A $300,000 no-bid contract to review the financials of the Yukon Hospital Corp. and the withholding of the resulting report has the Yukon Party accusing the Liberal government of covering up a critical evaluation.

“For some reason, they don’t want to share the contents of it with us,” Yukon Party MLA Brad Cathers told reporters Tuesday.

“And the logical conclusion is that the contents of that are embarrassing for government, and that they don’t want that information released.”

Premier Ranj Pillai disputed that narrative when questioned on the matter in the legislature.

“Look, we are not hiding anything, and I certainly didn’t say that we weren’t going to release the document,” he said Tuesday.

Asked by the Star later that afternoon if the report would be released, Health Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee made no commitments, saying the government first needs to “fully analyze it.”

Accounting firm Ernst & Young was commissioned last May to look into the financial health of the hospital corporation.

Contracts of this size generally must go out for public bid, but this one was awarded directly.

The no-bid nature of the contract and the existence of the report were made public only after an access to information request by the Yukon Party.

Justifications given in internal documents reveal there was some rush to get the job done.

The contract was awarded on May 15, with the work to be finished by Aug. 1.

The government has a procurement support centre to help determine whether requests like these should be granted.

They advised against going with a no-bid contract in this case.

This was overruled by Pillai on the advice of a deputy minister from the Executive Council Office.

Internal documents show officials argued that if the contract was put out for bidding, it would be impossible to meet the deadline.

Further reasons for the urgency were not given – nor was whatever prompted the need for such a review in the first place.

The Yukon Party had filed a request to view the report and any other pertinent information about the contract award through the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Act (ATIPP).

They were provided with information about the contract, including emails, justifications not opening it to bidding and a brief summary of the goals of the review – but not the report itself.

Those goals included reviewing financial governance and decision-making; looking at planning, budgeting and forecasting; looking at the design of key financial controls; and reviewing the hospital corporation’s financial reporting.

The ATIPP response was dated Oct. 26 and the contact given is Deputy Minister Justin Ferbey from the Executive Council Office.

He is also the one who signed the request that Pillai overrule the recommendation of the procurement support centre.

Despite the deadline of Aug. 1 for the completion of the work, McPhee said they just recently received the report.

“We’ve had the report for eight days,” she said. “The final report was given to us on October the 30th.”

This date is four days after the ATIPP request was fulfilled.

McPhee also says she was unaware of the request.

“Mr. Cathers also spoke about an ATIPP request – not sure how that happened or when he made such a request, or his party did I’m not sure,” McPhee said.

“And I will look into what if any response he received on that, again, because the final report wasn’t in our hands until very recently.”

She also suggested the hospital board had to review the report before it could be released.

“Presumably their board members should have the proper opportunity to review the report and conversations have to take place,” she said.

Generally, things like advice to cabinet ministers and personal private information cannot be released in an ATIPP request.

McPhee said the documents do contain advice to a minister.

“We need to look at what it contains, I need to deal with the folks at the hospital corporation because it is advice to them, as well as advice to me as the minister, advice to the premier,” McPhee said.

But the document detailing the nature of the work contracted for specifically says Ernst & Young will not be providing advice.

The statement of work to be conducted by Ernst & Young has a section titled “EY will not:” that includes “Provide any legal opinion or legal advice” and “Render an assurance report or opinion.”

There was no specific reasoning given to the Yukon Party for not releasing the report in this ATIPP request.

Asked in the legislature why the report was withheld,Pillai responded, “We will be back to the House when we have made a decision on that request.”

It is generally the ATIPP office that is supposed to make that determination, which has prompted Cathers to accuse the premier of not following proper legal procedures.

“Ultimately, the ATIPP office may not have had final control on what information was released via the public bodies who are supposed to respond to it,” Cathers said.

“I do question whether the premier has followed the law in this case.”

Cathers speculated the reason is that the review contains information shedding light on the failure of the government to properly fund the hospital corporation.

“We believe that for years, chronically, the Liberals have been underfunding them by millions of dollars some years,” he said.