— Former alderman Craig Burrows officially announced he’s in the race to be Calgary’s next mayor. After serving two terms in Ward 6, Burrows lost his seat in the 2007 election to Ald. Joe Connelly, another mayoral candidate.   What has Burrows learned since losing his seat almost three years ago? Evading questions, apparently. 

— City auditor Tracy McTaggart revealed she is investigating several cases of alleged fraud related to the city's awarding of contracts. McTaggart’s audit found several city contracts were granted without competition and jumped in cost without rhyme or reason. A 2009 audit revealed the city’s shortcomings around purchasing policies (simply put, there weren’t that many to follow), however, the city has since instituted 15 new procurement rules in hopes of solving the problem. Despite the whistleblower-based allegations, which according to McTaggart include “staff colluding with certain vendors,” police won’t be called in unless evidence of fraud is uncovered.

— The province is shaping its Alberta Health Act legislation over the coming months. As it stands, the public can fill out an online survey and/or attend an invite-only workshop hosted by one of the province's 12 local Health Advisory Councils. (Seriously, the government is taking names and then hand-picking a cross-section of the public based on the surveys submitted.) Considering the government's recent bailing out of a private hospital in Calgary (a facility it shuttered and then sold off to private investors in the mid-1990s and is now renting it back to the tune of $114,000 a month, plus recievership fees), handing private eye-surgery clinics $2 million to catch up on a back log of cataract surgeries, the H1N1 vaccine rollout fiasco, bed closures and two years of utter havoc created by the centralizing nine health regions into one super board, Albertans may want to pay close attention to this.

— On that note, after writing this week on the fiasco that is the Health Resource Centre, its owners Networc Health Inc. and Cambrian Group of Companies (the commercial and industrial developer now in a legal dispute with Networc claiming it’s owed more than $636,000) an interesting email came my way. One showing just how much money Cambrian investors stood to gain by investing in the now jeopardized venture: $10,620,000. Networc’s Health Resource Centre was slated to lease 60 per cent of the new buildings, which, according to court documents, were up to 75 per cent complete when things went haywire. This whole story boils down to this: the drive for profit. Despite no guarantee from the province, Networc forged ahead with plans to expand on the hope of tripling its surgical procedures per year — each one costing about $8,200, or about $22 million annually. Now, because of the insolvency, the for-private clinic stands to lose about two-thirds of its business when the province moves the surgeries HRC once did to the McCaig Tower at the Foothills Medical Centre early next year.