Tyler Shandro

In March 2020, Shandro was implicated in a scandal after CBC news made it public that Shandro's wife was head of an insurance company that profited off of changes to provincial physician reimbursement that led to physicians having to fire staff and shutter practices. Shandro later publicly attacked a physician who shared a meme critical of the apparent conflict of interest on social media, screaming at and berating the physician that his wife was receiving threats as a result. Incidents were also revealed related to Shandro directly contacting his constituents to harass and bully them in reply to messages sent to his wife's company, detailing a clear conflict of interest. Both Shandro and his wife were witnessed screaming, crying and bullying a neighbour. The same article reveals that Shandro harassed a constituent and called her a madwoman when she complained regarding the apparent conflict of interest, in that a company both he and his wife are deeply involved in are benefiting from legislative changes that he pushed through, Shandro then threatened to send provincial security services after the woman.[7]

Minister Shandro was also accused of illegally obtaining the personal phone numbers of two physicians from Alberta Health Services, and contacting them. Sharon Polsky, president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, said: "That's tantamount to obtaining a personal home address and knocking on the door and saying 'Hi, I'm your boss the minister, I'd like to have a chat with you.'"[8]