The downtown home of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Danielle Smith’s controversial 2021 paper arguing how to introduce user fees and co-pays to Alberta health care is not a research paper and was not peer reviewed, a spokesperson for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy said yesterday.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

This answers a question that has generated debate in academic circles, some of which has now spilled into social media, after many political commentators became aware of the existence of the paper last week.

“In addition to policy research, part of the SPP’s mandate is to shape public policy by fostering meaningful debates,” said University of Calgary Senior Communications Advisor Dana Fenech in an emailed response to a query about the School of Public Policy’s decision to publish Ms. Smith’s commentary last year. 

The essay, in which Ms. Smith described her strategy for getting Albertans used to paying for essential medical services, was later included as the second chapter of an e-book published in September 2021 by the right-leaning institute, which operates out of the U of C’s downtown campus.

“This e-book was part of our role to generate conversation – as it clearly has in this case,” Ms. Fenech said. “It is not a research paper and was not peer-reviewed. As noted in the e-book, the views are the views of the author alone.”

Ms. Smith’s musings, though, were only those of a former right-wing radio talk show host in June 2021, when they were first published by the School of Public policy without much fanfare.

Economist Todd Hirsch, author of a chapter in a U of C School of Public Policy e-book along with Premier Smith (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Nevertheless, they aroused strong feelings within the academy because while they might have been good enough for an op-ed in a publication like the Calgary Herald, some saw them as not meeting the standards expected from a first-class university or felt their publication by the SPP lent a veneer of academic respectability to a poorly researched piece of work. 

Critics of the paper have also pointed to the similarity of the arguments in Ms. Smith’s chapter to those of a 2004 publication of the Fraser Institute, a notorious market-fundamentalist “think tank” based in Vancouver, not mentioned in Ms. Smith’s footnotes. 

This might have attracted notice had the paper been peer-reviewed, although in Ms. Smith’s defence, her views on this topic are commonplace in the extreme market-fundamentalist circles she has been part of throughout her career, and have appeared in more than one business-funded think tank’s publications. 

Regardless, now that she is the premier of Alberta, put in power by a radical anti-vaccine faction of the governing United Conservative Party, Ms. Smith’s views about public health care naturally seem considerably more relevant and significant. 

Ms. Fenech did not respond to a query about who provided the funding for the commission, something that would normally be disclosed in a scholarly publication, or how much Ms. Smith was paid. 

Chapter author Ken Kobly, president of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

The e-book, Alberta’s Economic and Fiscal Future, that includes Ms. Smith’s chapter, contains articles by 28 authors, some of them academics and a few like Ms. Smith associated with business interest groups. Premier Smith was president at the time of the Alberta Enterprise Group, pro-business advocacy organization with extensive ties to Alberta conservative parties.

Readers who scan the list of authors will recognize such public figures as Jack Mintz, founder of the SPP; economists Todd Hirsch and Trevor Tombe; Alberta Chambers of Commerce President Ken Kobly; Bev Dahlby, a member of Jason Kenney’s 2019 “Blue Ribbon Panel” on cutting public sector salaries; and former senior civil servant Bob Ascah, whose recent blog post about Ms. Smith’s views aroused the current furor.

Ms. Smith’s chapter, the first after an introduction, is in effect highlighted as the keynote article of the publication. 

The e-book, in turn, is part of an SPP project called the Alberta Futures Project, which says it has plans to publish two more e-books, one on Alberta’s fiscal future and another on heath care. Whether those projects see the light of day after the current controversy, however, remains to be seen. 

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22 Comments

  1. Page 18. “ The School of Public Policy relies on industry experts and practitioners, as well as academics, to conduct research in their areas of expertise. Using experts and practitioners is what makes our research especially relevant and applicable. Authors may produce research in an area which they have a personal or professional stake. That is why The School subjects all Research Papers to a double anonymous peer review. Then, once reviewers comments have been reflected, the work is reviewed again by one of our Scientific Directors to ensure the accuracy and validity of analysis and data”

    1. This reinforces my suspicion the School of Public Policy wishes they could cut Danielle Smith loose now that she’s become both an embarrassment and a potential liability. Not our fault! The paper wasn’t peer-reviewed … even though all papers are peer reviewed.

    2. Good grief! Smith’s paper says on page 18 it was peer reviewed, which clearly it wasn’t. Then a comms person from U of C claims it was not. Which is it? It seems like the whole peer-review process at U of C is now in question. Or should be…….

