Southlake Regional Health Centre and the Municipality of King held a “follow-up” to the meeting on 1 November 2022 when the developer Michael Rice offered some of his land in the Protected Greenbelt at Bathurst as the site of a new acute hospital. 

The follow-up meeting was on 24 January 2023 – eight days after we learned the proposed hospital site at Bathurst was being planned to accommodate a Long-Term Care facility, a money-making add-on championed by Rice. 

The (then) Chief Executive of Southlake, Arden Krystal, and the hospital’s Vice President of Capital Facilities, the tight-lipped John Marshman, were invited. King’s dissembling  Mayor Steve Pellegrini and the Township’s Chief Administrative Officer, Daniel Kostopoulos, were to host the meeting at King Municipal Centre.

No Records

In the absence of any records of the meeting other than the invitations I asked King to look at the files held by Pellegrini and  Kostopoulos and yesterday I was told:

“A search has been conducted and no responsive records were located.”

On 1 March 2024 I asked Southlake if they had any records of the meeting. They tell me they need more time as they must consult “third parties” – presumably King Township.  

I am now told to expect a reply from them by 30 May 2024.

The endless months-long delays between filing a Freedom of information request and getting an answer are sapping. 

But it is the cavalier disregard of basic record keeping that stings. No agendas, no minutes, no emails, no notes of any kind. 

No Paper Trail

It is all off-the-books. No paper trail. Word of mouth.

We know the meeting happened. And that it followed the hugely consequential meeting on 1 November 2022. Which itself is part of the wider RCMP investigation into the Greenbelt scandal.

But, for the moment, we don't know who said what to whom.

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