Former P.E.I. bureaucrat didn't fully comply with conflict of interest rules, says ethics watchdog
CBC
P.E.I.'s former deputy health and wellness minister didn't fully comply with some conflict of interest rules while the government was developing its mobile mental health units, according to a report from the province's ethics and integrity commissioner.
The report says Mark Spidel did take steps to limit his involvement with the project, but the commissioner found those steps didn't go far enough.
The province announced in 2020 that it was creating mobile mental health units to deal with people in crisis at locations across Prince Edward Island.
The service's management was later moved to Medavie Health Services, which also runs the Island EMS ambulance service. The units were finally launched in October of 2021.
Spidel told Ethics and Integrity Commissioner Shauna Sullivan-Curley that his brother Matt Spidel was a manager with Island EMS. The report says he also told her he would recuse himself from working on the project.
But the report says that changed, and by early 2021 he had taken over leadership of the project.
The reports says Mark Spidel "reached out and asked if Island EMS would be interested in the redefined project and capable of delivering it in a short time frame."
The report says he also led meetings to explore Island EMS's role in the service.
In March, Mark Spidel called the ethics commissioner, who told him he shouldn't have been in any of those meetings. He stepped away from the project, but by that point Medavie's proposal had been approved.
The commissioner said she is confident the former deputy minister was not involved in the contract negotiations with Medavie that finalized the deal. But she said his actions were not in compliance with the government's conflict of interest policy.
Last February, Lisa Thibeau replaced Mark Spidel as Prince Edward Island's deputy minister of health and wellness.
P.E.I. Premier Dennis King was quoted in a news release announcing that and other changes to the upper levels of the province's bureaucracy.
"I would like to thank both Mark Spidel and David Keedwell for their years of public service as deputy ministers, especially over the last 23 months, during such an uncertain time," King said.
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