EDMONTON—As Alberta braces for what some say is the coming storm of the coronavirus pandemic, its health minister is facing calls for his resignation amid allegations of threatening and inappropriate behaviour.

A wave of criticism slammed Health Minister Tyler Shandro on Friday, but he doubled down on his actions in a statement put out late in the afternoon, and didn’t apologize for the way he acted — because, said the minister, he had to “defend my wife.”

“As any husband would do, I responded passionately.”

At the centre of the controversy is a visit the minister paid to a doctor’s home last weekend during which Shandro is alleged to have berated the physician about a social media post he had made. Adding fuel to the fire is a separate matter — an email in which the minister threatened to involve government protective services in defence of his wife.

The story was first reported by CBC News, and, on Friday, Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley called on Shandro to resign.

“We are in the middle of the most pressing public health emergency, perhaps in history,” Notley told reporters.

“We need focused and steady leadership that is preoccupied solely with our response to the coronavirus pandemic and the health of Albertans,” said Notley. “Instead, the health minister is going to the home of private citizens at night and publicly threatening them.”

“He must resign.”

The health minister has been under fire recently for what some perceive as a conflict of interest due to the fact that he and his wife, Andrea Shandro, are part owners of a company called Vital Partners, which deals in health insurance.

While critics have called for an investigation, Shandro last week posted online a letter from Alberta’s ethics commissioner, Marguerite Trussler, informing the Speaker of the legislature that the minister’s shares of the company are held in a blind trust and that he’s compliant with conflict-of-interest laws.

The minister has also been embroiled in a fight with physicians over compensation, privatization of health care and contract issues — even as the coronavirus pandemic has taken hold of the province.

Last Saturday, that confrontation came to a boiling point at the front door of Calgary physician Dr. Mukarram Zaidi’s home, who told the Star that Shandro and his wife, who live in the same neighbourhood as Zaidi, came to his house and yelled at him for a post he had made to social media with a critical meme.

His children had been playing outside, Zaidi said, and came to tell him that the pair wanted to see him, so he went out to see Shandro and his wife.

“I stopped midway in my driveway and, maintaining social distance, and he was yelling and crying that people are giving them death threats, ‘You can’t do this, now people know where we live, we have to move now.’”

Zaidi said he agreed to remove the post in order to resolve the situation “in a civilized manner.”

“I turned, walked into my house, the last thing I heard was, ‘You can’t do this, Mukarram,’ and I just came inside the house, I deleted the post,” he said.

Zaidi says he wishes no ill-will toward the couple and that he’s forgiven them.

He and the minister have known each other for several years, Zaidi said. He emphasized that he wanted to “keep the matter private” and that media had begun contacting him, not the other way around.

Janice Fraser also had a run-in with the minister last week, albeit not physically.

Fraser told the Star she sent an email to the company, Vital Partners, via its website to outline some of her concerns about the perceived conflict of interest and was “extremely shocked” when she received a reply from Shandro himself last Friday, using his government email.

“Sending threatening emails to my wife is completely inappropriate and must stop,” reads Shandro’s email, which was provided to the Star.

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“If you want to believe lies about her on social media, that’s up to you. But you can send your threatening emails to this office and this office only.

“Email her again and it will be referred to protective services.”

Fraser’s original message has not been reviewed by the Star, as it was sent through the website. But according to Fraser, she said three things in her initial note to Vital Partners: that she believed there was a conflict of interest; that she’d held Shandro in high regard up until this year; and that “Albertans will not forget this.”

“There was no threat,” insisted Fraser, who added she’s worked for MLAs in office before and understands what a threat is, and that she’s done work for all political parties in Alberta except the UCP and the former Wildrose Party.

“I was very shocked and felt very afraid for my own personal safety,” she said of the minister’s reply.

In an email that then appears to have been accidentally sent to Fraser, Chad Hallman, a government staffer, asks Shandro who Fraser is and whether her email is “One of the emails Andrea sent this morning?”

“Minister, please don’t respond to these or send these emails personally — I will send these out if you would prefer on your behalf,” Hallman’s email says. “It’s a lot easier for me to fall on a sword than you.

“Be careful. They want to rile you up and entrap you into saying something impulsive.”

Fraser said she’s considering taking the matter a step further and going to the police.

“His behaviour shows ... he has no distance and he has no balance in response,” she said. “As a minister, to the people of Alberta, he has shown that he’s incompetent and incapable.”

Shandro didn’t resign, nor did he apologize for his actions; instead, he said he was sorry that “this episode has become a distraction” during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Of course the attacks on someone I love and the mother of my children upset me deeply,” he said.

“I am determined to continue tirelessly performing my role during this pandemic, and pledge to not get distracted by social media attacks during this extremely serious time.”

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