AISH expresses concern about “safety risk” for government employees.
A citizen from Edmonton, Alberta received notification from the office of the Alberta Ombudsman on April 17, 2025, that one of their investigators has been assigned to review a number of his allegations, which include corruption and illegal destruction of client documents within the Assured Income for Severely Handicapped agency (AISH) with the Alberta Government Ministry of Seniors, Community and Social Services.
Signature area in email from Alberta Ombudsman Investigator received on April 17, 2025
Citizen says that after almost a three year struggle with the Alberta Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP), he finally received documentation on April 9, 2025, that shows that someone within the AISH agency illegally removed documents from his wife’s file and then replaced them with other falsified documents in order to cover up Administrative error within the agency.
AISH then forwarded those false documents to the Citizens Appeal Panel with the Alberta Appeals Secretariat in order to induce the Panel to accept the falsified documents as legitimate in order to conclude that no Administrative error had taken place.
“It was only after the Ombudsman was made aware in January of this year about my three year struggle with FOIP to get those documents did AISH finally come around and send them to me. What was contained in the 23 page FOIP document package was the final proof I needed to ask the Ombudsman to investigate further”.
It’s anyone’s guess what happened to the originals that were removed from the file. I went back to FOIP a second time not too long ago and after they conducted another exhaustive search, I was told in a recent letter that they can’t be located. However, the phony documents they sent to the Appeals Secretariat are still there .
Signature area in a letter dated April 7, 2025, from FOIP for 23 pages of documents. This FOIP request took three years to complete and only after the Ombudsman was made aware of the refusal by FOIP to provide the documents to Citizen.
Citizen says that all of this began in 2021 when AISH faxed incomplete documents to the Canada Pension Plan Disability (CPPD) in Ontario in order to claw back monies from his wife’s CPPD disability benefits. It wasn’t until almost a year later that an AISH auditor discovered the error but instead of AISH accepting the blame for the mixup, they instead attempted to point the finger of blame at CPPD.
“In order to cover up this error, that’s when the incomplete documents showing the error from the AISH agency were removed from my wife’s AISH file and replaced instead with bogus documents that showed no error. They then sent the phony documents instead to the Citizens Appeal Panel in order for them to decide at an appeal hearing that my wife received an overpayment due to incompetence at CPPD and not any incomplete information that AISH had sent.”
During a subsequent AISH appeal process that followed, Citizen says that he contacted CPPD through Federal Government Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests and made them aware of what AISH was claiming. He eventually received a number of direct phone calls from ATIP officials in Vancouver, B.C. who offered to assist him in investigating the matter.
“The normal process with Government of Canada ATIP requests is through back and forth letters with any requested documents included. When I made them aware that AISH was accusing CPPD of not doing proper due diligence they were concerned enough to want to investigate further and contacted me directly by telephone with a number of questions.
That’s when I was able to discover after numerous phone calls that the documents that AISH faxed to CPPD and the ones they sent to the Citizens Appeal Panel had been switched and were not the same. I would not have known about any of this if ATIP had not contacted me directly by telephone”
Signature area of letter from ATIP official with direct phone number upon completion of review of concerns expressed by Citizen concerning AISH agency
Criminal code of Canada concerns.
After the possibility of criminal activity regarding Forgery by someone within AISH was raised during the telephone conversations with ATIP officials in Vancouver, Citizen then decided to contact the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) and provide all the information that ATIP had forwarded to him. At his request, ATIP officials agreed to retain and document all correspondence in the event that any investigation by the EPS was undertaken.
“I think the Criminal Code of Canada is very clear about this kind of behavior. I researched the matter after talking to the ATIP people by telephone and found that Section 366 fits almost hand in glove with what AISH was attempting to do when the original documents were removed from the file and then replaced with other falsified documents. It seems like very extreme measures to take for such a small amount of money instead of them just admitting they made a mistake in the information they faxed to CPPD.”
