Thrown under the bus

Dr. Alan Hudson will be replaced as chair of embattled eHealth Ontario, the Star has learned.

Hudson is the latest domino to fall after a financial scandal involving a six-figure bonus for the former chief executive and expenses by highly-paid consultants, one of whom made $2,700 a day and expensed tea and chocolate chip cookies.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, who was defending Hudson just last week, will make the news official at a mid-afternoon news conference, sources told the Star.

But “you’ll have to wait for Dalton’s announcement at 3:15,” said a highly-placed source.

Aside from replacing Hudson with former cabinet chair Rita Burak, McGuinty is requiring that all contracts for consultants be tendered and that highly-paid government consultants will no longer to be able to expense snacks like tea and Choco Bites, hospitality or incidentals.

“With these reforms, Ontario taxpayers’ money will be better protected,” McGuinty, whose government was clearly stung by the scandal, said in a statement.

Opposition parties complained that eHealth was giving contracts to firms like Courtyard Group, which has a number of Liberal connections, without the work being tendered.

And one consultant from Alberta who was paid $2,700 a day was expensing snacks like tea and muffins, in addition to her lodging and flights home, which will continue to be reimbursed under the new policy.

Hudson personally approved the $114,000 bonus for former CEO Sarah Kramer, who left eHealth over a week ago amid pressure from opposition parties in the Legislature, where the government had been pounded for days about lax spending controls at taxpayer-funded eHealth.

Hudson declined to talk when reached by the Star at an eHealth board meeting this morning.

“I can’t comment now,” he said, sounding shaken.

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