$3.99 for Choco Bites. $5.69 for Tetley tea bags. $1.59 for a can of pop and $1.39 for a muffin.

These small purchases, charged by a consultant from Alberta who earns $2,700 a day, are among the items at the heart of a spending scandal involving eHealth Ontario, the agency which is to implement electronic health records by 2015.

High consultants' bills are not unheard of in the private sector nor are six-figure bonuses such as the $114,000 received by eHealth CEO Sarah Kramer in March.

But when taxpayers are footing the bill, at a time of extreme job loss in Ontario, and when a public agency hands out nearly $5 million in untendered contracts, a political furor erupts.

Interim Progressive Conservative Leader Bob Runciman charged yesterday that the "buck stops" with Health Minister David Caplan and called for Kramer's firing. Kramer, hired on Nov. 3, 2008, earns $380,000. She is entitled to 15 months' compensation if dismissed without cause, according to her contract obtained through freedom of information by the Progressive Conservatives.

Caplan, who defends eHealth's progress since its inception in September 2008, announced Monday that PricewaterhouseCoopers will review the agency. The consulting firm conducted a review for eHealth earlier this year and found internal controls were "adequate.''

Caplan has asked provincial Auditor General Jim McCarter to expedite his review of eHealth.

The Liberals' actions are not good enough, said New Democrat MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt). All the facts are on the table, she said, yet McGuinty "prefers to launch another costly consultant review that is really more of a public relations exercise than anything else."

Consultant Donna Strating makes $2,700 a day at eHealth. She does not take the $50 per diem to which she is entitled, but charges for miscellaneous meals and snacks.

Fellow consultant Allaudin Merali, senior vice-president of corporate services at eHealth, pulls in $2,750 a day and collects $75 a day for expenses. He has flown home to Edmonton 31 times over five months at a cost of nearly $21,000.

"You won't find any cans of pop or Choco Bites in his expenses, they'd be covered in his per diem," said eHealth senior vice-president Diane Allen. Merali, who leaves eHealth this summer, discounted his May invoice by $1,000 to "ensure anything that he is not entitled to has been covered off," said Allen.

Merali and Strating have declined to speak to the Star. Allen said they are "working around the clock.''

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The freedom-of-information documents show yet another consultant, Chris Dingman, made $225 an hour, according to a statement of account for November 2008. Dingman billed for 48 hours for a total cost of $10,800. According to her time sheet, she billed two hours for "emails and scheduling."