This afternoon, the Premier announced that she has fired the Alberta Health Services (AHS) board and will be replacing them with a full-time administrator tasked with making further reforms.

EDMONTON -- As per their mandate, Alberta Health Services is “subject to the direction of, and the resources provided by, the Minister of Health.” Yet, blaming AHS has long served as a convenient means of deflection for the government. 

The mandate letters from Premier Smith to the Ministers of Health, Mental Health and Addiction, and Seniors, Community and Social Services have been released to the public.

EDMONTON -- The mandate letter to the Minister of Health prioritizes ideological pet projects like the Premier’s promised health spending accounts, and posits restructuring at Alberta Health Services as the solution to our health care challenges. Not addressed are the most urgent issues facing our public health care system: the drastic rise in respiratory illnesses, and the ongoing staffing crisis.

Red Deer Emergency Room wait time of 18 hours is the latest of many crises facing our health care system

Tomorrow the UCP will elect a new leader, and thus a new Premier for Alberta. This is happening at a time when our public health care system is facing a series of overlapping crises, and doctors, health care workers and Albertans have been increasingly vocal on the urgent need for immediate action.

OTTAWA (the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin people) - Canada’s provincial and territorial Health Coalitions and the Canadian Health Coalition call for the resignation of the leadership of the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) including the CEO and Board of Directors. This call comes after the appalling decision by CBS to sign a 15-year agreement with a for-profit international pharmaceutical firm to collect plasma.

Today, Jason Kenney and Health Minister Jason Copping announced that they were expanding private chartered surgeries in Alberta, and that Alberta Health Services has released two Request for Proposals (RFP) for contractors to open two private surgical facilities in the province. 

When negotiations are concluded, Alberta Health Services will go from contracting out 40% of retail food services in Calgary and Edmonton to 100%.

Friends of Medicare's statement on today’s decision from the British Columbia Court of Appeal

This morning, the British Columbia Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed Dr. Brian Day’s appeal of the lower court’s ruling on the Cambie Case, re-affirming that provincial laws which limit a two-tier health care system do not contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Whether it’s drug poisonings, heat waves, EMS Red Alerts or COVID-19 – the UCP government have consistently obstructed the collecting and sharing of good data in decision making

EDMONTON — The recent article by independent investigative journalist Charles Rusnell, “The Opioid Toll, by Neighbourhood, that Alberta Tried to Hide,” paints a damning picture of how the UCP government operates. The article shows that rather than formulate their response to the ongoing drug poisoning crisis with good evidence, the provincial government hid important information from the public that contradicted its ideological approach. The government has since refused calls from harm reduction groups to release recovery and treatment program data. 

VICTORIA (the traditional and unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples) - Canada’s premiers are meeting for the Council of the Federation today and tomorrow (July 11-12, 2022). A major feature of this meeting will be the call by provincial and territorial governments to increase federal funding for health care through the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) from 22% to 35%. 

This July 1 marks 60 years since Saskatchewan implemented universal Medicare for all, and 56 years since coverage was expanded to all of Canada.

On July 1, 1962, Saskatchewan became the first province in Canada to implement public Medicare for all, building the framework to ultimately expand across the country.

But this victory didn’t happen simply because politicians like Tommy Douglas or Woodrow Lloyd passed legislation; Medicare was a decades-long fight won by working people, the labour movement, community health care co-operatives, farmer organizations, and so on. It was a movement of regular people from all corners of the country, built from the ground up.