  2. Of course Danielle Smith wants private for profit healthcare in Alberta, like her hero Ralph Klein did. She also would love to make more cuts to the public healthcare system in Alberta, just like Ralph Klein had done. This is only going to worsen things. You can’t get any more foolish than that. Had the voters in Brooks Medicine Hat got out and voted in the last by-election, perhaps there would be a different outcome. Alas, they didn’t.

    1. I think any conversation about Albertan voters making foolish and/or irresponsible choices ought to start with the election of the UCP. To all those who sincerely believed at the time that Jason Kenney, or the party behind him, was trustworthy – I know a really fun card game I can teach you. Bring money.

  3. Danielle Smith has already said that she only trusts the experts she believes in; in this case, her fellow travellers from the Calgary School. This is the public policy think thank that spawned geniuses like Tom Flanagan and Ted Morton, not mention finding company with the Stephen Harper and other assorted wingnuts. These were the same geniuses that proposed the so-called Firewall Letter, which pretty declared that Alberta should become a landlocked sovereign freak show. Once this letter went public, even Ralph Klein, who the letter’s authors were convinced would be their greatest ally, told them to get stuffed.

    Heady oil prices make Albertans loony, and not a single rational thought can be had. So high they are on their fantasies of self-importance, that they trust any CON grifters who come down the road. Typically, illiterate Albertans will gobble up the b.s. as though it’s the gospel straight from the megachurch and cling to the lies for dear life. As for PMJT, he’s convinced if Alberta wants to vote for the CON death cult and blow their brains out, have at it. It’s not the Liberals who’ll destroy Alberta; it’s the CONs Alberta keeps electing.

    So let Danielle Smith carpet-bomb Alberta into oblivion. She’ll just blame Trudeau for the destruction and everyone will believe it.

  4. Smith seems as usual to be full of opinions, forcefully put forth. She does pretty much take advantage of every opportunity given to do so. Often in the past she has mainly stuck to opinion columns in newspapers in addition to her talk radio platform. However it is interesting in this case she chose a more supposedly academic platform.

    It seems an odd choice for a self proclaimed populist, but Ms. Smith is full of odd ideas and contradictions. Personally, I think it would have made more sense for her to stick to her more typical vehicles. I don’t know what prompted her venture into the supposedly more academic side of things here. Maybe the cheque was enticing, maybe someone thought it would generate more interest for a staid publication with a limited audience, or maybe it appealed to her ego. Perhaps all of these and more.

    I suspect in hindsight no one involved expected the level of more rigorous scrutiny this would now receive. After all in 2021, Smith was not elected to or running for anything, just another vocal right wing commentator always hanging around and eager to put forth her views to anyone who would give her a platform.

    In any event, her ideas are not original and going back to what Klein and others were putting forth in the early 2000’s, have been out there for some time. In a way Smith is like a 70’s rock band still touring, what she is putting out is certainly no longer cutting edge.

    I suppose this sort of thing does serve a purpose for public discussion and debate, but I have to wonder if like the emphasis of opinion over news in the mainstream news media, this can serve to diminish the quality of the debate and undermine the reputation of those behind this. Maybe Smith felt being in a supposedly academic publication would enhance her reputation and give her more credibility as well.

    To loosely paraphrase what Groucho Marx once said about politics, these are Smith’s opinions, and if you don’t like them, well I suspect she’s got more.

  5. Thank you DC, great column as always. Practical question for Alberta Health insiders: how many years, and how many people would be required to introduce Alberta health care premiums and copayments? Surely this is not a realistic scheme.

    1. Good question, Mr Renouf.

      I have another:

      How many bureaucrats would need to be hired to set up and regulate increased privately funded healthcare?

  6. Thanks for writing this follow-up piece on Danielle Smith’s step by step guide on how to implement private healthcare in Alberta, David. After you first wrote about it this past weekend I did wonder if the premier’s office would be doing their best to scrub it from the internet.

    I choked on my coffee when you referred to Ms. Smith’s essay as ‘poorly researched’. When I read the essay I didn’t think I saw any evidence of research at all. After reading today’s column I took a second look at the paper and, sure enough, there is a real, actual, bibliography, that cites 11 sources.

    My first thought when I looked at the bibliography was to wonder if someone forgot to publish the second page, since the alphabetized list of sources ends at the letter ‘M’.

    I would hope the entries Ms. Smith cites in her bibliography would automatically disqualify her work as academic. Of the eleven entries, two are from the Canadian Encyclopedia, one from Canadian Geographic magazine, a CBC story and a blog. Indeed, only one entry is from a university (U of T/Laval) although I suppose Smith would argue Ted Morton’s piece published by her host’s School of Public Policy should also qualify.

