPR. The service has since adjusted equipment to accommodate that procedure.
ORNGE has also been under the scrutiny of Auditor General Jim McCarter for more than a year as he conducts a regular value-for-money audit of the service.
With a report from CTV's Paul Bliss
