NDP Health and Long-Term Care Critic and Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas says today’s revelation of a secret $236-million eHealth deal is just more of the same from an agency that has already presided over a $1-billion boondoggle and a McGuinty government that seems to have learned nothing in the wake of a scathing Auditor General’s report.

During today’s Question Period, Gélinas quizzed Premier Dalton McGuinty about the backroom deal, which is sending almost a quarter of a billion dollars out the door.

“In spite of the auditor’s investigation, the public outrage, the promise to do better, eHealth Ontario and the McGuinty government are still at it and still don’t seem to think they have to be accountable and transparent to the public,” Gélinas said. “We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars handed out in secret. This needs to stop.”

“We all recognize that electronic health records are vitally important but not at any cost, we need transparency,” Gélinas said. “The Auditor General documented a billion dollars spent on eHealth with little to show for it and in the midst of the investigation, eHealth secretly shovelled $236-million out the door.”

“Ontarians deserve to know who approved this $236-million secret deal,” Gélinas said. “We know that up to 5,700 doctors are eligible for $30,000 each under this secret scheme. If every single one of them gets the maximum amount, it makes $171 million. Who’s getting the other $65 million?”