Sask Party Donations Part 2: Lumeca
This does not bode well, in my opinion, for any aspect of Saskatchewan's future (which is already here) involving private health care.
Wading into the cesspool that is private health care’s connections to the Sask Party has been a soul-destroying exercise. It has driven home the volume of incestuous and corrupt behaviour displayed by those who have access to the upper echelons of the Saskatchewan Legislature, aka the Sask Party’s clubhouse.
Breaking it down meant diving down one for-profit medical rabbit hole after another, revealing connections to Saskatchewan companies that simply shouldn’t exist. The fact they do is completely unacceptable.
There’s going to be at least two more posts coming from me on for-profit healthcare companies, including MRIs, after this one. I may deviate first to one of the other industries or donors I’ve already started on, however. We’ll see.
What the Lumeca research and everything else I’ve been doing has taught me is that all sketchy roads lead back to top donors and a handful of extraordinarily wealthy men who are well-known besties of Scott Moe and Sask Party Cabinet Ministers.
I’ll tell you now that Lumeca itself is not a big Sask Party donor group. Much of its shareholders today are staff, likely as part of their employment contract. It’s a bunch of twenty to thirty-something Silicon Valley-wannabes.
You may remember Lumeca from that one time the Sask Party seemed prepared for the global pandemic.
A mere two days after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sask Party government breathlessly announced they were taking it all very seriously, promise.
“With the growing concern around COVID-19, Saskatchewan is taking steps to enhance access to health care by providing support for physicians to offer virtual appointments to patients.” - Government of Saskatchewan news release, Friday March 13, 2020.
Two days prior to this news release both the province’s chief medical health officer and Scott Moe were adamant that the Junos were going ahead and so was was a spring election.
48 hours later neither the Junos nor a spring election were going ahead, but the concerned Sask Party had a cash flow plan for one of Scott Moe’s bruhs.
“…a new payment code for physicians, will enable patients to connect with physicians by telephone effective immediately. The Ministry of Health is also working to provide patients with the ability to connect with doctors by secure video, which may be available as early as next week with physician offices that offer that option.”
In hindsight, it almost reads like the sketchy language issued by a government taking advantage of a crisis on a Friday afternoon to bury the truth.
A few weeks after the virtual code was added, Lumeca welcomed 9,000 new cash cows patients to their product, which was a marked improvement over the few hundred it had prior to the pandemic.
According to Lumeca president and British Columbia resident Travis Arychuk, who today holds approximately 15% of the company, he and wunderkind Shawn Hazen met in 2015 and that’s when the magic happened.
“Although not involved directly in healthcare at the time, Travis’ prior history with the health industry stemmed from the air ambulance world. His passion for health and helping others came from becoming the first successful stem cell transplant patient in Canada, when he ran out of options during treatment for Leukemia at the age of 13. Beating the 10-20% odds, Travis is 100% cured today.”
I’m a woman and have given birth to two babies, so I guess in Travis’s eyes I’m a goddamn gynaecologist. Show me the money!
Travis Arychuk owns a private airline. That’s his connection to the “health industry”. His shares in Lumeca are held by a company registered in the… Northwest Territories.
As you do when you live in Kelowna and are starting a company in Saskatchewan.
I’ve bought documents from the NWT corporate registry on Arychuk’s company, but they don’t list its shareholders. I’m still waiting for a response from the NWT government on how to access that information.
In early 2019 Lumeca got startup capital from Conexus Credit Union.
By the end of October 2019, Monette Farms was Lumeca’s main shareholder and the Sask Party’s government propaganda machine was all over it, tossing out wild health care statistics without a shred of evidence or citations while positively gushing over the company.
At that time, the Lumeca app was still charging its users a $50 per month subscription fee that gave them 24/7 access to licensed doctors. Because Lumeca was charging users for the technology, not the doctor, I guess they were working within the bounds of the Canadian Health Care Act?
If so, they certainly weren’t working within its purpose and framework, despite the fact that previous Lumeca-hype boy in short pants, Tyson Liske, gushed at every chance he got that the company was all about helping people.
Giving off douchebag vibes for miles, in December 2019 Lumeca announced it was “doubling down” with the “recent acquisition of one of Saskatchewan's most successful tech startup development team (sp)…"
How does hiring people equal “doubling down” or an “acquisition”? I don’t know. Only self-aggrandizing capitalists know why they use that kind of nonsense language.
The news release raves about how Hazen is “excited to have the guys join us.. fit our culture perfectly… new buzz around the technology ecosystem” blah blah BLAH.
Two of the four acquired show ponies men are still listed as shareholders but not as staff.
In and around the same time as Lumeca was “doubling down”, somewhere in Wuhan, China a raccoon dog was fighting a bat in a lab… or something. Doesn’t matter, we all know what happened next.
Given what we know now about the Sask Party’s ham-fisted handling of COVID-19, it seems rather suspicious that the one thing they had remotely nailed down when the pandemic started was the one thing that benefited a profit healthcare company owned by Scooter’s friends.
For example, remember that time Sask Party Cabinet Minister Christine Tell’s son, co-founder and partner at sMedia, just coincidentally and conveniently got a discounted rate, supplemented by the Saskatchewan taxpayer, for office space at the GTH?
