Judge orders Alberta government and AHS to disclose records in Mentzelopoulos case

A Court of King's Bench judge has ordered Alberta's government and Alberta Health Services to disclose records they had sought to keep private or claimed did not exist in former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos's $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

Justice Michael Lema largely sided with Mentzelopoulos in a ruling issued Friday, ordering the disclosure of email attachments, meeting minutes, and documents referred to in other records. Both AHS and the government had been sworn under oath that they held no further materials relevant to the case and had countered that they had disclosed all relevant documents. They accused Mentzelopoulos's lawyers of embarking on a "fishing trip." The deadline for disclosure is Nov. 2, and defendants must justify why any records were redacted or remove the redactions.

Mentzelopoulos was terminated from her role as AHS president and CEO in January 2025. The government and AHS maintained in court filings that she was fired for poor performance and incompetence. However, Lema noted that the performance allegations opened the door to questioning whether defendants had a duty to warn Mentzelopoulos of potential dismissal. "I may direct threshold production of records relating to a possible duty to warn e.g. identifying concerns and outlining expected improvements (including benchmarks and timing) and any warning of potential dismissal if performance did not improve," Lema wrote. He invited lawyers for all parties to make submissions on potential performance-related records.

Mentzelopoulos is arguing that then-deputy health minister Andre Tremblay fired her but lacked the authority to do so under her contract terms, and that there was no just cause for her termination. A previous ruling last month had sided with AHS and government lawyers that dozens of records Mentzelopoulos intended to rely on could not be used due to being privileged or confidential.