Unpaid Subcontractors for Recovery Centres Say UCP Abandoned Them

The Tyee’s Charles Rusnell follows up on the fallout from CorruptCare’s expansion into the Recovery Centres.

Subcontractors, who have not been paid for months, are blaming the government of Premier Danielle Smith for first failing to provide oversight on more than $100 million of taxpayers’ money and then failing to help resolve the impasse as they struggle to survive.

“This will probably bankrupt us if I don’t get paid,” said one Edmonton subcontractor who hasn’t been paid in more than two months. “I’m about a million dollars out so that is a pretty heavy hit.”

Another Edmonton subcontractor told The Tyee she has been owed more than $500,000 since July 2025.

“This shows to me that the government doesn’t have our back, that we can’t trust the government.

“We can’t trust them with our taxpayers’ money. We can’t trust them on a government-funded project.”

…

“Nobody told us anything, and we were just told, ‘Don’t worry, you will get paid,’” said the Métis Nation subcontractor.

“So we kept working. The only reason we finally went off site is because we weren’t believing the bullshit anymore.”

She said it wasn’t until she read The Tyee story that she understood what was going on.

“When I read it, then it became crystal clear to me what the problems were. I was like, ‘OK that is why we haven’t been paid.’ And I was thinking, ‘That is why everyone has been stonewalling me and not telling the truth.’

“None of us subtrades would have known any of this unless we had read your article.”

Accusations Fly in Newly Surfaced Legal Fight Involving Sam Mraiche

Canadians may be witnessing one of the greatest corruption scandals to rock a province in generations. From the mind boggling dollar figures, to the depth of the group alleged behind the corruption, the scandal touches every man, woman, and child of Alberta.

CorruptCare originally referred to allegations of a cluster of procurement contracts involving AHS and a number of UCP members in relation to Tylenot, bad PPE, and some suspicious bids for chartered surgical facilities. And, now, the scandal continues to expand to construction contracts in relation to the recovery centres at the heart of the UCP’s forced treatment programming (that I dub Residential Schools 2.0).

The Tyee’s Charles Rusnell brings us the deep dive into the allegations between the Semashkewiches, Sam Mraiche, Sam Jaber, Jitendra Prasad, Mike Eldassouki, Aaron Barner, and others. As always, the article itself deserves a read, and I’ll leave some highlights below.

His involvement, Mraiche said, was simply as an informal adviser to his brother-in-law and he had no relationship with Semashkewich nor any involvement in any of the projects.

“Over the years, Mraiche, as a business owner, would regularly provide his brother-in-law, Eldassouki, with casual, unofficial, and informal business advice,” his statement of defence says.

Mraiche said he was not the controlling mind of Melewka Construction and he had no authority, legal or otherwise, to make decisions on behalf of his brother-in-law or his company.

…

Eldassouki allegedly told Semashkewich he wanted to set up a distinct corporate entity from Melewka Homes that would be the general contractor for projects with Melewka Homes being its subcontractor. Semashkewich said he declined the proposal.

Semashkewich alleges that without his knowledge or consent, Eldassouki incorporated Melewka Construction on Nov. 3, 2022.

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Shortly after Eldassouki set up Melewka Construction, the amended counterclaim states, Faour introduced Semashkewich to “Fred,” who “advised that he controlled how much Melewka Homes would get paid from the projects, had connections, and that he could pull the projects at any time.”

“It was made apparent to [Semashkewich] that ‘Fred’ had considerable control over the projects, the government officials behind them, and could interfere with Melewka Homes’ contractual relationship with those entities,” the amended counterclaim states.

“[Semashkewich] later discovered that ‘Fred’ was actually Mraiche, and that Eldassouki was Mraiche’s brother-in-law. Eldassouki frequently copied Mraiche on internal Melewka Construction correspondences and sought Mraiche’s approval for material decisions.”

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Between late 2023 and early 2024 Melewka Homes through Melewka Construction entered into negotiations to design and build three recovery centres — one each for the Métis Nation of Alberta and the Enoch and Tsuut’ina First Nations.

These recovery centres were to be entirely funded with grants from the Alberta government. The MNA and Tsuut’ina projects would each cost about $36.5 million including GST while the Enoch project cost about $31.5 million for a total of about $104.5 million.

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There was another alleged meeting on May 3, 2024, held by Mraiche at the offices of MHCare involving Semashkewich and his son John, Eldassouki and Ward.

“The meeting was very heated with Mraiche demanding an exorbitant amount of money,” the amended counterclaim states.

“Further, Mraiche wanted the money paid at once in upfront payments from the 60 per cent or 50 per cent in pre-construction payments…. [Semashkewich] said this could not happen as this would amount to fraud since these funds would not be directed toward construction,” the amended counterclaim states.

This is when Mraiche is alleged to have again claimed he had the government connections to pull all of Melewka Homes’ projects and called Alberta Health Services procurement chief Jitendra Prasad and put him on speaker phone.

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Lawyer Bryan Ward, who has also acted for Mraiche, denies every allegation and denies he was in a conflict of interest or breached his fiduciary duty. He also denies he was acting on instructions from Mraiche, and that he delayed the release of trust funds.

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In January, the Globe and Mail revealed Ward had allegedly hired a podcaster and a self-described political hit man who had allegedly harassed former Alberta Health Services director Sandy Edmonstone, former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopolous and Globe reporter Carrie Tait.

Edmonstone, who alleges he was surveilled and surreptitiously photographed, has sought a contempt order against Ward.