Two podcasters waged a campaign of harassment against Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former CEO of Alberta’s health authority, in an attempt to deter her from pursuing a high-profile lawsuit against the government of Premier Danielle Smith, a judge has concluded.
Justice Michael Lema of the Alberta King’s Bench ordered the two podcasters, David Wallace and James Di Fiore, to stop making abusive comments about Ms. Mentzelopoulos, to remove online videos targeting her and cited them for criminal contempt of court.
That citation means they will have to defend themselves against the accusation that they flouted the authority of the judicial system.
The judgment, released Friday, is the latest twist in a court file fuelling the health care procurement controversy that has roiled the Alberta government for more than a year. What began as a job termination lawsuit has ramified into parallel legal tracks litigating allegations that parties in the case were harassed and intimidated.
Ms. Mentzelopoulos is the former chief executive of Alberta Health Services. She alleges in her ongoing wrongful dismissal suit that the government terminated her employment after she wouldn’t shut down an internal probe looking into the way the health authority awarded contracts to certain private suppliers.
After she launched her litigation last year, online podcasters started maligning her and made false allegations and veiled threats, in a series of online videos for about six months.
The podcasts also disparaged other people connected with the procurement controversy, including former AHS board member Sandy Edmonstone, and Globe and Mail reporters who investigated the issue.
In its statement of defence, the province has said that there were no improprieties in the procurement process, and that Ms. Mentzelopoulos was fired for failing to implement the government’s agenda.
Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawyer, Brett Code, has alleged in court hearings and in legal filings that the Alberta government leaked confidential details to podcasters
“We say it’s not a coincidence that this intimidation comes at the same time as the government and AHS are trying to suppress evidence against Ms. Mentzelopoulos. We want to know who funded these people and who gave them information,” he said during a court hearing Monday.
A lawyer for the Alberta government denied the allegations. “The innuendo and assertions made are false. There is no attempt by the Province to suppress anything,” Munaf Mohamed, a counsel for the government, said in a letter to Justice Lema that was filed into the court record Thursday.
The podcasters started targeting Ms. Mentzelopoulos in May, 2025. Mr. Edmonstone then came under attack after she disclosed in June of that year that she intended to call him as a witness in her lawsuit.
Last November, Mr. Edmonstone obtained from Justice Lema an extraordinary remedy known as an Anton Piller order, authorizing court-appointed solicitors to seize and copy the content of the podcasters’ phones and computers.
The content of those files remain in the custody of the independent solicitors while lawyers debate what can be accessed by Mr. Edmonstone.
Ms. Mentzelopoulos also sought access to those electronic records, in addition to her request for a restraining order against the podcasters and the contempt citation.
“It may or may even be likely” that the content of the podcasters’ files hold information about who backed the campaign against Ms. Mentzelopoulos, the judge acknowledged in his ruling Friday.
In his ruling, Justice Lema was highly critical of Mr. Wallace and Mr. Di Fiore’s behaviour, calling it “baseless humiliation and demonization of a litigant in this Court for no apparent purpose other than sapping her will to continue with her case.”
The judge added that “from the cruelty of many of their comments, it appears they may be shameless and that that is a badge of pride for them.”
The judge rejected the argument by the two mens’ lawyer, Craig Alcock, that their podcasts were “hyperbolic or outrageous” but remained legitimate expressions of opinions.
Justice Lema said the content of the podcasts wasn’t journalism or commentary on matters of public interest. “Wallace and Di Fiore are master insulters, insinuators, and muckrakers” the judge wrote.
In his application, Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawyer said that finding the podcasters in contempt of court and accessing their records was necessary because they didn’t just defame his client, but conducted a sustained effort to intimidate parties in a court litigation.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-podcasters-harassed-alberta-health-services-ceo-athana-mentzelopoulos/
