Arthur Porter, the charismatic former CEO of Detroit Medical Center, is at the center of a growing controversy in Canada, but his whereabouts have been unknown for more than a year.
The Quebec government revealed last month that McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, where Porter was the administrator until he mysteriously took off three months before his contract ended, was in serious debt and would need financial intervention, the Globe & Mail in Toronto reported.
The health network, which has a whopping $115 million deficit, also sued Porter for an unpaid low-interest loan of $317,000.
It’s believed that Porter, who also was Canada’s top spy watchdog for two years, may be living in the Bahamas or his home country of Sierra Leone.
His meteoric rise from a war-torn country to the center of Canada’s business and political establishment, is nothing short of spectacular.
During his leadership at DMC between 1999 and 2003, Porter was gutsy, decisive and charming. He cut more than a third of the staff and consolidated hospitals and clinics.
Still, DMC lost more than $250 million under Porter’s watch.
In 2003, despite DMC’s deteriorating financial condition, Porter and an associate were running a dozen private businesses, from a cancer clinic in the Bahamas to an auto-parts supply company, a Detroit Free Press investigation found.
Mike Duggan, a candidate for Detroit mayor and former Wayne County prosecutor, took over in 2004.
Is Arthur Porter, former CEO of DMC, on the run? Canadian health network says so added by Steve Neavling on
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Steve Neavling
Steve Neavling lives and works in Detroit as an investigative journalist. His stories have uncovered corruption, led to arrests and reforms and prompted FBI investigations.
