The Alberta government recommended a company linked to businessman Sam Mraiche to build a $35-million addiction recovery centre on a First Nation near Calgary, according to the community’s former lawyer.
Tsuut’ina Nation, which broke ground on its recovery centre in 2024, is one of several Indigenous communities building addiction treatment facilities funded by the provincial government.
Terry Braun, the nation’s former lawyer, alleges in a court document that the government of Alberta played a role in Tsuut’ina’s selection of Melewka Homes Ltd. The builder has been linked in court filings to Mr. Mraiche, who is a central figure in a health care procurement controversy in the province and has connections to powerful figures in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government.
While Mr. Braun’s filing does not detail who made the recommendation, his assertion is the first indication that Ms. Smith’s government suggested a candidate to build Tsuut’ina’s health care facility.
“The Government of Alberta recommended Melewka Homes Ltd. for the construction of the Project as Melewka Homes was constructing comparable recovery facilities elsewhere in Alberta as part of a broader recovery model within the province,” Mr. Braun said. A lawyer representing Mr. Braun declined to comment on the filing, and a lawyer for Melewka Homes did not respond to a request for comment.
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Three Indigenous communities collectively received more than $100-million in grants from the province to build their respective recovery centres. Each awarded its contract to Melewka Homes Ltd., a company with a history of residential construction that is mired in litigation and allegations that subcontractors on its recovery centre projects have gone unpaid.
Ms. Smith has repeatedly told the public that the three communities – Tsuut’ina Nation, Enoch Cree Nation and the Métis Nation of Alberta – were responsible for selecting Melewka Homes.
“We know nothing about them,” she said of the company during a session in the legislature in late March, “which is why we rely on the First Nations and the Métis, when we give them a grant, to manage their own contracts.”
In November, 2025, while responding to an NDP statement alleging that companies owned or affiliated with Mr. Mraiche had received contracts to build recovery centres, Ms. Smith told the legislature that purchasing decisions were left up to Indigenous communities.
“The way we operate with our partnership with Indigenous communities,” she said, “is that we give them a grant, and they do the procurement.”
First Nation’s lawsuit against its ex-lawyer links Sam Mraiche to Alberta recovery site procurement
Spokespersons for Ms. Smith and the Alberta government did not respond to messages from The Globe and Mail seeking comment. A lawyer for Mr. Mraiche also did not respond to a request for comment.
Tsuut’ina sued Mr. Braun in July, alleging negligence, breach of contract and other wrongdoing in connection with the procurement process for its unfinished recovery centre, which it says was sole-sourced and has been marred by “red flags.” The Dene community of roughly 2,500 citizens also alleged that Mr. Mraiche – a medical-supply executive and entrepreneur whose business and government contracts are part of an RCMP investigation – played an undisclosed role in the construction project.
Mr. Braun has denied any wrongdoing, and denied any knowledge that Mr. Mraiche would benefit from the project. He also said he had no dealings of substance with the businessman and “only interacted with Mraiche on a single occasion.” Mr. Mraiche is not a party to Tsuut’ina’s lawsuit.
The United Conservative Party government has been entangled in a purchasing controversy since early 2025 after the province fired Athana Mentzelopoulos as the chief executive of Alberta Health Services, a health care agency that employed more than 100,000 people.
After her termination, Ms. Mentzelopoulos sued the government for wrongful dismissal and alleged that government officials had pressed her to shut down an internal investigation she had been conducting into potential conflicts of interest in the purchasing decisions made by senior procurement officials at her agency. Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s investigation did not focus on recovery centres, which are under the purview of the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction.
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Her investigation focused, in part, on contracts awarded to Mr. Mraiche’s company, MHCare Medical Corp., which had received roughly $614-million in business from Alberta Health Services since 2020; Mr. Mraiche is also connected to companies that were vying for an estimated $430-million in contracts for private surgical facilities.
