Former McGill hospital boss Arthur Porter arrested in Panama, awaiting extradition to Canada

The arrest of Dr. Arthur Porter on Monday in Panama on a Quebec warrant brings another unwelcome reflection on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's judgment when it comes to political appointees.

Porter, onetime chief executive officer of Montreal's huge McGill University hospital network, and his wife were detained in the Central American country pending extradition to Canada to face fraud charges connected with the health complex's $1.3-billion expansion project, CBC News reported.

The arrest comes as something of a surprise, since Porter said previously he was being treated for advanced lung cancer at a clinic he operates in the Bahamas, which made it too difficult for him to travel to Canada to deal with the fraud allegations.

Porter's wife, Pamela, is also accused of handling the products of crime and conspiracy, according to the National Post.

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Porter, who was born in Sierra Leone and received much of his medical training in Canada, rocketed to the top of Canada's administrative elite and had an equally rapid fall.

He became head of the McGill University Health Centre, the largest of its kind in Canada, in 2004 after a contentious stint as the cost-cutting CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, where he presided over thousands of layoffs.

A skilled networker, Porter soon found himself moving in top Conservative circles, apparently sponsored by David Angus, a party bagman and now-retired senator who sat on McGill health centre's board and became chairman in 2007 under Porter.

The following year, Harper appointed Porter to the Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which overseas the operations of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Three years later, the prime minister promoted Porter to be the committee's chairman. He was made a privy councillor and given access to state secrets.

But things were starting to unravel for Porter. Questions were being raised about his ties to Ari Ben-Menashe, a former lobbyist and arms dealer from Montreal. He was supposedly helping secure a $120-million grant from Russia for "infrastructure development" in Porter's native Sierra Leone. The deal, which fell apart, called for a company controlled by Porter's family to administer the completed projects, according to media reports.

The arrangement and Porter's position as a special adviser to Sierra Leone's president, was revealed in a 2011 National Post story. His work for Sierra Leone put him in a conflict of interest with his duties at SIRC and he resigned shortly after the story broke.

He would quit as head of McGill's health centre a few weeks later and leave the country, followed by a lawsuit filed by McGill in 2012 claiming Porter had not repaid most of a $500,000 low-interest loan given by the university.

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That fall, a report commissioned by the Quebec government alleged there were major financial irregularities at the health complex when Porter ran it, the Post said. Porter has claimed the accusations he let the health centre's deficit mushroom to $115 million from $12 million during his tenure were nothing but vindictiveness.

Last February, Quebec's anti-corruption squad charged Porter with fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud against the government, abuse of trust, accepting secret commissions and laundering the proceeds of crime.

The charges triangulate with the massive investigation into the activities of SNC-Lavalin, the giant, Montreal-based engineering and construction firm. Former company executives are accused of bribing foreign officials to obtain lucrative contracts and of skimming funds for their own benefit.

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SNC-Lavalin was the prime contractor for the McGill health centre expansion. Three of the company's former senior executives, including two who figure in in the larger investigation, have been charged in connection with the McGill project.

Harper, who's had a couple of his Senate appointments (former TV journalist Mike Duffy and aboriginal leader Patrick Brazeau) go sideways recently over alleged expense fiddles, has stated Porter's alleged criminal acts had no connection to his work for the government.