Saskatchewan’s conflict of interest commissioner Ron Barclay will go down in history as the guy who held the door open for Sask Party MLAs and Cabinet Ministers to commit, or be perceived as committing, some of the most corrupt acts in Saskatchewan government history.
So when Barclay cleared Christine Tell of any conflict in relation to her son’s six-figure windfall at the GTH, which came out of your pocket, it was no surprise.
Do you also remember that time Christine “Leave Colin Thatcher Alone” Tell had to answer for why a private, profit nursing home business owned by her late brother just coincidentally and conveniently received a bunch of new cash cows seniors, transferred into his business by the Sask Party government?
Conflict of Interest commissioner Ron Barclay said that was cool too. Nothing to see here.
Christine Tell’s brother owns 10% of Lumeca through his estate and a shareholder chain leading to a corporation owned in part by Lumeca’s own CFO, Justin Scott… who is also a director of Tell Ventures.
In April 2022, days before announcing a sketchy government contract that we’ll get to in a minute, Lumeca announced Tommy Douglass (I know, you think it can’t worse and then it does) Tell’s son’s former (?) business partner, as its CEO.
“From 2013 to 2018, Tom built and scaled the Saskatchewan tech company sMedia with his partners into a multimillion-dollar business,” reads the news release.
To recap, Christine Tell’s family owns 10% of Lumeca, which is ran by a CEO who is the former business partner of her son and a CFO who is also a director of at least one of her family’s businesses.
Christine Tell’s brother died last year. That sucks for him and his family.
It changes nothing about the corruption behind the fact Christine Tell’s nasty fingers are stuck in all these pies. This is beyond anything remotely acceptable for an elected official anywhere.
I’m not even going to start on the money her family made on land sales to the Sask Party government for the Regina Bypass.
However it’s not Christine Tell’s connection to Lumeca over which the chattering classes have been aflame, but its connection to Darryl Monette and Monette Farms.
The story of Darryl Monette and Monette Farms will have to wait for another day, but that farmland company’s bizarre relationship with Lumeca is highly relevant.
What kind of asshole Saskatchewan premier goes out and gladhands a corporate farm that’s destroying the rest of his voting base? The Sask Party knows it needs more than one landlord living in rural Saskatchewan - family farms even - to stay elected… right?
What does a recently-Small Potatoes rural Saskatchewan farmer-turned Farmland Monopolizer get up to when he’s not managing hundreds of millions (rumored billions) of dollars in massive Western Canadian agriculture-land acquisitions?
He runs a healthcare company in Saskatchewan, natch.
Is there anything Darryl can’t do?
Well, I can’t find any evidence that Darryl Monette or Monette farms have donated to the Sask Party.
I also can’t find evidence that Scott Moe and Christine Tell have received kickbacks.
I can find plenty of evidence that when it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not above board.
ISC documents show that Darryl Monette was already an investor when he joined Lumeca as a director in September 2019, at the same time as Travis Arychuk was upgraded to president.
In its annual return dated May 31, 2019, Lumeca had a much simpler shareholder structure involving only Travis, Shawn and Darryl, with Shawn well in control of the company.
That structure had changed significantly by the end of May 2020, two months into the global pandemic (coincidentally, I’m sure). Shawn was reduced to about 30% and Monette Farms upgraded to 40%, or majority owner of Lumeca. Darryl calls himself its CEO, but so does young Tom Douglass.
I’m sure it’s fine and there’s no internal struggle there at all.
Tell Ventures had not yet invested and Tyson Liske, who publicly hyped the shit out of Lumeca in 2019, was still listed as a shareholder. He’s not a shareholder or on staff anymore.
Tell Ventures appears to have invested at some point in the latter half of 2020, or pandemic Year One; it owns 10% of Lumeca, split with a guy named Randall Corwin and Justin Scott.
Unless I’m missing something, Lumeca and its shareholder’s donations to the Sask Party total under $5000. Lumeca donated $1200 in 2018 and $2600 in 2019, then stopped cold. A few of the directors and staff have donated some, but nothing compared to say, McKercher LLP, which also happens to be connected to Lumeca.
Remember, all roads lead to top donors.
Despite being handed everything on a silver platter, Lumeca’s B2C product that connected the customer patient to a Saskatchewan doctor was discontinued at the end of December 2021.
Why?
Nobody seems to know, including the Sask Party.
“The Ministry (of Health) and SHA are not in a position to speculate on the business decisions of a private business, specifically the considerations involved in the decision to discontinue services.”
“…not in a position to speculate”. That is hilarious.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the Ministry of Health under Paul Merriman is positively stacked with liars.
Everybody can just relax, though. Darryl Monette’s money Lumeca and virtual health care in Saskatchewan managed to pull another win, seemingly directly out of its ass.
“Lumeca Health Inc. (Lumeca) is pleased to announce that it has been contracted by the Government of Saskatchewan to provide clinical videoconferencing software to healthcare providers across the province (RFP # 0501).” - Lumeca news release, April 14, 2022
It’s totally normal and not suspicious at all that Lumeca included the RFP number in their news release. No. Just in case, you know, you were wondering if there was one.
