You’re invited! Join LifeSite in celebrating 25 years of pro-life and pro-family reporting at our anniversary Gala August 17th in Naples, Florida. Tickets and sponsorships can be purchased by clicking here.
EDMONTON, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) – Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) says new court records suggest former New Democratic Party (NDP) Premier Rachel Notley knew one of her MLAs had illegally hacked into the province’s vaccine record database last year.
Recently unsealed court records show that Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang, who has since been removed from the NDP, used someone else’s Alberta Healthcare number to search 1.78 million vaccine health records between September 19- 23, 2021.
Provincial Court Judge Shelagh Creagh recently released the records, which reveal Dang’s illegal health record search.
In June, Dang was charged under the province’s Health Information Act for conducting illegal searches of people’s private information from the Alberta Health Services (AHS) vaccine portal.
According to the UCP, “Dang told RCMP in a Jan. interview that he got a hit on the premier’s private information early in the morning on Sept. 23.”
“The investigator believes that 20 minutes later, Dang performed a manual confirmation using the same information. Approximately two hours after that, Dang performed what is thought to be a third confirmation. Eight minutes after that is when Notley’s staff informed the health minister’s office,” the UCP noted.
Dang faces fines of $200,000 if found guilty. Criminal charges against him have been dropped, however. Dang is set to appear before a court on July 27.
Police had started to investigate Dang’s illegal record searches in December.
The court records show, according to the UCP, that “Notley misled Albertans when she denied knowing that Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang hacked Alberta’s vaccine records system using information that was not his own.”
Notley had denied knowing anything about Dang’s illegal searches after reports first broke last year. She later admitted to knowing about “anecdotal reports,” in September 2021.
Dang claimed he hacked the AHS’s vaccine database to test its vulnerabilities. He claimed that he found a woman’s healthcare number in the process using the birthdate of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and then told NDP chief of staff Jeremy Nolais as well as party communications director Benjamin Alldritt about his findings.
However, after this, he was promoted to a party critic portfolio in October.
The UCP says that the unsealed court records show that “Dang reached out to [Notley’s communications director] and [Notley’s chief of staff] to inform them of the security issue,” after the first searches in September.
Chief Government Whip and UCP MLA Brad Rutherford said, “This is pretty much a smoking gun.”
“It is next to impossible to believe Notley’s senior staff knew about this sophisticated hacking scandal while she didn’t. These court records suggest Notley and her staff knew and misled the public. Notley must come clean with Albertans about exactly what she knew and when she knew it.”
Danielle Smith, who is running in the UCP leadership on a platform of freedom and who is against COVID jab mandates, has called out Notley directly on Twitter over the Dang scandal.
“More court docs are now alleging many in Notley’s inner circle knew about the hacking of health data. She needs to answer these hard questions. I won’t stop until she does!@RachelNotley: were you or others on your team involved,” Smith tweeted last Friday.
Notley served as Alberta’s premier from 2015 to 2019.
While in power, the Notley government targeted faith-based institutions, including publicly funded Catholic and Christian schools.
David Eggen, Notley’s education minister, demanded that faith-based schools purge religious content from their policies.
During the COVID crisis in Alberta, Notley suggested that the province should enact a door-to-door COVID vaccine campaign.
Notley has also been a vocal proponent of the COVID injections and lockdowns as a means to control the virus.