    Traditionally, when one cites a source in a bibliography, the expectation is that the author has learned from the source cited. One can never accuse Danielle Smith of being a traditionalist, however. Thus it appears she has read Brian Dawson’s 1991 essay titled “Chinese Settlement and Frontier Oppression” and from her reading took away that it would be appropriate to refer to the Chinese men (wives not allowed) brought in by the CPR to build the railway as ‘pioneers’.

    In Ms. Smith’s defense, Merriam-Webster defines ‘peer’ as ‘one that is of equal standing with another’. Given that, I am sure that Ms. Smith’s peers (radio show hosts with bachelor degrees) would be sure to give her paper high marks.

    1. Bob, I noticed the bibliography, too. Only three references had anything to do with Alberta’s finances. One was an opinion piece by Ted Morton (also published by the School of Public Policy in 2018), whom I do NOT consider either a reliable or informed source.

      The second sorta-economic paper was Janice MacKinnon’s 2016 report for the Fraser Institute. Wasn’t that related to the hatchet job Saskatchewan did on its rural hospitals? I didn’t bother to check.

      The only reference with “reliable” numbers was the Alberta government budget of 2021. That must be the source of the figures which were massaged in that big spreadsheet. I dunno, how could Alberta cap spending on operations, without massive cuts to services? User fees, I guess. Anybody want to go there?

  7. A non objective opinion piece published by a propaganda outlet using a university’s name to suggest it posesses a semblance of credibility. What’s next Dani? Maybe a little softball time on Fox News as per Pat King, Jason kenney and Artur Pawlowski.

  8. Shorter School of Public Policy: “Don’t blame us for the monster rampaging through your village. We only sewed the pieces together and animated them.”

  9. The only time Cherokee Smith is the brightest bulb in the room is when she is the only bulb in the room.
    Her and ‘lil pp are the master of shower thoughts; dubious, uncriticised, delusional thinking .

  10. I wonder if this is the right time for Albertans to ask: “Why is this happening and have we done to deserve this?” Every Albertan should take a serious moment of private lucidity, then the answer will come to them. Only then, can we turn the corner on the road to recovery. So much of this strife and suffering is avoidable.

  11. Looks like just another nobody really understood what the Premier meant so we get to enjoy anther “let me explain what that really means” clarification or what ever the damage control mode of the day is. Apparently she decided to do some sort of a fire side chat with Albertans tonight?

  12. There are certainly a lot of ideas in that policy paper that are deliberately short on the details, as well as the potential spillovers. Perhaps that is deliberate if the main players (acting as evangelists) are interested in simply boosting their income (opening more private clinics) by means of further privatization of the public resource(s) that is the health care ‘goose’ that is capable of laying many golden eggs for the well- connected few.

    It is suggested that: “My view is that the entire budget for general practitioners should be paid for from
    Health Spending Accounts. If the government funded the account at $375 a year, that’s the equivalent of 10 trips to a GP, so there can be no argument that this would compromise access on the basis of ability to pay.”

    Perhaps. There are multiple other considerations that Danielle Smith deliberately avoids. For example. “Doctors say 10-minute visits won’t work for patients”

    https://calgaryherald.com/news/okotoks-doctors-say-10-minute-visits-wont-work-for-patients

    Rough back of the envelope calculations and assumptions begin with family practitioner expenses including wages to approximate $340, 000.00 (2018).

    https://www.albertadoctors.org/about/understanding-docs-pay

    $375.00 for 10 visits = $37.50/visit. To cover the costs in 2018 dollars would require 9067 individual visits. If the doctor works a full 50 weeks, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day (which will not be a full 8 hours due to lunch, downtime, ect. Because it is further assumed that one is not running an impersonal assembly line in a factory.), 9067/50 = 181 visits/week and 36 visits a day. if the day is a full 7 hours nonstop that approximates to 12 minutes of total time spent with each patient. Is that acceptable?

    On an unrelated note, perhaps a scheming Ms. Smith simply wants “a shot at redemption because she doesn’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.” Even though she has all of the qualities and characteristics of a cartoon character. That is,

    “Did I Say That Or Just Think It (The Simpsons)”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F69DQupMiZM

    “Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she has Cherokee roots, but the records don’t back that up”

    https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-says-she-has-cherokee-roots-but-the-records-dont-back-that-up/

  13. …And the reason this essay is a problem is that, now that Smith is premier, she can try to implement it. She’s gone from big-business cheerleader to rabble-rouser to #1 apparatchik.

