FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 15, 2025
A six-million dollar question: Where is the fiscal responsibility and transparency when it comes to Health PEI’s KPMG contract?
Charlottetown, PE – Recently Islanders learned that the King government has quietly extended its sole-sourced, untendered consulting contract with KPMG in Toronto for an additional $4 million. This brings the total cost of this contract to nearly $6 million of Islanders’ hard-earned tax dollars.
And yet, when Islanders ask for basic information on what this money is achieving for them — including what recommendations KPMG has made to improve our healthcare system and what tangible results we’re getting — Health PEI directs Islanders to file a Freedom of Information request. This is completely unacceptable.
What we do know is that under the first phase of this expensive contract our patient registry — the number of Islanders without a family doctor or nurse practitioner — grew by almost 1000. Our healthcare system as a whole is overcapacity, and Islanders tell me directly they have felt no concrete improvements in their healthcare access.
This is our money being spent and our healthcare system that it is supposed to benefit. What possible justification is there for keeping this information hidden? Is the King government cherry-picking which recommendations or results it likes from KPMG’s reports and ignoring or hiding the rest? How much has this government spent on reports and consultants that it chooses to ignore? I can think of several off the top of my head — the Peachey report, the Spindle report, the Davis Pier report, to name a few. Will this KPMG contract end up being more wasteful spending of Islanders’ money, and yet another report that gathers dust on a shelf?
Islanders deserve answers, not more secrecy. This kind of backroom deal-making and lack of accountability only leads to more questions and erodes public trust. If the King government truly believes this $6 million is being well spent, they should have no hesitation in sharing the details with the people of PEI. For my part, I will continue to call out government secrecy and lack of transparency whenever I see it.
Matt MacFarlane
MLA Borden-Kinkora
Third Party Critic for Health
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Katie Rankin
Chief of Staff
Office of the Third Party
Tel: (902) 213-6378
Email: kerankin@assembly.pe.ca