In 2007, he founded Pure North S'Energy Foundation, a non-profit charitable foundation that provides and promotes preventative health treatments, such as vitamins and minerals, lifestyle counselling and, in some cases, treatments to remove heavy metals from participants' blood. Pure North was started as a health program for CNRL employees, although CNRL eventually withdrew the health program from its employee benefits plan. In 2013, the Pure North S'Energy Foundation was given a $10 million grant from the Province of Alberta to defray the costs of providing free health prevention and management services to seniors. The Albertan health minister at the time, Fred Horne, approved the funding against the advice of officials from several ministries who had determined program was not adequately supported by scientific evidence, could not prove the health and economic benefits it claimed, and could cause adverse health effects in participants. In a 2017 CBC investigation, many irregularities with the funding were identified including lack of details in the project plan, change in the scope of the project to not require an independent approval from a research ethics board, the speed and method that payment was provided, and lack of concern over provincial liability with the project. Alberta Health reviewed this grant and concluded there was no convincing data to support the cost-saving claims the program was making. In April 2016, University of Calgary economist J.C. Herbert Emery calculated that for every dollar invested in the Pure North program, there was a savings of $2.36 to the health care system in reduced hospitalization and ambulatory care, in addition to improved productivity.http://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pure-north-preventative-care-emery.pdf
