Alberta Politics: Once more unto the breach, public sector lab workers save medical test system from collapse in Calgary after privatization fiasco

With its latest medical lab privatization scheme in a shambles, Premier Danielle Smith’s market-fundamentalist government has turned to the public sector in a desperate bid to keep the system from collapsing in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Or, to put it more colourfully, as

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Alberta Politics: Danielle Smith takes UCP leadership campaign down a dark, Trumpian road with her conspiracy theory about AHS

The United Conservative Party leadership campaign took a dark Trumpian turn Monday when candidate Danielle Smith got a big cheer from her supporters at a rally in Airdrie for accusing Alberta Health Services of deliberately sabotaging the Kenney Government during the pandemic by falsely claiming the system was near collapse

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Alberta Politics: Premier Jason Kenney, in isolation, blows off criticism of the lackadaisical UCP approach to COVID-19 restrictions as ‘political pressure’

It’s not very reassuring to learn Alberta Premier Jason Kenney treats calls for stricter measures to control resurgent COVID-19 infections as “political pressure.” But yesterday, after Alberta on Wednesday surpassed 400 new cases in a single day for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Mr. Kenney did just

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Alberta Politics: Thanks to a public-spirited leaker, a risky health-care privatization scheme is exposed

Panicky sounding United Conservative Party “issues managers” were frantically insisting yesterday everything is copacetic and above board with secret plans to build a $200-million private orthopedic surgical hospital in Edmonton. No way will this result in two-tier health care, they contended, often shrilly calling anyone who suggested otherwise a liar,

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Alberta Politics: Regardless of Tyler Shandro’s promises, private clinics won’t shorten surgical wait times — they’ll make them longer

Using private medical clinics to remedy long wait times for surgeries in Alberta’s public health care system, as the United Conservative Party Government says it expects to do, is about as likely to work as treating iron-poor blood by attaching blood-sucking leeches to patients’ arms and legs. That is to

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Alberta Politics: Stephen Mandel, past his best-before date but still politically sexy to media, declares Alberta Party leadership bid

PHOTOS: Stephen Mandel makes his Alberta Party leadership campaign announcement yesterday in Edmonton (Photo: Twitter). Below: Mr. Mandel back in the day with premier Jim Prentice, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, former Alberta Party leader Greg Clark, and United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney. Stephen Mandel’s political strategists would like you

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Alberta Politics: Lack of information and weak enforcement let private health care clinics fudge public-private health-care line

PHOTO: Parkland Institute researcher Dr. Rebecca Graff-McRae. Below: The cover of the Parkland Institute Report, Blurred Lines, Private Membership Clinics and Public Health Care. It doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that so-called “private membership health care clinics” in Alberta have been fudging the line between public and private health

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Alberta Politics: Notley Government channels Lougheed to protect Alberta jobs and services, dumps medical lab privatization ‘experiment’

PHOTOS: Medical lab techs examine a specimen, perhaps appearing not exactly as illustrated nowadays. Below: Alberta NDP Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, former PC health minister Stephen Mandel, Alberta Health Services CEO Vickie Kaminski and long-ago Conservative premier Peter Lougheed. In a bombshell move reminiscent of Peter Lougheed’s 1974 takeover of

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