Excerpt from Section 366 of the Criminal Code of Canada that Citizen is claiming was violated by the Alberta AISH agency.
Complaint to EPS Chief of Police
On September 16, 2022, Citizen sent a 25 Page evidence document to the Chief of the EPS, Dale McFee by registered letter and requested an investigation into his concerns of Forgery by AISH.
Cover letter of 25 page evidence document that was sent via registered letter to EPS Chief Dale McFee on September 16, 2022.
“I was concerned at the time with Chief McFee’s known dealings with the United Conservative Party that he would do nothing. And that is exactly what he did…Nothing! He had his Staff Sergeant contact me a few days later and basically told me that the EPS would not investigate and suggested I could talk to the Ombudsman or a lawyer about the matter.
Before I even sent the registered letter to the EPS, I had first asked the RCMP to look into it because I had no confidence in Chief McFee to do the right thing. The RCMP told me that the EPS had jurisdiction and would have to refer it to them before they could act. And they never did.
Citizen says that is when he decided to make a complaint against Chief McFee to the Edmonton Police Commission about the matter.
Here we are three years later and McFee is now the top civil servant in the very same UCP government. I was very well aware that he was in a obvious conflict of interest at the time and I made a follow up complaint to the Edmonton Police Commission about it. They didn’t do anything either and in my opinion, buried it by sweeping it under the rug. It’s well known that many of them are appointed by the same Government of Alberta that AISH and now former Chief McFee belong to.”
Second opinion from former RCMP officer
Citizen claims that is when he decided to get a second opinion from a retired RCMP Staff Sergeant who worked at the time as an Investigator for the Alberta Government. The government investigator, after reading over the same evidence document that Chief McFee had turned down, tried to encourage him to send the matter directly to AISH for their investigation.
Excerpt from email received from Alberta government investigator on October 6, 2022.
“The Alberta government investigator who had 27 years prior experience with the RCMP didn’t say that he felt it was not worthy of investigation as Chief McFee and the EPS did but instead wanted to refer it to the Director of the Edmonton AISH office. I felt at the time that was probably a bad idea because then it would be AISH investigating AISH and I felt that it wouldn’t go anywhere. I decided eventually to contact the Ombudsman to ensure a more objective investigation into my concerns.
I believe it turned out to be the right decision when I eventually learned at a later time who the Director actually was and the very real possibility that she was involved in the decision to deny my FOIP request for AISH documents for almost three years.”
Request for recording of Appeal Hearing
Citizen has since made AISH and the Citizens Appeal Panel aware of all evidence in the matter by forwarding to them copies of the complaint that was made to the Ombudsman, which included the 25 Page evidence document. After almost a three year delay, an AISH Appeal Hearing is scheduled for the last week of June 2025, and Citizen has asked for it to be audio recorded so that any questions he has will be on the public record due to some of the sensitive issues involved.
However, he says that the Citizens Appeal Panel has turned his request down and he feels that their stated reasons are not legitimate.
AISH claiming “safety risk”
“They stated in a letter of decision that they sent me just recently that AISH is concerned for the safety of the AISH Director and perhaps others if any recording of such a sensitive matter ends up in the wrong hands, or that I could possibly use Artificial Intelligence to doctor any recording and it could then be taken out of context and manipulated by others to misuse the information.
That’s absurd fear-mongering and so self-serving for all the wrong reasons. They want people to trust them but it appears that they don’t trust anybody. The Ombudsman investigator has been asked to look into that as well.”
I was able to learn that at least two of the three people that made the decision to deny the recording have present or previous connections to the Alberta government. So it seems like they shopped around to find the best people to help them try to keep this matter quiet. It’s obvious and blatant conflict of interest to enlist this people to decide such an important matter. I will also be making the Ombudsman aware of that fact.”
Excerpt from Citizens Appeal Panel decision to deny recording of Appeal Hearing due to expressed “safety risk” for AISH Director.
