TORONTO - Premier Dalton McGuinty denies he intervened in the appointment of Sarah Kramer as the CEO of eHealth Ontario over the objections of some civil servants, but the opposition isn't buying that argument and wants an inquiry into the handling of the scandal-plagued agency.
"I met with Sarah, and this was after the decision had been made to hire her," McGuinty said Wednesday after a report suggested he was directly involved in choosing Kramer.
"I never heard about any objections to Ms. Kramer's hiring."
McGuinty admitted Kramer was appointed through an order-in-council, but denied a report that he had a hands-on role in appointing eHealth's leaders, saying he relied on the recommendations of the board, especially former chair Alan Hudson, who requested Kramer be hired.
"Obviously, Dr. Hudson was a strong influence in all of this; I relied heavily on him," said McGuinty.
"He made it clear to me that if he was going to take on an additional responsibility with electronic health records, he thought that Sarah Kramer would be indispensable in helping us to achieve our objectives."
In hindsight, he added, "it's obvious that we made a mistake, but at the time the best advice that we had was that Ms. Kramer ... was performing very well, and based on that advice and the strongest recommendation, I thought it was the right thing to do, we all thought it was the right thing to do."
Kramer and Hudson abruptly resigned in June amid scandal over lucrative contracts awarded without competitive tenders and overspending by consultants.
The value of those untendered contracts was eventually revealed to be around $16 million, with the biggest ones going to companies the opposition parties say have ties to the Liberal government.
New Democrat Peter Kormos asked for an inquiry into the matter Wednesday, saying it was clear the premier's office was consulted before Kramer was hired and should be accepting responsibility.
"The premier is going to have to wear it, somebody has to accept responsibility, he can't constantly wring his hands and say somehow all this stuff happened without his knowledge," said Kormos.
"These jobs don't get filled without being cleared by the premier's office. The premier may not have heard personally from some of the bureaucrats, but the bureaucrats have made it clear that they warned the premier, through his office, of their concerns."
McGuinty has since changed the rules so that contracts cannot be awarded to consultants without competitive tenders.
A tender was posted by the province Wednesday, for a firm to help eHealth's board find a new CEO. It stated that "proponents shall bear all costs associated with or incurred in the preparation and presentation of its proposal."
But the government also cancelled a promised independent review of the agency by PricewaterhouseCoopers, saying it would have duplicated efforts by Ontario's auditor general, who is also probing the agency.
Documents released earlier this week, however, showed that review never even got underway.
"It's beyond now the expenditures," said Kormos. "I think it's an issue now of how this whole thing developed and I think it's time for an open, public inquiry into how both Hudson and Kramer were taken on, and how they were given licence to spend money the way they did."
"The premier's judgment was clearly very flawed when he took on this twofer of Hudson and Kramer," Kormos said.
The Globe and Mail reported Tuesday that senior officials in the Ministry of Health had opposed Kramer's selection because they felt she did not have enough experience to oversee the daunting task of modernizing the province's medical records.
Kramer was appointed directly by the premier through an order-in-council, the newspaper said.
McGuinty called his meeting with Kramer a "formality" geared to impress upon her the importance of moving quickly on electronic health records.
"I do this from time to time with senior government officials, it's just an opportunity for them to meet with the premier, for me to look them in the eye and say: 'Look, this is important, we've got to find a way to get this done, let's move along with this."'
EHealth was set up last year to create electronic health records after the first provincial agency given that task, Smart Systems for Health, spent $650 million but failed to produce anything of lasting value before it was quietly shut down last September.
