Never mind “less is more.” Sometimes more is less.
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 to decentralize Alberta Health Services to appease her base in rural Alberta, which clings to the ridiculous notion that all the world’s problems are caused by people who live in cities.
The largely symbolic and performative list of responsibilities in Mr. Copping’s mandate letter therefore begins: “Develop a series of reforms to the health care system that restore decision making authority to the local level, incentivize regional innovation and competition to provide increased medical services and surgeries, and that attracts health care professionals domestically and internationally.”
At the same time, if Ms. Smith wants to beat the NDP in the next election, she has to promise to fix the woes of the health care system, most seriously understaffing and the ravages of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, a goal completely at odds with her decentralization mantra.
So, says the fourth point on her list of the minister’s responsibilities: “Address health care staffing challenges, particularly in rural areas, through improving health workforce planning, evaluating retention policies, leveraging the scope of allied health professionals, streamlining immigration and certification processes, and further increasing the number of training seats for health care professionals in Alberta.”
Moreover, Point No. 7: “Work with municipalities, doctors and allied health providers to identify strategies to attract and retain health care workers to rural Alberta.”
As University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley, bravely stating the obvious on the foundering Twitter platform, observed: “Bullets 1, 4, and 7 are incompatible. Good luck, Minister Copping.”
Mr. Copping’s mandate letter also includes instructions to implement Ms. Smith’s wacky health spending account idea and lots of privatization buzzwords. It’s not hard to imagine where the premier got those ideas. Spending accounts and health care “choice” are hobbyhorses of many a right-wing think tank, including the Fraser Institute where the premier once toiled as a minor functionary.
Not mentioned in Mr. Copping’s mandate letter – or in those of Seniors Minister Jeremy Nixon or Mental Health and Addiction Minister Nicholas Milliken – is anything about the respiratory conditions including COVID-19 now sweeping through Alberta’s schools and hospitals.
However, Mr. Milliken’s letter, as noted by Friends of Medicare Executive Director Chris Galloway, “doubles down on the government’s so-called ‘Recovery Oriented System of Care’ in spite of the ongoing drug poisoning crisis and repeated calls from the community to act to save lives.”
Ms. Smith’s election strategy, pretty clearly, is to promise a lot and pray voters don’t notice the obvious contradictions.
The strategy will include making lots of grandiose announcements, looking busy and dispensing cash – of which, fortunately, there is a reasonable supply on hand at the moment.
And why not? Nothing’s going to happen before the next election anyway, even if she delays it for another year, as she probably will if her polls remain in the sub-basement, as they probably will.
If Alberta voters continue to rate health care as their No. 1 concern and keep paying attention. Well, that could turn out badly for the UCP.
Still, Ms. Smith and her ministers can always blame the Trudeau-Singh-Notley-WEF inflation machine for their troubles if things get sticky.
After the election, though, if the UCP manages to get re-elected, watch out!
‘Albertans should be supported regardless of their choice to mask or not’ – CMOH
Meanwhile, in other health care announcements, newly appointed interim Chief Medical Officer of Health Mark Joffe was trotted out yesterday to make a statement on the trifecta of respiratory diseases running rampant through the province’s schools: COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, commonly known as RSV.
Dr. Joffe’s advice on what to do to slow the spread of respiratory viruses was mostly unremarkable and sensible enough – you know, wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze, and don’t touch your face with dirty paws.
Some of it makes sense but would be pretty hard for working folks in a place like Alberta to consider – “stay home when feeling sick,” “avoid close contact with people who are sick.” Good luck with that if you want to get paid!
But one point in particular stood out: “Wearing a well-fitting, high-quality mask can help reduce the risk of becoming sick and help protect others from being exposed. Albertans should be supported regardless of their choice to mask or not.”
That second sentence is the part that reflects actual UCP policy.
Well, at least no one is saying Albertans should be supported regardless of their choice to drive sober or not. Yet.
Forget about school mask mandates no matter how many kids get sick
Albertans can also forget about mask mandates in schools, no matter how many kids get sick.
At a news conference yesterday about funding for mental health, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange made it clear once again that there will be no mask mandates in schools.
After an evidence-free claim in-school masking has contributed to children’s mental-health problems, Ms. LaGrange told reporters, “we have been very clear that we do not anticipate going to a masking mandate.”
School boards, of course, are not permitted to mandate masks themselves.
Better hundreds of sick children, I guess, than an uncomfortably Kenney-like moment of having to explain a reimposed mask mandate for Premier Smith.
