TORONTO - The New Democrats are fuming after the Liberal government quietly dropped a promised independent review of scandal-plagued eHealth Ontario.
The government had said PriceWaterhouseCoopers would look into procurement practices at the provincial agency, which is working to create electronic health records for Ontario residents.
But last Friday, Health Minister David Caplan agreed to a request from eHealth to drop the outside review, saying it would duplicate the work of Ontario's auditor general.
NDP critic Peter Kormos says the government is worried about more bad news emerging from eHealth and is simply buying itself some time by cancelling the outside review.
The health ministry says dropping the independent review will save taxpayers' money, and notes the government has introduced new procurement rules for all agencies.
But Kormos says it's outrageous for the government to talk about saving taxpayers' money after what he calls "the shakedown by the eHealth consultant gangsters."
Premier Dalton McGuinty has already apologized for the spending scandal at eHealth, which included $5 million in untendered contracts and expense abuses by consultants being paid $2,700 a day.
The agency's CEO and the chair of its board both resigned during the scandal, but Ontario's opposition parties still want McGuinty to fire Caplan for his handling of eHealth.
The Auditor General's report is not due until September, while the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report was supposed to be released earlier.