I can’t find a RFP-0501 on SaskTenders website. It really doesn’t matter, cause that shitshow is no more above board than anything else this government performs.
The week prior to Lumeca’s announcement, on April 5, 2022, then-deputy minister of Health Max Hendricks made sure to reference a “competition” but claimed he didn’t know the value of the contract to provide “services”.
Like I said - liars. It’s not even believable that Hendricks or anyone in the Ministry of Health that was in that room that day didn’t know. They just chose not to tell the Leader of the Opposition that day, because why should they? They’re all corrupt and know their jobs - and reputations - are toast the minute the Sask Party loses government.
Lumeca, the tech-unicorn that doubled down on recruiting industry talent while having its dic tires pumped constantly by the Sask Party, didn’t even build the product it sold the Ministry of Health for $4.8-million.
Here’s a quote from the company that did, Bridgewater Labs:
“We needed to completely rewrite and add additional features to the platform within 3 months ready for market while also focusing on compliances like FOIP and PHIPA.”
3 months!
“Wow…” - Owen Wilson.
Sort of like the three months between when a profit health care corporation discontinued one contract it had with the Sask Party and announced it had totally fairly received another?
Because it would be really strange for the Sask Party government to award a contract to a company that didn’t even have the product yet it was proposing to serve YOU, the taxpayer.
Also, what the hell is the point of eHealth’s existence if we’re just going to subcontract healthcare-related technology to Scoot’s buddies?
Cause that’s what we paid Lumeca $4.8mil to do.
“The Saskatchewan Virtual Visit Platform (the “Platform”) is a video-conferencing solution intended to create a secure platform for use by any Clinical User…eHealth, acting as the information management service provider for the Platform, will be providing professional and technical expertise and has engaged the services of Lumeca Health Inc. (“Lumeca”), as the Platform author and service provider, to support the operation of the Platform and provide technical support to Patient and Clinical Users as it relates to the Platform.” - Saskatchewan Virtual Visit Platform - Access and Use Policy for Clinical Users
Apparently not building the Platform still makes Lumeca its author.
Bridgewater Labs claims to have an office in Regina but is not registered anywhere as a business in Saskatchewan with ISC.
The government document for doctors using this service continues:
“All intellectual property rights in and to the Platform, and all legally protectable elements, derivative works, modifications and enhancements thereto, are owned by Lumeca whether or not developed in conjunction with eHealth.”
Congratulations Saskatchewan! Not only do you get to subsidize WestJet, you get to subsidize the growth and development of a private company’s asset.
I’m going to stop here because I’m accused of writing too long. I know I’m missing pieces of this puzzle but this is enough for now. I just don’t know how to exclude critical details - the devil is always in the details. That’s why this research is so expensive and so time-consuming.
I cannot continue to do this work alone and am crowdfunding to expand OurSask and support hiring and other costs, particularly around purchasing documents for these posts. The amount of documents I had to buy for Lumeca were as unbelievable as for everything else.
If you are interested in supporting my work and/or seeing it broaden its reach to further inform Saskatchewan residents, who just aren’t getting the information they need anymore to make decisions about life in Saskatchewan, I welcome eTransferred donations at @tammyrobert0123@gmail.com.
Every dollar goes a long way, thank you so much. - Tam
Yes, I could go into greater detail explaining the connections of the shareholders and staff at Lumeca to Craig Lothian, Grant Kook and Greg Yuel, to name a few of the Sask Party’s main patrons, but plenty of you will make those connections yourself and the rest likely aren’t surprised they exist.
There are a million people in Saskatchewan. It is reasonable to expect that multiple investors will cross paths with multiple people connected to Sask Party MLAs. That makes it even far more important, not less, to keep those MLAs out of private business completely, nevermind private businesses funding those MLAs political careers and their personal interests.
I can’t even believe I had to type that out.
The perception and the reality are appalling and the outcome of this corruption, real or perceived, will impact this province for generations. It’s already degraded democracy in Saskatchewan to a point from where I don’t think it can ever fully recover.
Yet the Sask Party and its donors continue to delude themselves into believing that what they’re all doing is normal and perfectly fine and no one’s ever going to notice.
Deluding themselves into believing that they are personally responsible for their wealth, success and good fortune. They’re not. These people are wealthy and successful because there’s a Sask Party-shaped boulder on the scales in Saskatchewan. You’re either have access to the Clubhouse or you don’t.
These people are not good at anything except being born into the right families or having the right friends and the right time.
That’s it.
History will bear that out.
If you have more information you think I should know on literally anything related to any of this, please email me at tammyrobert0123@gmail.com, because I’ll be following up with y’all as I receive new info.
Have a good weekend,
PS: Have you checked out my new Substack?
It’s quite a bit more personal, therefore you have to request approval to subscribe, but so far there’s just been a couple of psychos I’ve had to decline so don’t let that dissuade you! If I don’t recognize the email address or your handle, I will reach out to you.
I have left Saskatchewan and am now living in the Caribbean.
Join me over there as I decide whether I can ever go back to the province I want to call home, but currently cannot. T.