Arthur Thomas Porter IV (June 11, 1956 – June 30, 2015) was a Canadian physician and hospital administrator.
In February 2004, Porter was appointed to replace Hugh Scott as the Director General and CEO of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, one of Canada's largest academic health centres. He left that position in December 2011.
Porter also served as chair of the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee, which reviewed the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's spy agency. He was appointed to that committee by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on September 3, 2008, and along with that appointment, was made a privy councillor.
On May 27, 2013, Porter was arrested in Panama on fraud charges, which alleged that he took part in a $22.5 million kick-back scheme related to the construction of McGill University Health Centre's new $1.3 billion hospital. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called it the biggest fraud investigation in Canadian history. Porter denied any wrongdoing.
Porter composed his memoirs, The Man Behind the Bow Tie: Arthur Porter on Business, Politics and Intrigue, with writer and biographer T. R. Todd, and the book was released on September 12, 2014.
Porter died just before midnight on June 30, 2015, at a cancer hospital in Panama. His death was announced on July 1, 2015.
Early life and education
Porter was born in Sierra Leone. He held both Canadian and American citizenship. He was married to Pamela Mattock Porter and had four children. His mother was Danish. His father, Arthur Porter III, spearheaded the expansion of the University of Nairobi in Kenya during the years when Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta was in power.
Porter received his early education in Sierra Leone and Kenya. After attending the University of Sierra Leone, he studied in England at the University of Cambridge, including its School of Clinical Medicine. Porter earned his M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee and certificates in medical management from Harvard University and the University of Toronto.Universal Healthcare Management Systems website He also studied at Western University in London, Ontario. He was bestowed a Fellowship and Diplomate status in Healthcare Administration from the American Academy of Medical Administrators.
Initial career
Following his training in medical and radiation oncology, Porter assumed several senior positions in Canada, including that of senior specialist at the University of Alberta, Chief of Radiation Oncology at the London Regional Cancer Centre (University of Western Ontario), and Chairman of Oncology at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario.
In 1991, he was appointed Radiation Oncologist-in-chief, professor and chairman of the Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University. During the subsequent five years, Porter accepted several other concurrent positions, including Director of Clinical Care at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and associate dean at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
He also founded a cancer clinic in Nassau, in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, known as the Cancer Centre.The Cancer Centre
In 1999, Porter was named CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, a US$1.6 billion (~$ in ) health system, which is one of the United States' largest urban health systems and the biggest non-government employer in Detroit. He resigned from this position in 2003.
In 2001, Porter was appointed to the presidential commission charged with reviewing the health care provided by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration.
In August 2002, Michigan Governor John Engler appointed Porter to a four-year term as chairman of Michigan's Hospital Commission.
McGill University Health Centre
In February 2004, Porter was appointed as the Director General and CEO of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, despite warnings given to McGill University's recruiters in 2003 by the former dean of Wayne State University School of Medicine, John Crissman, as well as articles in the Detroit Free Press revealing his involvement in multiple side businesses. The McGill University Health Centre is one of Canada's largest academic health centres and was engaged in a multibillion-dollar redevelopment project at the time.
On February 12, 2008, Porter, as Director General and CEO of the McGill University Health Centre, announced the launch of the Institute for Strategic Analysis and Innovation website.
Porter completed his second term in December 2011, having handed the academic health centre the largest grant to a single institution from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (nearly $100 million). This was matched by the Quebec government and supported by donors to bring research funding up to $250 million.
Other professional activities
Porter was once president of the American Brachytherapy Society,- American Brachytherapy Society-28th Annual Meeting Program 2007-05-01 (accessdate = 2014-03-02) the American College of Oncology Administrators, the American Cancer Society (Great Lakes); and the American College of Radiation Oncology. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of Chancellors of the American College of Radiation Oncology and on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute (USA).
Between 2006 and 2008, Porter served on the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which oversees government funding for health-related research in Canada. Related to Porter in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research were Michael Fortier, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and Tony Clement, the Minister of Health.
In 2008, Porter became a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada when Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed him to Canada's Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC). After Porter resigned as chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee in November 2011, he was subsequently succeeded as chair of the committee by Chuck Strahl.
In 2011, Porter obtained a St Kitts and Nevis diplomatic passport delivered by the prime minister, Denzil Douglas. Porter was in charge of developing cancer treatment facilities on the island.