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The UCP’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Alberta is very weak. They are not addressing this very serious issue properly, because Alberta’s case counts were so high, so often, and were exceeding rates in Canada, and even in the entire North American continent, at one particular juncture. In the public education system, a respiratory ailment is running rampant, making many school children sick, or require hospitalization. Danielle Smith and Adrianna LaGrange are instead focusing on the mental health of kids from wearing face masks. The respiratory ailment isn’t the issue. How out of touch with reality can you get? Dr. Mark Joffe’s recommendations for handling Covid-19 are not good enough, because many Albertans won’t listen to this advice. There is no proper enforcement. I don’t think cases of Covid-19 in Alberta are going down. I’ve also noticed how the UCP is putting funding back into the things they made cuts to. What perfect timing before a pending provincial election in Alberta, in the spring of next year! This is costing us billions of dollars, which we will not have, after oil prices keep declining. Then what will have to happen is more cuts. It’s pretty obvious that Danielle Smith is intent on finding a way to privatize healthcare in Alberta, like her hero Ralph Klein wanted to do. More people’s lives will be put at risk. If Albertans give Danielle Smith and the UCP four more years, it’s going to get worse, and they will regret it. Doug Ford in Ontario was given four more years, and Ontario voters now regret doing it. So few even bothered to vote.
Here’s what is happening with oil prices.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Prices-Fall-As-Druzbha-Pipeline-Resumes-Flows.html
So, if masks contribute to children’s mental health problems, isn’t it incumbent on the provincial health authorities to advise against wearing masks? Perhaps they should even direct school boards to prohibit the wearing of masks.
When David wrote his April 1 column he thought he was being satiric; turns out he was being prophetic.
Yup another episode of smoke and mirrors to give folks the illusion that the premier is doing some good, meanwhile sinister plots are brewing in the background, like privatize healthcare, tearing apart learning and so on.
First we had Ralph Bucks, then Kenney Pennies, and now we are set for Dingy Dollars. Funny how Dingy Smith is against letting school boards decide about masking. Maybe since she knows so much more than anyone else in the world, when people get sick they should sue her directly! Of course the lawyers are the only real winners in that one. While health care and education are delegated out as agencies and boards, these UCP somehow want to be directly involved in everything.
Funny how Dingy Smith wants to try an play nice with others and they do not want to have anything to do with her, for example pipeline to Thompson and then the idea of a rail transit from downtown Calgary to the airport.
We all hope she can’t do too much damage before the next election and gets her butt swiftly kicked out of there.
And if there was a mask mandate like some people are clamouring for would there be enough masks to go around? With all those reports about supply chains and med shortages are masks going to magically appear like manna from heaven? You would have to think the production facilities that had been turning out masks day and night during the pandemic have long since geared down and gone onto to producing other things.
Oh Ron, not again!
I think the Canadian government should own the means necessary to produce enough medical supplies for its populace as a matter of national security.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connaught_Laboratories
Great no mask mandates for kids, if you want to wear one because you believe it will protect you go ahead. Its funny how the argument for mandates shows a real lack of confidence. The mask only works if everyone wears one, Trump’s vaccine only works if everyone takes what are we up to about 6 now. At some point you really have to start questioning the so called experts.
Dear Jim,
“Great, no mask mandates for kids?” This generation can be the next best thing to the generations harmed by polio. Forget the March of Dimes. It’ll take a lot more than pocket change to heal the permanent health damage from Covid. Oh, well. When healthcare is privatized, some entrepreneur can make a fortune from these children’s parents. See, it’s an opportunity to print money! Good old profiteering.
“If you want to wear one because you believe it will protect you, go ahead?” Oh, Jim, you never like to provide evidence for your wildly erroneous claims. If you feel so sure about this unsubstantiated bafflegab, please invite the medical staff to refrain from wearing masks if you are ever unfortunate enough to require surgery. Ask them to refrain from hand-washing and surgical gloves while you’re at it. Urge them to turn off the air filtration system in the surgical suite, too. Germs and microbes are invisible to the naked eye, so they don’t exist, right? (I hope you don’t work in food-handling. You might be a proponent of Hep A, following your logic.)
“Its funny how the argument for mandates shows a real lack of confidence. The mask only works if everyone wears one, Trump’s vaccine only works if everyone takes what are we up to about 6 now. At some point you really have to start questioning the so called experts.” You might have fallen down a rabbit hole. Please say hello to Alice for me. By the way, is your real name Warren?
Toodles!
