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Liberal MLA says new company underwent ‘rigorous’ RFP process
Published Feb 11, 2026 • Last updated 18 hours ago • 3 minute read
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Progressive Conservative health critic Bill Hogan is calling on the Holt government to end its negotiations with Foundever, a European-headquartered firm, and renew its existing virtual care contract with eVisitNB, a New Brunswick-based company. SCREENSHOTArticle content
Progressive Conservative MLA Bill Hogan is calling on the Holt Liberal government to end its negotiations with a European-headquartered firm set to take over virtual health-care services in New Brunswick.
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“We need to stop negotiating with Foundever and extend the contract with eVisitNB until we can achieve the goal that it was created for, which was to establish the collaborative care clinics,” the PC health critic told reporters during a break in a legislative committee meeting Tuesday.
Under questioning from MLAs, Deputy Health Minister Eric Beaulieu explained Tuesday that Foundever – a Luxembourg-headquartered company – met request-for-proposal requirements “stronger” than New Brunswick-based eVisitNB.
A request for proposal was issued by the province last fall for virtual care services, Beaulieu told the committee, after his department reviewed 500,000 eVisitNB visits.
The deputy minister didn’t elaborate on what the review revealed about the current service, but he spoke of service improvements, primarily better integration between virtual care services and the province’s primary care system, that the province wanted to achieve through a new contract.
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eVisitNB maintains that it showed the province its capacity to integrate with other health-care providers when it did so years ago with New Brunswick’s Tele-Care 811 service.
Hogan told reporters that Foundever runs Tele-Care 811 and that he isn’t sure that it’s a better service than eVisitNB.
Launched by two New Brunswick doctors, eVisitNB has been providing publicly funded virtual health care since January 2022 after it inked a deal with the former Higgs PC government.
eVisitNB’s current contract with the province is set to expire on April 1.
Unlike that sole-sourced contract, Liberal MLA Jacques LeBlanc said the new company underwent a “rigorous” RFP process, “so the bid is transparent and the process is accountable.”
When asked what message it would send to companies if the province backed out following an RFP process, Hogan said, “I’m a big believer that we should put New Brunswick first.
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“We have a New Brunswick-based company. This was developed and created in New Brunswick with 100 per cent New Brunswick investment,” he said.
“That should count for something.”
Details of the new deal have yet to be released as negotiations are underway with Foundever.
“I want to reassure New Brunswickers that we are not ending virtual primary care,” LeBlanc told reporters.
“It’s going to be a better and improved integrated approach for all New Brunswickers.”
Green party Leader David Coon questioned Beaulieu why Horizon and Vitalité health networks couldn’t take over providing virtual care services.
“If you want to integrate those two things more closely, then you bring the virtual health-care services into the public health-care system, not farm it out to a private company, and worse, farm it out to a private company that’s not even inside New Brunswick that doesn’t know how our system works,” Coon later told reporters.
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Beaulieu told the committee there’s a “certain level of expertise” required to operate a virtual platform, and given the existing primary care challenges, “diverting the attention of the (regional health authorities) into a virtual system could be challenging.”
Premier’s office was notified of request for proposal
After public outcry about the government’s decision over the weekend, Premier Susan Holt posted on social media Sunday that she’s “still looking at this one and asking questions.”
The premier’s office was notified that an RFP was being issued at the time, Beaulieu told the public accounts committee Tuesday.
“The premier herself has questions about the RFP,” Hogan said. “Surely she should have the answers and shouldn’t have to say on my Facebook page to a constituent that, ‘I have questions about the RFP.’ I think that speaks for itself.”
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When asked why the premier would be online indicating that she had questions once her government had already made a decision, LeBlanc told reporters that “Facebook is Facebook,” reiterating that the RFP process was “open and transparent” based on what he heard from the deputy health minister.
In social media exchanges with constituents over the weekend, Holt indicated that 11 companies responded to the RFP process.
“They were evaluated, compared and shortlisted,” she said. “U.S.-headquartered companies were weeded out.”
While Foundever is headquartered in Luxembourg, Holt said that it has “offices all over,” and that “the bottom line is who is doing the work, who is benefitting from this taxpayer investment, who accesses the data, and more.”
“We are looking at creative options to find a win-win here as the team at eVisit has worked hard and served NB for 5+ years,” she added.
– With files from John Chilibeck
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