Controversy and allegations
After the National Post published revelations about his business dealings with international lobbyists and close ties to the president of Sierra Leone, Porter resigned as chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee in November 2011, three months before the end of his contract.
Porter's questionable business dealings and foreign connections included his relationship with Ari Ben-Menashe, a Montreal-based businessman and an ex-Israeli international lobbyist and arms dealer, who was arrested and charged in the United States for illegally attempting to sell military transport airplanes to Iran.
Among the suspicious activities reported by the National Post were revelations that Porter had received $22.5 million in consulting fees from SNC-Lavalin prior to awarding the firm a $1.3 billion contract related to the construction of the McGill University Health Centre. These dealings were found to be in violation of the Quebec Health Act, and along with the emergence of other questionable business activities, led to calls for his resignation. The hospital's board of directors initially came out in support of Porter, but he voluntarily resigned on December 5, 2011 in light of mounting media and public pressure.
In November 2012, McGill University filed a lawsuit seeking repayment of $317,154 (~$ in ) which he owed the university. The lawsuit indicated that Porter responded to a letter of October 2012 (demanding payment of the outstanding amount within one week) only with a three-line email, and that they had not heard from him since then. Following the controversy over the unpaid loans, McGill University described Porter as "of unknown address", with McGill's suit indicating that he gave his current addresses as post office boxes in the Bahamas and in Sierra Leone.
Further investigation of the case by the Charbonneau Commission on corruption in the Quebec construction industry resulted in allegations of involvement with SNC Lavilin and health centre employees in fraud and forgery. The investigators then issued a warrant for Porter's arrest on February 27, 2013 on charges of fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, taking secret commissions, and money laundering. Porter had by that point left Canada, and was apprehended by INTERPOL agents with his wife in Panama, where he remained imprisoned awaiting extradition to Canada.
The National Post reported in November 2012 that Porter was receiving treatment for a "self-diagnosed" cancer in the cancer centre that he had established in the Bahamas and of which he was the managing director.Brian Hutchinson, "Uncovering the busy new life of Canada’s controversial former spy watchdog", National Post, 12/11/24. It also gave a link to a story in the Turks and Caicos Magazine, which refers to his establishing cancer centres both in the Turks and Caicos and Bahamas in conjunction with his long-time friend and business partner Karol Sikora, who is Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre,http://www.tcimagazine.com/index.php/island-faces/item/98-goodguys > in addition to their mutual cancer-business interests in the British Isles.
Criminal charges and arrest
On 27 February 2013, an arrest warrant was issued in relation to the McGill University Health Centre scandal.
Porter and his wife, Pamela Mattock Porter, were detained by Interpol agents in Panama on May 27, 2013, after an investigation by the Sûreté du Québec, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). He faced charges in Canada of fraud, conspiracy to commit government fraud, abuse of trust, secret commissions and laundering the proceeds of a crime. Porter's wife faced charges of laundering the proceeds of a crime and for conspiracy.
The fraud against the Québec government related to his alleged role in the awarding of the $1.3-billion Montreal hospital construction and maintenance contract to SNC Lavalin. The contract was awarded to SNC-Lavalin, the engineering giant deeply involved in the Québec corruption scandal.
At the time of the alleged fraud, from 2008 to 2011, Porter was the CEO of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, being in charge of one of Canada's largest health-care providers. He was appointed to that position in 2004. He was also a member of Air Canada's board of directors.
Extradition proceedings
Porter and his wife (Mattock) opposed extradition from Panama to Canada. Porter was claiming diplomatic immunity on the basis that he was travelling via Panama on a diplomatic mission to Antigua and Barbuda, on behalf of the government of Sierra Leone, according to his lawyer Ricardo Bilonick Paredes (formerly known as Ricardo Bilonick), a convicted drug smuggler with ties to Panama's former dictator, Manuel Noriega and Colombian cartels. However, the Sierra Leone government said that he was a goodwill ambassador and thus had no diplomatic immunity. On June 4, 2015, while Porter was still in La Joya jail fighting extradition to Canada, he set up a company, BQ Holding with the help of his lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick Paredes, who was listed as president. Bilonick Paredes passed millions of dollars in bribes to deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in the 1980s in exchange for the ability to fly planes packed with tons of cocaine from Panama to the United States. Bilonick netted $47 million for providing drug smuggling and money laundering services over a four-year period.