Abs
Wilful ignorance is sad to see.
lmfao if you’re trying to convince people not to get covid shots keep calling it Trump’s vaccine. If Trump made a vaccine, I would assault anyone who brought a loaded syringe of that stuff within 10 feet of me.
Dear Jim,
I hope your convictions, as false as they are, as as strong when Covid comes to visit your family, or personal friends, if you have any. It’s easy to talk like a tough guy when the horrors of Covid haven’t affected you.
Every Premier has their own style, Smith in particular seems to go towards nice reassuring words when in trouble. Kenney was more verbose, but the day to day operations of the provincial government were often but a side thought in his grander plans and world visions. After all, he had been to Ottawa. He didn’t spend a lot of time talking about this type of stuff.
However, I expect in the next few months we will hear a lot of nice words from Smith as she unleashes her full charm offensive. She can even seem nice and reasonable for extended periods, at least until the mask slips. A lot of talk, but probably not much action. Of course nice words are not enough.
As elections approach, Conservatives often seem to start saying the right things about things like health care, which of course they promptly forget right after the election is over. Smith hasn’t started a war with doctors yet, but neither has the last one completely ended. She still has someone in cabinet who started the last one and she seems quite content with that.
So, I expect this will be the Smith style, some nice words here and there, then tomorrow off to the next issue or problem, but not much will really happen or change.
I wonder if Smith and her enabler Copping have a finite number of dead children in mind, before they finally legislate masks in schools, hospitals and other public spaces?
What must that number be, before something real is done? What of Albertans? Would they feel any different if it were 100s of kids or tens of thousands. At which point will parents publicly protest this social murder happening before our very eyes?
I’m wondering if Alberta parents even care about their kids?
It’s not how many children die, but whose children die, that matter. Sort of like how Doug Ford presumably does not have his parents in the LTCs owned by the corporations to whom he has granted legal immunity for proven wanton, systemic, egregious, for-profit elder abuse. They also needlessly caused thousands of deaths but if Canadians were going to start caring about that I think they would have by now. Damnedest thing – if those people had been killed by a terrorist I betcha the UCP would care. Incredibly strange to me that right wingers aren’t treating covid as a matter of national security. I miss grown-up Conservatives.
Haha 16 year old me would be appalled to hear future him say that.
The UCP has shown a callous willingness to knowingly create the conditions that will kill many of their own voters. I get that, they’re grifters – people who care about their victims don’t become grifters. What I don’t get is the behaviour of their victims. As of right now google says 5,137 Albertans have died of covid, and it’s portrayed alternatively as a victimless crime (“it’s mostly old people and they were going to be dead soon anyway”) and as a series of isolated, crimeless victims (“Too bad Joe Schmoe got COVID working for minimum wage at the grocery store in order to avoid being evicted, if he had worked hard and made good choices like I had he wouldn’t have had to work at a grocery store though so **** him and everyone like him.”)
Among the many quiet things Canada has said out loud during COVID is that our society thinks it is more important for children to be at school than for children to be safe at school, and more important for us to be at work than for us to be safe at work. In the eyes of our owners we exist to serve our betters, and those of us who can’t serve don’t deserve to exist. When a tool breaks, you don’t cry about it, you cast it aside and get another one.
The owning class has not been taking very good care of their tools over the past few decades.
Why does Mental Health and Addictions Minister Nicholas Milliken photo look like something that one would find on the side of milk carton? Whatever.
While the Jason Kenney era edition of the UCP messaging was confused, distracting, contradictory, or out right lies, I always considered it evidence that this was government by ADD. It seems that nothing has changed, but there is a reason for the weird messaging and why it continues.
Sending out mandate briefs that are incompatible with the functionality of an organization, or even reality for that matter, does serve a purpose: it calms whatever base the UCP hopes is theirs. While the rural FreeDUMB crowd would love to see the government be burned down, and we all live by the Bible, just as Jeebus intended, using all those quaint laws that the pastor down at the megachurch claims are in the said Bible, it’s the urban voters who the UCP wants and doesn’t trust. The different priorties of rural and urban voters require two different sets of crazy for the UCP to promote in their weird mandates.
In the case of the Kenney era UCP, these mandates were designed to be outright falsehoods and gaslighting. The case of the Danielle Smith era UCP, there are just indications of insanity, disinterest, desparation, and more insanity.
Mo’ popcorn.