    I suspect Smith and her fellow-travelers (fellow useful idiots?) will discover the agenda outlined in this feel-good, aren’t-we-great tribute to Big Business will contravene the Canada Health Act—in spades. Last time someone tried it, the Feds threatened to cut of health-care transfers. Wanna go there again? No? I don’t blame you.

    This manifesto-wannabe flies in the face of public opinion. Most Albertans, except the Republican-wannabes, know a good deal when they see one. We’re not dumb enough to give up access to medical care for $300 per year in “free” cash. (Yeah, sure, if they’re dumb enough to give it away, I’ll take it. It’s better than nothing. $300 doesn’t cover a dental checkup these days, and I don’t do naturopaths or chiropractors. It’s the first bite of cheese in a slow-closing mouse trap.)

    It also flies in the face of reality. Alberta is the most under-taxed and under-served province in Confederation. Con whining to the contrary notwithstanding, that’s why Alberta doesn’t receive equalization payments. Start by reversing Jason Kenney’s 2020 tax cut; an extra $4.7 billion per year would pay for a lot of repairs.

  14. Shameful for a university to lend their name and prestige to trash like this. Would love to see them forbidden from either accepting money from, or giving intellectual property to, wealthy individuals and corporations. When Canadian citizens create valuable innovation in a taxpayer-funded institution, we ought not to give it away for free to a bunch of parasitic plutocrats who won’t do anything with it that won’t get them a bigger yacht to keep inside their backup space ship.

  15. Privatizing health, Privatizing education, school boards already banned from making masks mandatory as are principals. Take time to look up the principles of neoliberalism to see where we are going . The free market is their God. For the past 40 years, unions have been squashed, wages suppressed, services cut, services privatized so we pay more to the new owners picked by government like,y because of their donations. Less regulations mean the market is less restricted and that is part of the inflation problem. Try reading this as it is actively happening in the USA. Although neoliberalism has not been successful at growth, employment or dealing with a pandemic or the 2008 world financial meltdown , conservatives have run out of ideas. Have lower taxes on business increased jobs? Nope. Expanded our economy with new investments! Nope, shareholders and CEOs have received all those millions, labour, zip

    https://evonomics.com/how-to-disguise-racism-and-oligarchy-use-the-language-of-economics/

  16. “put in power by a radical anti-vaccine faction” aka, the people who were right when they claimed the mRNA shot a) isn’t a “vaccine”, b) didn’t stop transmission of SARs2 & c) was causing serious injury & sudden early death?

    “Ms. Smith’s views about public health care naturally seem considerably more relevant and significant.”
    That may be an understatement, given how wrong the approved “experts” were about everything from lockdowns to ‘eradicating’ Covid w/ 2 shots of experimental gene therapy – the foreseeable damage to child development & learning, mental health & the economy, we’re unduly magnified by the censoring of actual science & dissenting, highly esteemed public health authorities – eg Barrington Declaration.
    It’s remarkable to see an entire article parsing the issue of the ‘scholarliness’ of the Premier Smith’s authorship on the future “sustainability” of AB’s universal health care.
    Not a single comment on the substantial merits or flaws in the premier’s very transparent musings…just a grab bag of hackneyed pejoratives like “ extreme market-fundamentalist circles” and “right-wing radio talk show host”. ‘Similarities to “notorious market-fundamentalist ‘think tank’”’ – oh my!!
    For people who claim to have an interest in public health care, the voices represented here seem far more interested in establishing that the premier is indeed a conservative, with conservative ideas, than they are at ‘fostering robust debate’ on public health policy.
    It’s a theme played out over and over on social media by fear-mongering ‘far-left radical socialists’ and ‘biomedical fascists’ (see how easy that is?) whom I highly doubt could cite a single academic paper by Ms. Notley, which lays out in any studious detail her deep thoughts about the future & sustainability of AB health care.
    Meanwhile, Trudeau is coordinating with WEF to transfer national & provincial authority over public health to the WHO, which also lied about & mismanaged SARs2. That’s why your health care system is in a crisis. Smith is the only one prepared to save it, or at least Albertan’s say in it.
    But whatever … Trudeau’s your “hero”
    So shhhhhhh! Yell about the all the conservative bogiemen instead.
    A little actual science (aka facts & reason) can go a long way.
    A slightly broader & longer-range perspective wouldn’t hurt you either.

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