The government says it fired Ms. Mentzelopoulos because she failed to execute its vision for the health care system. Neither party’s allegations have been tested in court.
The Globe has reported that Mr. Mraiche hosted the Premier, cabinet ministers and senior staff at NHL hockey games; that he joined Ms. Smith’s inner circle in a hotel suite in May, 2023, to watch the province’s election results; that he was under an election-finance investigation by Elections Alberta around the time his long-time friend and relative, Justice Minister Mickey Amery, tightened the regulator’s timelines for issuing sanctions for violations; and, earlier this year, that the RCMP searched the offices of MHCare and an accounting business owned by an MHCare executive and Alberta government appointee.
Mr. Mraiche has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the controversies.
The recovery centres being built by Tsuut’ina, Enoch and the Métis Nation of Alberta are part of a broader provincial response to the opioid epidemic. That strategy was championed by Marshall Smith, the Premier’s former chief of staff, who The Globe reported lived in a $1.6-million home owned by Mr. Mraiche’s sister while he was one of Ms. Smith’s top aides. Lawyers for Mr. Smith did not respond to a request for comment.
In March, 2025, the Alberta government inquired into how the three Indigenous communities awarded the construction contracts for their recovery centres, documents tabled in the legislature show.
Former chief of staff to Alberta Premier lived in home owned by Sam Mraiche’s sister
“If you could also please confirm how Melewka was selected to perform the work, we will update our files accordingly,” Yvonne Carignan, an executive director at the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction – which paid out the grants for the three recovery centre projects – said in an e-mail to the Enoch Cree Nation.
“The Nation followed its own internal procurement process, soliciting bids from potential vendors in the Edmonton-area,” the Indigenous community replied. In an e-mailed statement to The Globe, Enoch spokesperson Erin Stroud said that Melewka Homes’ “existing design and relationship with other First Nations added strength to their proposal,” and that the nation expects to open its recovery centre in early December.
When Tsuut’ina’s then-chief Roy Whitney responded to Ms. Carignan, he said the nation had chosen Melewka Homes based on “a review of construction companies that were familiar with the construction of recovery facilities in Alberta.”
The nation entered into a contract with Melewka Homes in February, 2024, court filings show. At the time, Melewka had one other recovery centre contract, with the Métis Nation, which it had signed a month prior.
Ellery Starlight, who was elected as Tsuut’ina Nation’s chief in late 2025, said in an interview that his community is still investigating how its recovery centre contract was managed.
“The whole project – as positive as it is sounding, everybody was in the dark of the process,” he said.
Mr. Starlight estimated Tsuut’ina’s recovery centre is about 80 per cent complete, and he wants to see its doors open.
“A recovery centre is a godsend,” he said. “I actually have a good team now that’s overseeing the project in a responsible way. And we’re moving forward. We’re not mothballing anything.”
The projects at Tsuut’ina, Enoch and the Métis Nation fell into a legal morass after a dispute emerged between Melewka Homes and a business development partner, the similarly named Melewka Construction Management Services Ltd., owned by Mohamed Eldassouki, an MHCare executive and Mr. Mraiche’s brother-in-law.
Mr. Eldassouki alleges that Melewka Homes president Lewis Semashkewich took control of his business and bank account by using a forged share sale agreement. Mr. Semashkewich, meanwhile, alleges that Mr. Mraiche was the undisclosed “directing mind” of Melewka Construction and that he had worked with others to withhold payments on various projects, including the recovery centres, until Melewka Homes agreed to pay him.
While the two Melewkas continue their court battle, The Globe has reported that subcontractors allege they have gone unpaid, and some have taken to placing liens or suing to recoup their costs. None of the allegations in those proceedings have been proven in court.
Mr. Mraiche has denied any wrongdoing in his court filings and said his involvement in Melewka Construction was limited to providing “casual, unofficial and informal business advice.” Lawyers for Mr. Eldassouki and Mr. Semashkewich did not respond to a request for comment, and the litigation continues.