DJC. This is certainly off the topic of this post but I have a question. I know the blog is called albertapolitics.ca but we haven’t seen a blog post from you about international events for a long time. Is this because there’s just too much juicy Alberta Politics to write about? I know the war in Ukraine is almost impossible to wade into but how about JT being completely blown off by Xi Jinping in Bali? I’m thinking that AB trade with China is almost as important as BC’s. China is the #2 trading partner for both provinces and because it’s mainly agricultural products, chemicals and maybe metallurgical exports it diversifies Alta exports away from the province’s outsized O&G exports to one customer – the US. This is all being flushed down the toilet by our governments.
So what has changed in very recent history? China is pretty much the same as it was 5 or 10 years ago, why are we “decoupling” from them to tie ourselves even tighter to the US? What happened to diversifying our markets? JT bought Alberta a pipeline to tidewater and now he’s sewering the best market for it. WTH?
It’s weird to watch the EU committing economic suicide but it’s really disconcerting to see us doing the same thing here.
Dear Mr. Rat: Your text, a distillation of every National Post column of the past week, contains so many incorrect assumptions that my poor head has spun off. China is the same as 10 years ago? Xi told off Trudeau? The EU is committing suicide? Canada is losing exports to China? We are ever more palsy with the US? Where did you get these “facts”? I don’t get it, Sir, I just don’t get it.
Mr, Butter: You don’t get it or you don’t see it? China has not fundamentally changed in the last 10 years, Xi definitely rebuked JT (humiliated might be a better description), the EU is in desperate economic shape of it’s own making, I didn’t say we were losing exports to China but if we continue on this road we will, and we are at least or more subservient to the US than we ever have been. This is an opinion blog but every one of these points is obvious to anyone.
I never read the National Post so I’m not sure what that’s about. I’m not going to respond to a scatter gun volley like this but if you want to be specific on one or two of these go for it…
Mickey: There are several factors. You have touched on some of them. (1) The principal mission of this blog is to discuss Alberta politics and there is an awful lot happening in Alberta politics just now. (2) As you rightly say, critical commentary on the war in Ukraine is virtually impossible now. (3) Canadian governments have pretty slavishly followed the U.S. lead since Pierre Trudeau, with a little backsliding by Chretien. So it is natural that we would shoot ourselves in the foot on trade with China when the White House is calling the shots. This is a topic worthy of further consideration. Anti-Chinese rhetoric seems to be as heated from the so-called Canadian left, too, but I tend to think that’s just because there really is no Canadian left. Just Neoliberals with a human face, neoliberals light, and neoliberals. (4) See Point 3, above. I doubt very many people in the know ever imagined we would sell much bitumen to China through the TMX. It all would have ended up going south to U.S. West Coast refineries anyway. We’re sewering the relationship with China because those are the Imperial instructions. (5) I think the EU will likely come to its senses faster than we do in Alberta, and maybe in B.C. too. DJC
Mickey: these are great questions – I have some thoughts on them and are interested in hearing yours. I think you bringing them here is A)heady praise for the blog’s author, and B)A pretty stinging indictment of mainstream media. I’m literally on my way out the door to a basketball game though, just posting now to say please check back tomorrow. All the best!
Hi Neil, thx for the reply. Oh yeah I have some thoughts alright, but for starters I would like to hear how other people feel about this. Butter Me Up has kinda given his opinions – fair enough, although I don’t completely understand what he or she is saying.
I do believe that provincial and municipal political decisions affect us more closely to home than national or international politics, but I get frustrated seeing politicians in the big picture working so hard against the people. Why the Hell do we buy this? I say it’s the propaganda we’re fed by the MSM you mention.
Let’s take interest policy. It’s pretty obvious that the current inflation is due to external factors which are in no way caused by the average working person (if anyone disagrees with this then feel free to chime in) yet the solution the elites have decided on is to depress the economy so workers have less to spend. They admit that they are creating a recession to tackle inflation. WTF? Is this wise, or even in the best interest of Canadians?
Regarding affiliation with the US. Of course our proximity to this behemoth dictates that she will be an important trading partner, but isn’t it wise to diversify your trading options? Again, if someone wants to disagree with that, feel free to share. DJC makes the valid point that whatever flows down TMX will probably go to the US like the existing Trans-Mountain feed does. But the important thing is once it’s at tidewater then there is the worldwide option for distribution, very much different than say Keystone XL. A side note here about supply & demand. I expect that when TMX is flowing then I will have to pay more for gasoline here in BC because currently the Washington State refineries get marked-down AB crude but with TMX AB will have other options. Energy markets are complicated and above my expertise but this makes sense to me.
Back to China. Do we not think there are significant trading options there? We have the second-largest economy right next door and the world’s largest economy just across the pond which we used to have a good relationship with. I would be interested to hear opinions on this.
