Alberta Politics: UCP opposition to pharmacare deal encounters stiff headwinds from an unexpected quarter; Edmonton hospital gets put on the shelf

The United Conservative Party’s knee-jerk vow to opt out of the national pharmacare program agreed to by the Liberal and NDP caucuses in Parliament last week is encountering stiff headwinds from an unexpected point of the political compass.  Calgary Chamber of Commerce President Deborah Yedlin (Photo: Calgary Chamber of Commerce).

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Alberta Politics: Expect more chaos in health care, already overwhelmed and at the brink, as AHS ‘senior leaders’ get orders to cut costs 

With Alberta’s overwhelmed public health care system once again teetering at the brink, a memorandum from Alberta Health Services’ acting chief financial officer to its “senior leaders” telling them they must find ways to cut costs has surfaced. Michael Lam, Alberta Health Services acting chief financial officer and vice-president of

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Alberta Politics: Alberta Health Services ordered back to the future: A catastrophe in the making, or just ideological window dressing?

The premier who centralized the management of Alberta Health Services under a single administrator who answers only to her now says she wants to decentralize the province-wide public health agency “to enhance local decision-making authority”? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). What’s wrong with this picture?  According to Danielle

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Alberta Politics: Don’t worry about contradictions in health minister’s mandate letter – those promises aren’t meant to be kept

Never mind “less is more.” Sometimes more is less.  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Jake Wright/Manning Centre/Creative Commons). Consider Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s mandate letter to Health Minister Jason Copping.  Having boxed herself during her campaign to lead the United Conservative Party, Ms. Smith had no choice but to promise

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Alberta Politics: UCP explains away Jason Kenney’s lost $1.3-billion KXL gamble by lumping it into ‘historic’ infrastructure budget

If you’ve been wondering how the United Conservative Party Government would explain that $1.3 billion gifted for nothing to TC Energy Corp. as a result of Premier Jason Kenney’s foolish bet Donald Trump would win last November’s U.S. presidential election, you need wonder no more.  They’ve lumped it into the

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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: Would you like a nasal swab with your fries, sir? Health care comes to A&W, McDonald’s and Timmy’s in Jason Kenney’s Alberta

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney runs a government deeply committed to erasing the obvious connection between government and the services that are essential to the functioning of society. How else is he going to persuade Albertans to abandon public health care that works for the broken privatization model now destroying our

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Alberta Politics: Alberta Health gives way on docs’ billing for virtual services, but plunges ahead with controversial Babylon app

Bowing to pressure from the Alberta Medical Association and critics of the controversial Babylon “virtual care” app that’s created significant disruption to public health care in the United Kingdom, the United Conservative Party Government agreed yesterday to pay doctors already practicing medicine in Alberta the same rate for online and

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Alberta Politics: Arbitrator’s decision awarding 1% pay increase to some AUPE members undermines UCP austerity arguments

An independent labour arbitrator yesterday awarded unionized Alberta government employees and health care support workers a modest 1-per-cent pay increase for 2019. Having gone into wage-reopener negotiations in the final year of their current collective agreements seeking much higher pay increases ranging from 6.5 to 7.85 per cent, the Alberta

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Alberta Politics: Despite Opposition demands, Alberta NDP says no to risky conservative ideological experiments in its 2017 budget

PHOTOS: Finance Minister Joe Ceci. Below: Interim Progressive Conservative Ric McIver showing off his Three Stooges tie, the sale of which puts the gross in Gross National Product; Opposition Leader Brian Jean; and Alberta Liberal interim Leader David Swann. “Admit it, Alberta, after yesterday afternoon’s Budget Speech was read by

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Alberta Politics: Guest Post: Is the Wildrose Party seriously suggesting Alberta permit private blood brokers?

PHOTOS: Mr. Justice Horace Krever, who led the Canadian Royal Commission into Canada’s tainted blood scandal. Below: Guest poster Trevor Zimmerman (Ray Domeij photo), Wildrose Health Critic Drew Barnes, Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, and Kat Lanteigne, co-founder of BloodWatch.org. Guest post by Trevor Zimmerman Last spring, Wildrose Health Critic Drew Barnes stood up in […]

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