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The CEO of SaskBuilds, the Crown corporation tasked with overseeing major infrastructure projects in the province, said the decision to use the roof panels was “already made,” but noted concerns about the roof were raised with APP before it failed.

“My understanding is that was raised verbally with them, yes … Definitely it was raised that this should be looked at,” Kyle Toffan said, adding that the consortium was actively monitoring the insulation panels in the roof before the failure.

“It sounds like they were more concerned with how to communicate around the problem rather than avoiding (it),” Meili said. “All of that just adds up to such a series of stupid decisions that end up being very expensive.”

APP advised the provincial government that the roof needed replacing in May 2019 after a “product failure” caused a series of leaks to develop, beginning around the time of the hospital’s grand opening two months earlier.

Documents obtained by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix under freedom of information legislation show those panels were made by Mod Panel Solutions Inc., the same firm whose products in the facility’s walls failed while it was under construction in 2017.

The province acknowledged at the time that faulty insulation in the walls needed replacing. The documents describe the issue with shrinking insulation panels as necessitating “the replacement of the entire building envelope.”

A May 15, 2019 internal SaskBuilds email said “(The roof failure) is similar to the issue that occurred in the exterior walls,” and went on to note that the roof failure resulted in leaks at “approximately 50 locations throughout the facility.”