Province says new company will facilitate better integration of services, even though eVisitNB had already integrated with Tele-Care 811 at the government’s request
The Deputy Minister of the New Brunswick Department of Health (DOH) was in the hot seat on Tuesday, Feb. 10, repeatedly questioned about the cancellation of the eVisitNB contract while he appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts at the legislature. While he was facing a barrage of questions, his minister, Dr. John Dornan, was issuing a news release, doubling down on the government’s decision to choose a different virtual care provider.
“The selected vendor has strong Canadian roots, all patient records will be securely stored in Canada, and the company brings more than 28 years of experience serving New Brunswickers in both official languages, with 150 employees here in the province. Contract negotiations are now underway,” he said in the government release. “Our goal is clear: a seamless transition, with a new service in place by April 1, ensuring there is no interruption in care for patients.”
On Friday, Feb. 6, the River Valley Sun was first to report that the province would not renew its virtual care contract with New Brunswick-owned eVisitNB. The paper confirmed that Foundever Group, with global headquarters in Luxembourg and corporate offices in Miami, Florida, would take over the service from eVisitNB on April 1, following a Request for Proposals (RFP) that was issued by the DOH last October.
eVisitNB was created at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by Woodstock ER Dr. Hanif Chatur and Stanley-area family physician Jonanthan Clayton. It secured the government contract to provide virtual care services without an RFP in 2022. Last year, they were informed that the government would issue an RFP. The province analyzed 11 bids. eVisitNB was the only New Brunswick-owned company involved in the process, but lost the contract.
Deputy minister grilled by MLA
At the legislature, Beaulieu spent seven hours responding to MLA questions, with some of the most pointed queries about eVisitNB coming from Opposition Health Critic and Woodstock-Hartland MLA Bill Hogan.
When Hogan asked why the DOH did not negotiate directly with eVisitNB, Beaulieu said the department was looking to expand the services.
“We always want to extend it beyond,” said Beaulieu. “Greater integration with pharmacies, greater integration with primary care providers.”
He said the government wants to ensure that the information from virtual care appointments “is shared with the primary care provider to ensure a continuim of care.”
Beaulieu admitted that while the DOH had no issues or concerns about eVisitNB’s services, it “did see a need to continue advancing the process and integrating healthcare services.”
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Integration of services already begun with eVisitNB
The River Valley Sun has learned that the integration of health services had already begun with eVisitNB.
In an interview on Thursday, Feb. 12, Dr. Chatur said the province requested that eVisitNB work to integrate 811 Tele-Health services into its virtual care, in collaboration with Foundever Group, which has the contract for 811.
“The Department of Health tasked eVisitNB with developing a custom platform to integrate Foundever’s Tele-Care 811 call centre with our virtual care program,” he said. “Working closely with both the Foundever team and the DOH, we successfully launched this integration in July 2024, allowing 811 to seamlessly schedule callers for appointments with an eVisitNB nurse practitioner.”
Chatur said the integration of services facilitated more than 3,700 virtual care appointment referrals to eVisitNB from 811.
“Beyond the technical integration, eVisitNB was also asked to review 3,000 of Foundever’s Tele-Care 811 triage protocols to ensure patients are accurately directed to the most appropriate service: whether that be pharmacists, mental health resources, in-person care, or eVisitNB,” he explained.
Dr. Chatur said his company’s successful work with Foundever’s 811 call centre “clearly demonstrates that we possess the proven capacity to expand these integrations to Emergency Departments, NB Health Link, and Primary Care Clinics and MyHealthNB.”
He said their work to provide the integration the province asked for was why the government’s decision to issue an RFP both surprised and disappointed him.
“They selected a foreign-owned call centre vendor with no proven track record of delivering physician or nurse practitioner virtual care at scale in New Brunswick.”
Privacy concerns
Chatur is also worried about the service patients will receive after April 1 and expressed concern about client privacy.
On Foundever’s website, its Canadian Privacy Policy states that the information it collects may be processed “outside Canada.”
“Your personal information may be stored and processed at our corporate offices in the U.S. or with our parent, sibling or affiliated group companies worldwide, or with approved third parties within the U.S. or elsewhere. For information processed or stored outside Canada, foreign governments, courts or regulatory agencies may therefore be able to obtain such personal information through the laws of the foreign jurisdiction. By providing your personal information, you are expressly consenting to the transfer, international or domestic, of your information to the organizations mentioned above.”
When MLA Hogan asked about the safety of patient data during Tuesday’s legislative hearing, Deputy Minister Beaulieu told him that companies that work with the government must comply with its privacy laws governing the control, collection, use, and disclosure of personal information.
“The protection of privacy information is a priority,” he told the committee. Minister Dornan also noted in his news release that patient data would be kept in Canada.
Hogan tried to get Beaulieu to explain why the department wouldn’t have entered into negotiations with eVisitNB before an RFP was issued, especially given that a New Brunswick company had been providing the services for four years. Hogan didn’t get a direct answer.
“It would have made my life and the life of government much easier had the same proponent that is offering it today been the successful proponent providing the best service going forward,” he told the committee. “They were not selected because the proposal that we received from another proponent met the requirements stronger.”
Hogan tried to raise the issue of Foundever Group’s corporate headquarters being located in Miami, but he was called on a point of order, as the deputy minister was only there to discuss issues related to his 2024/25 report.
Green Party Leader David Coon wondered why the government isn’t simply adding virtual care to the department directly, rather than contracting out the services.
“If it’s so important to the province, why isn’t it being brought into the system through Horizon and Vitalité Health networks?” Coon asked Beaulieu.
“There is a certain level of expertise in providing virtual care, in terms of IT systems required, and how people access it,” explained the deputy minister. “I would venture to say that at this point, we have enough challenges in ensuring primary care providers in communities are on site so that people can access in-person visits, and diverting the attentions of the RHAs into a virtual system could be challenging. I am not saying it’s impossible, I am saying it could be challenging.”
Language issues
On the same day as the hearing, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick released its 2024/25 annual report. In it, Commissioner Shirley MacLean included issues with eVisitNB, something the government referenced in its original email confirming that eVisitNB’s contract for virtual care would not be renewed.
The Government of New Brunswick confirmed that the language issues reported in 2023 and investigated by Commissioner MacLean in 2024 were rectified by eVisitNB and the Maple platform.
Earlier this week, eVisitNB was notified of one complaint the commissioner’s office received in 2025. When the River Valley Sun reached out to the commissioner, a spokesperson said that this was the only complaint they had about eVisitNB last year.
“The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick has received one complaint regarding the platform eVisitNB since January 2025,” wrote Ashley Beaudin, Policy Analyst and Communications Officer with the office. “More specifically, the complaint was received on December 17, 2025. The Department of Health was advised of this complaint and of the commissioner’s intention to investigate the complaint in January 2026,” she added.
MLA Hogan says the situation still leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“The fact remains that eVisitNB is a homegrown solution that has been working to meet the needs of New Brunswickers,” he told the River Valley Sun. “We shouldn’t be looking elsewhere when there is no need to.”
