Truthing on demand...

If you’ve been following the “Corrupt Care” scandal at all, you’re probably aware that there are allegations of influence peddling that reach all the way up to the Premiere’s office. There have also been subtle implications that the alleged corruption wasn’t limited to childrens medications, appointments to positions of influence and skybox tickets, but allegedly also chartered surgical facilities, real estate deals, the construction of recovery centers and more.

Allegedly.

Anyways, on June 24th, Danielle Smith was asked when the last time she saw Sam Mraiche of MHCare (a pivotal figure and company in the allegations) was.

She responded that it had been “over a year”.

Now one might think that given the amount of scrutiny that this scandal has gotten, what with the multiple investigations by the ethics commissioner, the auditor general and the RCMP that Smith would be very careful and very precise if addressing this file at all publicly.

But as the province of Alberta has seen over and over again, Danielle Smith has a very real problem Truthing on demand.

Because last year, Last Door Recovery who has played a critical role in supporting Marshall Smith’s “Alberta Model” for recovery held a “Sober Stampede” complete with Trooper, a Kiss Tribute band and more!

It’s worth noting that this “Sober Stampede” initiative was heavily backed by the Alberta Government. They’re right there on the sponsors list and everything.

So of course, there was a good representation from the UCP cabinet, with Danielle Smith, Dan Williams, Jason Nixon and Danielle Smith’s then Chief of Staff Marshall SMith in attendance.

Here they are with Last Door “Director of Community Development” Giuseppe Ganci.

How do we know Marshall Smith was there?

He appears in this photo from the same facebook photo set we pulled this from (Thanks Recovery Day Alberta!)

Pretty distinctive shirt he’s wearing.

Also appearing in multiple photos in this set is Jason Nixon, and in this pic he appears to be having a friendly chat with a few folks, one of whom appears to be the MHCare CEO whose sister was at the time renting out a luxury home to Marshall Smith.

But let’s get back to the matter of Danielle Smith having difficulties Truthing on demand.

Because this photo also appears in the online set.

And it appears to show Danielle Smith chatting with Marshall Smith, Giuseppe Ganci and Sam Mraiche at the Sober Stampede event on June 13, 2024.

So if that is Sam Mraiche chatting with Danielle Smith, her chief of staff Marshall Smith (who again, was renting an elite luxury home from Sam Mraiche’s sister at the time) and Last Door bigwig Giuseppe Ganci, this is a pretty significant photo.

It's inconceivable that if that is Sam Mraiche that Danielle Smith wouldn’t know who was given her not that distant shared skybox experience with him.

And it’s also probably worth remembering that this was a “Sober Stampede” event, so the usual Stampede excuses for forgetting things probably don’t apply here.

So again, one might think that given all of the media attention on this file, Smith would at least try and be accurate when she makes public statements about this file.

But again…

Danielle Smith can’t truth on demand.

And of course, some folks are going to read this and say “Well, it’s almost a year though, she was pretty close”.

Those folks would be missing the point.

The allegations involved in this scandal involve taxpayers money to the alleged tune of over 1 Billion dollars.

Read that again.

1 Billion taxpayer dollars.

It resulted in a Minister of the crown stepping down and later being kicked out of the party. That former minister is now in the process of restarting the PC party.

There has never been a scandal of this size and scale in Alberta politics.

And Danielle Smith still can’t get her facts straight.