CTV Toronto has learned that Ontario's auditor general will report some contracts at eHealth Ontario were handed out with an appearance of favouritism.
Auditor General Jim McCarter is expected to release a report on Wednesday that will slam the Liberal government for worsening existing problems at eHealth and wasting taxpayer dollars.
Specifically, the report will focus on a deal made with Anzen Consulting Inc. That company submitted two bids for one project, one for about $3 million and the other for $737,000.
The auditor will report Anzen was asked by eHealth to resubmit its bid to come in line with a smaller budget. Anzen won the project.
Anzen managing partner Don MacPherson told CTV Toronto in an email that "during the tendered bidding process eHealth Ontario asked Anzen to reduce the scope and term of the mandate and resubmit a bid."
MacPherson said his company had no involvement with eHealth's "internal tendering process."
It is unknown if other companies bidding for the contract also got inside information to reduce their bids.
Conservative Leader Tim Hudak called Anzen's two bids "very suspicious" and said the bid process did not follow normal government procedure.
Ontario's Health Minister David Caplan, whose job is believed to be at stake with the auditor general's report, told reporters Monday he would not comment on "speculation."
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Earlier, Caplan said that the provincial government was never advised against awarding a $30 million un-tendered computer contract to IBM.
In an interview published Monday in the Toronto Star, former eHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer said she "vigorously opposed" the IBM deal, but the government ignored her advice.
"I ... said so to both the deputy minister of health, Ron Sapsford, and the assistant deputy minister in charge of the contract, John McKinley," the Star quoted Kramer as saying.
"I advised those officials against signing the contract, but my advice was ignored. It was my analysis that the contract was not specific enough in terms of the concrete deliverables from IBM."
The contract was for work to link a new electronic medical records system for hospitals and medical professionals with the Ontario Health Insurance Plan database.
Caplan told reporters at Queen's Park that the government "at no time" got any advice from either Kramer or any other eHealth executive to not follow through on the IBM deal.
The cabinet of Premier Dalton McGuinty's government signed off on the deal.
The contract is expected to be discussed in detail in McLarter's forthcoming report on spending and management issues at the troubled arm's-length provincial agency Kramer ran until she stepped down in June.
Since 2002, the provincial government has spent about $1 billion trying to put the medical records of Ontarians online, but has had relatively little to show for its effort.
The government has had to deal with one report of another from eHealth relating to seemingly out-of-control spending on consultants.
Kramer told the Star she expects to be vindicated in the report.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss and files from The Canadian Press