We still have idiots going around claiming masks don’t work, and are a waste of time, yet I was in hospital 3 times at the height of COVID before vaccines and if it hadn’t been for masks all the doctors and nurses would be dead. They closed the hospital down because of all the COVID cases three days after I was released .It reminds me of the senior fool I met in Calgary who told me that Klein was a hero for blowing up the General Hospital, it was full of asbestos, and needed to be blown up. Of course anyone in their right mind knows you don’t blow up buildings filled with asbestos and spread it through out the atmosphere. I told that to a construction friend and he agreed. He said after Klein spent millions getting rid of the asbestos he should have been smart enough renovate it. Some of the additions weren’t that old and could have been saved, but as we know there was nothing smart about Ralph Klein, and he agreed. We had both known him in our late teens.
Alan K. Spiller: How many people have died because of Ralph Klein’s poor healthcare policies? Probably many. Here we go again with Danielle Smith, who admires Ralph Klein. It will be a bumpy ride until the next provincial election in Alberta.
DJC, if you had a phone # tied to the site, I’m sure it would be ringing off the hook….NBC news, with extra coverage tonight at 10pm , about the class action lawsuit filed against the celebrities who promoted FTX , so are AB’s 2 Premiers worried, is PP.
It makes me feel so sad to think that perhaps the discussion around mask use would have been completely different if we had invested in our children’s education adequately by installing good ventilation systems and mandating class size limits. (Wasn’t this proposed by the AB NDP early in the pandemic?)
We have been amiss at not following the science around teacher : student ratio, around curriculum and pedagogy and around the environment for a very long time.
Speakers from Egypt remind us that we are running out of time.
Did I say I feel sad? More than that.
Very sad to hear on the news today that a local 4 year old child has died from the flu. Have the anti-maskers forgotten that masks kept flu at bay (zero cases) in the first winter of Covid, when masks were promoted and required in so many places? How quickly they conveniently forget.
They haven’t forgotten, Ema. They don’t give a hoot. DJC
Masking of children in schools–
IMHO …. judging by my niece and nephew ( grade 2& 7) wearing masks is a parent problem, not a kids problem. The same way that parents put shoes & clothes on their kids before they send them out the door, if it done as normal practice, kids accept it. If the teachers are wearing them, just another day.
But when the deniers start making issues about it, the kids hear this c’rap they start thinking there’s something wrong, and if the deny- families are fervent about it, they are the ones who are responsible for the mental health of the kids, theirs and the others. They are creating the chaos and unrest.
As pointed out above, and I 100% concur, if Dr’s and nurses have been wearing masks for as long as I can remember, for the safety of their patients, one would think that, that is enough proof. Obviously it isn’t, but only to the people who keep spouting the same garbage they hear from a small number of yahoos who don’t give a tinker’s damn about them. All these ” grifters ” ..only care about power and money, not necessarily in that order, and by creating chaos they are better at controlling the issues.
Remember when only 6 yrs ago, Canadian politics used to be ” boring ” , and we were smug about the stuff going on next door and feeling we were smarter than them.. Well the stain has spread across and brought out the wannabes here. I have always wondered why the people here who go on about ” well the US doesn’t …yada yada ..well then why don’t you just move there?
If d’rump had followed the masking measures, we wouldn’t have these issues, but due to the vanity of a narcissist,( and yes he did get vaccinated, because of course he didn’t want to get sick and die, because of being in the prime age group, & created a narrative that when he realized the base were starting to drop like flies, then he got booed for telling people to get their shots)
Now his followers and our imulators, they are putting the kids at risk, and because kids are just normal little petrey dishes, that gets carried over to the rest of us. It has always baffled me that the obvious connection between Sept – kids going back to school, and usually about the 3rd week the flu season starts. Put all the little munchkins into a small room after they have spent the 2 previous mths spread out all over the place, and the inevitable happens.
My sister worked at Uof A, and being immuno compromised, she was a victim every Sept to horrendous colds,and flu…and since she retired 5 yrs ago, no problems. Add in thanksgiving , reboot the spread, add in Xmas reboot and voila Flu season. Gee, what a concept, one plus one equals two, who’d of thunk it???
So, is it going to take a class action lawsuit against Danielle by parents, for putting their kids in harm’s way, or as mentioned how many have to suffer before she will do something. Maybe a convoy of school buses around her house, but that’s just being silly….she’d probably have the “RCMP ” there tout suit…
I have way too many family members and friends in my home province to worry about right now , especially with all the other things going on….I can only hope….