EDMONTON — Bargaining is ongoing at a number of AgeCare continuing care facilities in Alberta, where staff have not had a contract since 2022. The union representing these workers, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, has issued a formal complaint over bargaining delays, and has reported the employer has offered meager wage increases of just 1% over four years. They also report that there exist “significant disparities” in benefit levels between AgeCare, a for-profit continuing care operator, and Alberta’s publicly-operated Alberta Health Services (AHS) and Carewest.

EDMONTON — Private, for-profit plasma collector Grifols has announced they are temporarily pausing blood plasma collection at all of its donation centres across Canada, including collection sites here in Alberta. This news came after months of public scrutiny on the company’s operations following the deaths of two individuals who sold their plasma at a Grifols site in Winnipeg.

EDMONTON — This Wednesday, as Canada’s Premiers were meeting in Charlottetown for the Council of Federation, the Alberta government quietly issued Orders in Council which reclassified all preventive health testing services as non-insured extended health services, as well as other regulatory changes. 

Friends of Medicare is a signatory to the following joint statement from the Canadian Medical Association:

As health advocates and clinicians on the frontlines, we know what is needed to improve health care access and build a stronger country and workforce. That’s why our organizations are calling on Canada’s premiers gathered in Charlottetown to invest in solutions that create a healthier Canada.

CHARLOTTETOWN — Public health care advocates rallying outside the premiers’ Council of the Federation meeting are demanding Canada’s premiers stop the spread of American-style, two-tier health care before it takes root nationwide.

OTTAWA — Friends of Medicare’s executive director, Chris Gallaway, was on Parliament Hill in Ottawa this morning, joining the Canadian Health Coalition, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and Goldblatt Partners LLC lawyer, Emma Phillips, for a press conference to release a brand new legal opinion on the recent Bill 11 regulations released by the Alberta government. 

EDMONTON — With the recent passing of Bill 29 in the spring session permitting private-pay diagnostic services without referral, TELUS Health hasn’t wasted any time capitalizing on their chance to charge Albertans directly out-of-pocket for diagnostic testing. A promotional email sent on June 15 advertises “Total Body MRIs Starting at $2995,” available at their TELUS Health SKY Clinic in Calgary. This is just one of many products on offer at TELUS Health Care Centres in Alberta.

EDMONTON — Earlier this month, Albertans learned that the provincial government would be transferring more than 400 Public Health Inspectors, Researchers, Health Promotion Facilitators and support staff out of Alberta Health Services, where they operate at arms length, into direct government employment. Inspectors and their colleagues are responsible for ensuring that spaces like child-care centres, rental housing, and continuing-care facilities are safe from infection and disease.

EDMONTON — This morning, Minister Adriana LaGrange announced regulations to Bill 11: Health Statutes Amendment Act 2025 (No.2), passed last December. This sweeping, 300-page legislation established an unprecedented model of two-tiered health care access in Alberta by allowing physicians to work in both the public and private systems concurrently, including charging patients out of pocket. No where else in Canada allows this model of “Dual Practice,” and legal opinion already indicates that Bill 11 is in violation of the Canada Health Act.