Caught In Another Untruth...

Danielle Smith tries to retcon the "Corrupt Care" scandal again but it backfires. Again.

On February 21, 2026, host of The Breakdown Nate Pike called into Danielle Smith’s biweekly (as in every two weeks) radio show and asked a question about the children’s medication that was purchased at Danielle SMith’s direction back in 2022.

The Crux of the question had to do with efforts were being undertaken to recover the upwards of $50 million that had been paid up front and that is outstanding. This is taxpayers money that by all reliable accounts is in limbo but likely collecting interest, not for taxpayers but for the company holding those funds.

In the past Smith has floated fanciful prospects for getting value for the money, including by using it to purchase IV acetaminophen, despite the fact that multiple physicians have said there is no use case for IV acetaminophen. Smith has also claimed that the IV acetaminophen could be used to replace opioids as painkillers, but anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of pharmacology has dismissed that out of hand.

The clip of the question is below…

Smith’s response contained a new and (to our knowledge) previously unknown scapegoat, the Pharmacists Association.

A quick search of Smith’s Twitter timeline, quickly yielded a series of tweets from 2022, but those tweets seem to do more harm to Smith’s arguments than good.

In those tweets, Smith acknowledges that Pharmacists were advocating for increased access to precursor supplies (also known as API or “Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient”).

Particularly relevant, and some might say damning is the included admission that she was aware that the federal government had sourced branded Tylenol from outside of the country and was in the process of importing it. This seems to be in line with previous FOIP results we have received that demonstrate that the province was offered brand name Tylenol by the federal government and the province chose to refuse it after they had initiated the purchase from MHCare.

Shortly after we re-published these tweets, we received an email from an anonymous source that appeared to be a conversation between the Pharmacists Association and one of their members.

The Breakdown then took steps to authenticate the email and we have confirmed that it is authentic.

In it, the Pharmacists Association confirms that the meeting took place as described in Smith’s November 2022 tweets, but it also draws some clear distinctions.

First of all, the email clearly articulates that the Association believed that compounding pharmacies were able to meet the current demand but were inquiring as to the availability of more “API” to ensure that they could meet demand long term.

The email also clearly states that the requests from the Pharmacists Association were limited to AHS possibly providing API to stabilize things in the long term, but none was available.

This combined with the fact that Smith acknowledges in her tweets that supply had been obtained by the federal government raises some significant questions as to how unstable the supply could be considered in November of 2022.

Particularly eyebrow raising regarding Smith’s claims on her radio show is the last paragraph, which states…

“We were advised of the government’s decision to procure foreign-sourced pediatric acetaminophen only shortly before the public announcement in December 2022. We understand how comments made in public forums can sometimes raise questions. However, decisions related to procurement and contracting were made independently by government and were not discussed with the Association.”

In this reply, the Association appears to be stating quite clearly that their only ask had been for API and that they had no involvement or awareness of the decision to spend $70 million of taxpayers money (to start) on supply sourced from outside of Alberta.

The Association also makes a clear point with the above statement that the procurement decisions were in no way discussed with the association which appears to be in direct contradiction to Smith’s claims.

The concerns with the procurement are well documented in the Wyant Report and most recently by the Minister of Hospitals, Matt Jones in a response to a question by Opposition House Leader Christina Grey where he stated…

“The procurement in this case was not properly executed”

The Breakdown reached out to the Premiers office and requested comment but did not receive a reply.

This story wouldn’t have been possible without an anonymous tip from one of our supporters. If you have a tip that you want to share, please email us at info@thebreakdownab.ca.