Last week in pursuit of her “parental rights” agenda, Premier Smith announced a set of policies that limited medical treatment for transgender youth and did a whole lot more. I tried to imagine what it would be like to explain these policies to someone not living in cloud cuckoo land.
Continue readingTag: Alberta Health Care
Susan on the Soapbox: Squid Game
The UCP’s “bread and circuses”* approach to government is no longer working. The “bread” (low taxes and high employment) is no compensation for our crumbling healthcare, education, and social services. The “circus” of blaming the federal government for everything is wearing thin. And to make matters worse, the folks at
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Guest Blog: An Open Letter from WCPH
I know I said we were taking a break during the month of December but last week I received a copy of a letter written by Lloyd and Linda Lovett on behalf of the Whitemud Citizens for Public Healthcare that eloquently expressed the concerns that many of us have with
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Here We Go Again: Restructuring AHS
According to Danielle Smith, AHS isn’t “truly accountable” and it’s been a “management problem” for quite some time. So she’s going to blow it up. This week some brave soul leaked a 36-page slide deck asking cabinet to approve a “package of reforms to refocus the health care system to
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Danielle Smith Addresses the UCP/TBA AGM
I watched Danielle Smith’s speech to her supporters at the UCP AGM and all I could think of was Salvador Dali’s painting of the clocks. Time was melting, the landscape was warped. Going backwards Smith told the crowd that in the next Legislative session the Smith government will
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The $334 Billion Assumption or Why Smith’s APP is a Non-Starter
Well that inspires confidence. When LifeWorks respectfully submitted its report to the Smith government outlining how Alberta could move from CPP to an Alberta Pension Plan, the executive summary was signed by someone who preferred to remain anonymous, hence their signature was “Redacted to protect privacy.” Perhaps Anonymous was
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Political Leadership in Crisis
“We’d like to know why we have not heard from you. Surely the suffering of our children merits more communication than a single tweet.” – Open letter to Danielle Smith from the parents and supporters of children infected in the E. Coli public health crisis The only thing worse
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Politicization of the Beast
Welcome to “Life in a Conservative Province” also known as “they say the wackiest things.” “They” being conservative premiers who say idiotic things when asked: how do you reconcile your government’s policies with the impact of climate change on the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires? Before we get into
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A Word of Advice…
We’re still trying to make sense of this election. There’s no question Rachel Notley’s NDP made phenomenal gains against the UCP. They pulled in 776,000 votes (157,000 more than they received in 2019) and gained 39 seats (15 more than they had in 2019), but it still wasn’t
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Thoughts on Danielle Smith’s Latest Comment
When is a person old enough to know better? I ask because Danielle Smith was 50 when she said 75% of the public who took the covid vaccine would support a tyrant like Hitler. She also said she wasn’t wearing a poppy because the politicians “ruined it for me this
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Gondek, Notley and Smith: An important conversation
Last week Calgary Economic Development presented its Report to the Community. The highlight of the event was Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s conversations with Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith. Gondek asked each leader 4 pre-set questions and 2 questions from the audience. She talked with Notley first and Smith second. It was
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A Simple Question (well, three simple questions)
Something is happening with Alberta’s anesthesiologists and it’s not clear what. Last week, David Shepherd, NDP health critic, asked Jason Copping, the UCP health minister three simple questions: will surgeries in AHS publicly funded hospitals be postponed because AHS is redeploying anesthesiologists to for-profit chartered surgical facilities (CSF)? has
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Budget ’23: The Same Old Razzle Dazzle (with sprinkles on top)*
I’m not sure what Trevor Tombe did that caused Danielle Smith to say he was becoming one of her favourite economists, but it certainly wasn’t this. In a recent article about Budget 2023 Tombe said the budget moved Alberta into a “new fiscal reality where we are more reliant on
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: When the UCP Government Ran Amok
“There is no room for the unilateral assumption of authority in a constitutional democracy.” – Nigel Bankes, U of C emeritus professor of law, on the government’s decision to rescind masking in schools. Last week an Alberta court ruled that the Chief Medical Officer of Health’s Order rescinding masking in
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Danielle Smith: Alberta’s Very Own Liz Truss
In less time than it took Liz Truss to crash and burn, Danielle Smith transformed the United Conservative Party into the Libertarian Populist Party. And that’s why they’ll lose in the next election. Smith has been the LPP’s leader for just over two weeks. In that time she’s demonstrated that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bizarre UCP plan would see Alberta patients and their Alberta docs shipped to B.C. for surgeries, then shipped back
What the hell was the Kenney Government up to last fall when it had the brainstorm to compel Alberta Health Services to ship patients and their surgeons to an apparently under-used surgical facility in British Columbia’s Okanagan? The site of the Okanagan Health Surgical Centre in Kelowna (Photo: Screenshot of
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Jason Kenney’s “Breaking Bad” Press Release
Last week, the feds granted BC a 3-year exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act decriminalizing the possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs for personal use. Judging by Jason Kenney’s response, you’d think Breaking Bad had set up shop next door. Leaving aside Kenney’s hypocritical
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney’s Insulin Pump Debacle
On May 2, the Kenney government announced it would avail diabetic Albertans of newer, more technologically advanced insulin pumps. Then 10 days later it announced it was “pausing” this decision to allow for more consultation. The decision and its reversal happened so quickly it was like a snippet of time-lapse
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Dr Yiu is fired, Jason Kenney is “Under Review”
Two people were fired this week. Dr Yiu was fired without cause on Apr 4. Jason Kenney is being ‘fired’ in slow motion, his dismissal will be confirmed on May 18, 2022 when the mail-in ballots are counted, or a year later on May 29, 2023 when the results of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: After six years of exemplary service as Alberta Health Services CEO, Kenney Government sacks Verna Yiu
Verna Yiu led Alberta Health Services through the darkest hours of the pandemic with grace and a steady hand. The 20-year-plus veteran of public health care administration is the kind of leader whose name invariably appears in print in close proximity to the word “respected.” So why wouldn’t the Kenney
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