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.”