Citizen says that he has an inherent mistrust for the Appeals Secretariat due to a finding by the Alberta Ombudsman in 2022 after a two year investigation that that they were “unfair and troubling” in relation to what took place at an unrelated Appeal Hearing in March of 2020 that he also attended on behalf of his wife.
Published story in Edmonton Journal in 2022 in relation to Alberta Ombudsman findings of “unfair and troubling” behavior by Alberta Appeals Secretariat after two year investigation.
“In my opinion, based on recent observations, there is not a lot that has changed since the Ombudsman issued it’s critical report almost three years ago. The Ombudsman made five recommendations and one of them was for any Appellant to have the right to request a recording of an appeal hearing, which the Appeals Secretariat said that they accepted.
That however, turned out not to be the case with their recent refusal to allow a recording of the upcoming hearing. I think that they don’t want the answers to any sensitive questions I intend to ask them on the public record for obvious reasons.”
Excerpts from Alberta Ombudsman investigation report dated March 30, 2022 with acknowledgement of acceptance of all recommendations by Appeals Secretariat officials, which included the right to request a recording of Appeal Hearing.
Day says that the matter of the Ombudsman report was also raised in the Alberta Legislature during Question Period on April 19, 2022 by the Provincial NDP Party. The Minister committed in response at that time on the Legislature Hansard record to accepting all five Ombudsman recommendations.
Citizen says that the matter of the Ombudsman recommendations also came up on the floor of the Alberta Legislature during Question Period on April 19, 2022 when the Alberta NDP questioned the Minister about the contents of the Ombudsman’s report.
Under the AISH Microscope
Citizen revealed that on the very same day he received the 23 page document package from FOIP after a three year delay, there was also a letter from AISH informing that his wife’s file was now under review with a request for all recent bank transactions.
Excerpt from letter from AISH requesting copies of bank transactions. This letter arrived the same day as the 23 page document package from FOIP.
“My wife received these kinds of letters a number of years ago when she first started receiving AISH benefits in 2019. To now receive this review letter on the very same day that I received the FOIP document package after a three year wait is very circumstantial and coincidental. And I am not a big believer in coincidence.
I think that someone at the AISH agency is trying to send me a message that AISH has me under the microscope perhaps in an effort to intimidate me into dropping my Ombudsman complaint. The people who are reviewing the file at AISH are the very ones that I suspect were involved in removing the original CPPD files and switching them with the others for the Citizens Appeal Panel. However, I am not intimidated that easily and I have also made the Ombudsman aware of this recent review letter coincidental to the FOIP package to have it looked at as well.
I am a senior citizen who survived having a big part of my stomach removed in 2015 after emergency surgery for colon cancer. I think that if God gave me the ability to survive that for these past ten years, then He will give me the strength to survive anything that AISH might try to throw at me.”
Forgiveness and Accountability
When asked what he hopes will come out of all of this, Citizen said that he looking for accountability within the AISH government agency.
“After I came very close to death in 2015 due to colon cancer, I began to look at my life in a whole different light about what is really important. I have become a more spiritual person and believe that God wants all of us to try and get along and respect each other.
Disabled and handicapped people in Alberta have a hard enough time as it is without these kinds of things happening. I am not out for any kind of revenge with the government and I can be as forgiving as the next person.
However, forgiveness doesn’t lessen the need for accountability. I think it’s important for those in positions of trust like any government agency and especially AISH to be exposed for this kind of behavior.
I think the big question for handicapped people of Alberta that are served by AISH is do we as a society want these kind of events to go on unchecked with little or no accountability? If they can do this kind of thing to my handicapped wife, then have they done it before to anyone else and will they be free to do it again at some later time?”
You can contact Citizen with any questions or comments about any difficulties you may be facing with the Alberta AISH and Appeals Secretariat by email at edm.cs@shaw.ca .
Further updates will be published after the upcoming AISH Appeal Hearing which is scheduled for sometime in late June 2025.
Published May 12, 2025…Last updated June 7, 2025