McGill University Health Centre’s former head rebukes allegations of corruption

The former head of the McGill University Health Care Centre and one-time member of the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) blames spite for allegations of mismanagement during his tenure at the Montreal-area medical institution.

Dr. Arthur Porter told The Tribune, in Nassau, Bahamas, where he now lives, that claims he allowed McGill Health's deficit to balloon to $115 million from $12 million on his watch were a vindictive and largely unsubstantiated attempt to embarrass him.

Porter, a former spy watchdog, said his resignation from McGill Health in 2011 was not over the financial scandal but part of a deliberate move to develop his interests in the Bahamas, where he operates a cancer treatment centre.

"It was time to move on," Porter told the Tribune.

Porter said he was asked to stay on past 2010 but resigned after he was satisfied construction of McGill's new $1.3-billion hospital was on track.

“I had agreed to do one term which was four years, I’d extended it because the hospital was not finished, but the real job that I had come to do was the hospital," he told the Tribune.

“The hospital had been on the drawing boards for over 17 years. They couldn’t get it done before I came, and I am a bit of a ball buster.

"I don’t take prisoners and I get things done and maybe I wasn’t the most popular guy because sometimes people’s feelings do get hurt, but they wanted a hospital and they are going to get the world’s best hospital.”

It's the latest twist in the Porter story, coming on the heels of his announcement that he had diagnosed himself with cancer and was undergoing treatment. The Globe and Mail reported Wednesday that Porter had issued a news release that he had a "newly discovered malignancy" and would receive radiotherapy and chemotherapy at The Cancer Centre, where he's listed as managing director.

Porter, a 56-year-old native of Sierra Leone, headed McGill's network of English-speaking hospitals from 2004 to 2011, the Globe said.

A panel appointed by the Quebec government last December reported McGill Health had been badly mismanaged during Porter's tenure, pointing to a number of unexplained financial irregularities, the National Post reported. A trustee has been appointed to supervise the institution's management and Quebec's anti-corruption police unit has been called in to investigate.

Officers are looking into how a consortium led by Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin Inc. won the contract to build and maintain the new hospital. Former CEO Pierre Duhaime was arrested last November and charged with defrauding McGill Health, though Porter insists the contract was awarded fairly, the Post said.

Meanwhile, McGill is suing Porter to pay back more than $300,000, which includes the balance of a 2008 loan to him plus salary paid after he resigned.

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Porter also resigned as chairman of SIRC in 2011 after it was revealed he had tried to obtain a $120-million aid package from Russia on behalf of his homeland Sierra Leone, where he also served as an adviser to its president, the Post said.

Porter had worked with Ari Ben-Menashe, a former arms dealer, Israeli security consultant and lobbyist living in Montreal, to try to obtain the money.

Ben-Menashe was implicated in the so-called Iran-Contra Affair, the 1980s attempt by then-president Ronald Reagan's White House to funnel aid to right-wing guerrillas in Nicaragua by selling military equipment to Iran. He faced charges but was acquitted in 1990.

Porter told the Tribune he signed a contract with Ben-Menashe to secure funding for infrastructure projects and that the agreement explicitly ruled out using the money for military purposes.

“[Ben-Menashe] was one of the few people that has developed lobbying approaches to Africa. Some African countries look for military, others don’t," Porter explained.

“I talked to this lobbyist and he said you could get over a $100 million dollars for Sierra Leone for approved projects. So I went back to Sierra Leone with the government and we developed a list of projects, bridges, some roads, ferries in areas no roads existed, and diffusely around the country.”