A week ago, Canada’s premiers ended a meeting in Halifax agreeing that they shouldn’t poach health care workers from one another. Nova Scotia Conservative Premier Tim Houston (Photo: Screenshot of CPAC video). There’s a shortage all round, they seemed to be saying, let’s poach from poor countries instead of each
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Alberta Politics: Danielle Smith summons Ed Stelmach, Lyle Oberg from the Alberta political crypt to help sell the breakup of AHS
It was an interesting strategy for Premier Danielle Smith’s government to trot out former premier Ed Stelmach, the man most associated with the creation of Alberta Health Services back in 2009, to act as a validator at the announcement yesterday of her plan to smash the province-wide health care agency
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Lunatics’ really are running the asylum: UCP-TBA fusion starts to sink in with the Alberta commentariat
It was finally starting to sink in with Alberta commentariat yesterday in the aftermath of the United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting that the lunatics really are running the asylum, to borrow a colourful metaphor from former premier and UCP founder Jason Kenney. Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid (Photo:
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The mystery of Bill 5: Is it part of the UCP’s covert ‘Free Alberta’ agenda or just a bit of administrative housekeeping?
Members of Alberta’s labour relations community were scratching their heads Monday and yesterday about Bill 5, the Public Sector Employer Amendment Act, 2023, last on the list of the first five bills to be introduced by the United Conservative Party in the new session of the provincial Legislature that began
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s Legislature shudders back to life this afternoon – what will the UCP get up to next?
With the Alberta Legislature resuming sitting today with a Throne Speech, one has to wonder what the United Conservative Government of Premier Danielle Smith will get up to next? Government House Leader Joseph Schow (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). The headline on the government’s news release Friday about the inaugural session of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: International Energy Agency predicts fossil fuel use will peak by 2030 – whatever will Alberta have to say?
Maybe Alberta Premier Danielle Smith can send an open letter to Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, to accuse him of trying to frighten Alberta’s seniors. International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol says the transition to clean energy is unstoppable (Photo: World Economic Forum, yeah, that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post: Alberta has already killed the notorious Grassy Mountain coal mine, so why is it still alive?
It’s a true Alberta mystery. The notorious Grassy Mountain open-pit coal mine proposal on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta near the Crowsnest Pass keeps getting killed by the regulatory process – and somehow keeps being resurrected by its deep-pocketed Australian backers who seem to have
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Take Back Alberta’s David Parker: MAGA rabble rouser or establishment elitist?
David Parker, executive director of the Take Back Alberta faction of the United Conservative Party, was tweeting about Alberta Health Services’ new enhanced-masking directive first thing Thursday morning, the day the provincial health authority’s lame buck-passing response to a resurgence of COVID-19 in Alberta hospitals took effect. Take Back Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Local decision making comes to Alberta acute care facilities, potentially undermining patient and public safety
Alberta Health Services yesterday announced it will dump the responsibility for masking to slow the spread of COVID-19 in its acute care facilities on the leadership of its regional zones throughout Alberta and individual sites. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). In a memorandum on “enhanced masking at AHS
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Babylon, once the apple of the UCP’s eye, is fallen! A pre-Halloween tale from the Alberta health care crypt
Just in time for the run-up to Halloween, we learn that Babylon the Great is fallen. The fall of Babylon, as imagined in the 15th Century – the Babylon brand, so to speak (Image: Wikipedia). I speak, of course, of Babylon Health, creator of the Babylon app with which our
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conservative Danielle Smith vows to dismantle Alberta Health Services, Conservative Ed Stelmach’s greatest achievement
Today’s political weather forecast: Ill winds that blow no good will begin throughout Alberta on Wednesday. Mr. Stelmach’s health minister, Ron Liepert, in 2012 (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). After that, conditions will get worse. Wednesday is when Premier Danielle Smith has promised us her health minister will present a plan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Today is last day on job for AHS VP Deb Gordon, highest-ranking woman in the province-wide health agency
On Aug. 18, Alberta Health Services President and CEO Mauro Chies sent a memorandum to the province-wide public health care agency’s senior managers telling them that the highest ranking woman in their ranks would be leaving the organization today. AHS President and CEO Mauro Chies (Photo: Alberta Health Services). Deb
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thanks, Klein! Albertans are getting hammered as deregulated July electricity prices jump 128% over last year
Albertans are getting hammered this summer by high electricity prices – just one of the impacts of the chaotic wide-open Alberta electricity market that was Conservative premier Ralph Klein’s gift to the province at the turn of the century. Back in 2000, as readers with long memories may recall, we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With freeze on renewables and vow to ignore federal net-zero rules, Alberta’s on its way to being a three-alarm international dumpster fire!
Whether or not Premier Danielle Smith and her enabler and office manager Rob Anderson carefully planned their freeze on renewable electricity generation last week or just came up with it on a whim, it’s now turning into a three-alarm international dumpster fire. Deputy Premier Nathan Neudorf (Photo: Linked-In). On Wednesday
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why does the UCP want to create a ‘special prosecution unit’ for Alberta cities when the evidence suggests it’s not needed?
Does the United Conservative Party Government’s intention to create a “specialized prosecution unit to address deteriorating safety in Alberta’s major urban centres” indicate there’s problem with the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service? Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). If so, what is it? If not, why is the government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Forget that stuff about decentralizing health care, AHS directed to consolidate all mental health and addictions programs in one silo
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Dan Williams has issued a directive to Alberta Health Services giving the provincial agency 90 days to consolidate all of its mental health and addiction programs, services, and operations under a single administrative silo, the government announced yesterday. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith with Postmedia political
Continue readingAlberta Politics: RCMP to stay? CPP to go? Who knows? The Dance of the Thousand Mandate Letters continues
Danielle Smith’s Dance of the Thousand Mandate Letters continues. Now you see something; now you don’t. Then again maybe you just thought you saw something, and really saw nothing at all. It’s all very confusing. It’s intended to be. And it’s rather clever, giving the impression the government is doing
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why saying Alberta Health Services’ original mandate was only running acute care hospitals is dangerous and false
A dangerously misleading statement appeared in an op-ed story under Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s byline Thursday in the Calgary Herald. To wit, “that Alberta Health Services has evolved beyond its original acute-care hospital system mandate.” Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange (Photo: Facebook/Adriana LaGrange). Everyone makes mistakes and most politicians spin
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta medical clinic’s ‘membership’ billing scheme won’t hurt a bid by PM to attack Pierre Poilievre through Danielle Smith
There must have been a moment of pure delight in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa when the story broke about Dr. Sally Talbot-Jones’s plan to get her patients to pay thousands of dollars a year to become “members” of her Calgary medical practice. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calgary medical clinic tells patients they’ll need to pay up to $4,800 a year for timely access to physician
Since the Alberta government has the power to outlaw fees like those about to be charged by a Calgary medical clinic for patients to get timely access to their physician, it’ll have to exercise it if Premier Danielle Smith wants anyone to believe her election claim no Albertan would ever
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