Alberta's Auditor General has released a damning report detailing catastrophic failures in the UCP government's handling of laboratory service privatization to Dynalife, revealing $125 million in wasted public funds and severe impacts on patient care.
Investigation Met with Obstruction and Poor Cooperation
Auditor General Doug Wylie reported encountering significant resistance during his investigation, stating he received poor cooperation and even obstruction from the UCP government. The report, released on November 19, 2025, paints a picture of a government determined to push through privatization despite overwhelming evidence of potential failure.
The investigation uncovered terrible planning, ignored guidelines, denial of evidence, and ultimately complete failure in the transition of community lab testing from public to private hands. What was supposed to be a cost-saving measure turned into a financial disaster with no benefit to Alberta taxpayers.
Calgary Patients Bear the Brunt of Failed System
The consequences were most severe in Calgary, where wait times for routine blood and urine tests skyrocketed as services transferred from Alberta Precision Labs to private company Dynalife. By February 2023, wait times had increased from a few days to five weeks, creating healthcare chaos for thousands of patients.
Testing errors reached alarming levels, with 145 mistakes recorded in May 2023 alone that potentially threatened patient health and lives. The situation provoked fury among patients and frustration from doctors who couldn't obtain test results for days or weeks.
Staff morale plunged as transferred Dynalife employees feared losing their pensions, leading to soaring absenteeism and further compounding the system's problems.
No Business Case and Ignored Warnings
The report reveals that the UCP government, then under Premier Jason Kenney, became determined to move all community testing to the private sector despite the NDP government having created Alberta Precision Laboratories as a wholly public body in 2018.
Dynalife received the massive $4.8 billion contract over 15 years without any competing bids, a decision that Wylie found was made without proper business case development. Neither Alberta Health Services nor the health department followed their own procedures during the process.
From the beginning, estimates showed that cost reductions—the primary justification for the exercise—might never be realized. AHS issued multiple warnings to the government but was instructed to proceed regardless.
The auditor general's report states: "Evidence demonstrated that the Minister and the Department of Health expected AHS to proceed with community laboratory services outsourcing even as concerns about cost savings, COVID-19 pressures, and only having one proponent were raised by AHS."
Despite cost savings being the main objective, calculation errors and subsequent financial analysis indicated most of the estimated forecasted savings would likely never materialize, making the entire exercise a $125 million failure that compromised Alberta's healthcare system.
