Possibly the biggest rollback of public health insurance in Canadian history gets underway in Alberta with barely a peep of protest

With the creation of the Recovery Alberta agency and the plan to farm out all addiction recovery treatment programs to a small group of out-of-province private operators with a controversial record, the Alberta Government is commencing what must be the biggest single health care privatization binge in Canada since Saskatchewan introduced provincial medical insurance in 1962. 

And this is just the beginning. 

There is much more to come with the bust-up of Alberta Health Services, Premier Danielle Smith’s plan to hand over of public hospitals to private and religious groups, and the elimination of public continuing care, all being actively charted now by the United Conservative Party Government. 

Yet this is all happening with barely an acknowledgement, let alone protest.

It is particularly troubling that so little has been heard from Alberta’s NDP Opposition. The defence of public health care has always been an unshakeable part of the NDP’s political brand, a core value of the party – nationally and among its provincial branches.

After all, it was the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor party to the NDP, that championed public health insurance against bitter opposition in Saskatchewan under premier Tommy Douglas and his successor Woodrow Lloyd, the forgotten father of medicare. 

Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson made universal public health care a national policy in 1966 with the introduction in Parliament of the Medical Care Act.

Even during an era when neoliberal economic dogma has infiltrated all Canadian political parties with members elected to legislatures and Parliament, New Democrats at least have remained devoted to the defence of universal public health insurance.

And yet, since the Alberta NDP emerged from its leadership race in June, very little has been heard from its new leader, former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, or the party’s critics on this hugely significant issue. 

Finally, on Tuesday, Mr. Nenshi publicly criticized the comments made by Premier Smith at a closed-door UCP town hall meeting in Drayton Valley on Aug. 17, where she vowed to transfer some hospitals to the Roman Catholic Covenant Health organization or other operators. Recordings of Ms. Smith’s comments were leaked to the public last week. 

But despite a shouty headline over the Canadian Press story – “Alberta NDP leader slams premier’s plan …” – Mr. Nenshi’s critique focused on the covert way the policy was revealed, the sort of thing one might come up with in response to an unexpected call from a reporter, not the well-thought-out, energetic attack that’s needed. 

Well, there are now a few signs the Alberta NDP may be awakening from its summer slumber. But Mr. Nenshi and the his party need to up their game, quickly.

They’re all we’ve got with a voice in the Legislature, although that could change if they don’t smarten up. 

Conservatives have always hated public health insurance, despite expedient claims to the contrary when required. And the neoliberal strain of conservatism that has increasingly dominated Canadian politics since the 1980s is devoted to the dream of destroying public health care. 

Yet the program is so popular with ordinary Canadian voters – who have the nightmare south of the Medicine Line for comparison – that opponents have been reduced to nibbling away at the fringes and staving off needed improvements to the system such as full pharmacare and meaningful dental care. 

The UCP under Ms. Smith may not particularly competent, but no one can say it lacks boldness.

Albertans joined the NDP in surprising numbers to elect Mr. Nenshi in large part because they feared what the UCP planned and believed the former three-term mayor would be an effective champion for public health care. 

Well, the UCP is now openly setting the house afire.

They’re starting with drug addiction treatment because they rightly perceive voters want the drug crisis addressed so desperately they are willing to believe the dubious claims of an industry that uses broken people as profit centres.

As for giving away public hospitals to a church that opposes reproductive health as an article of faith, the potential results are dire. 

“A Catholic organization like Covenant would be at best reluctant to engage with anything to do with women’s reproductive health,” observed Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey, an expert on the introduction of public health insurance in Saskatchewan. “Birth control, reproductive rights, and certainly pregnancy termination – all out.”

Meanwhile, the UCP has cancelled plans for a public hospital in Airdrie, a city of more than 86,000 souls north of Calgary, and plans to let a private company build a for-profit private “urgent care centre” instead.

A new “birthing centre” in the unusually fecund hamlet of La Crete in Northern Alberta was handed over to be run by Covenant Health even before Ms. Smith became premier. 

And the plan for a new facility to replace the province’s second-oldest hospital in the northern community of Beaverlodge turns out to be a P3 owned by a private development company. It will have no emergency room, even though local doctors have warned they’ll leave town if there is no ER. 

So it’s time to saddle up! If ever there were a worthwhile cause, it’s saving public health care. 

3 kids, 1 adult sickened with E. coli in Blackfalds

Friday next week will be the first anniversary of the massive outbreak of E. coli that hit child care operations throughout Calgary, which used the same contaminated kitchen facility. 

That seems also to have been the last time anyone in Alberta saw or heard Dr. Mark Joffe, Alberta’s elusive chief medical officer of health. 

On Wednesday, the province issued an understated press release – “Child-care centre temporarily closed,” said the headline – admitting it’s happened again, this time in the Red Deer area bedroom town of Blackfalds. 

Three children and one staff member who attended a care centre there have tested positive for Shiga-toxin producing E. coli.

“The health, safety and well-being of children is a top priority for Alberta’s government,” says the news release, notwithstanding the fact the same government considers health and safety regulations to be “red tape.”

Marco Van Huigenbos joins UCP constituency board in Calgary-Acadia

The Globe and Mail reports that Marco Van Huigenbos, one of the militants convicted of mischief for his prominent role in the COVID-conspiracy-convoy border blockade at Coutts in 2022, has been named to the UCP’s Calgary-Acadia Constituency Association Board.

The south Calgary riding is where Tyler Shandro, UCP health minister through much of the COVID-19 pandemic, was defeated by 22 votes in 2023 by the NDP’s Dianna Batten, a Registered Nurse. Mr. Shandro, a lawyer who also served as justice minister, is now safely ensconced as a member of the board of Covenant Health.

Mr. Van Huigenbos, a former town councillor in Fort Macleod, expects to be sentenced in September. 

With Mr. Van Huigenbos on the job, perhaps Ms. Batten will be able to win by a much larger margin in 2027. You can’t make this stuff up! 

Convoy protesters’ counsel appointed to Law Enforcement Review Board

And finally, speaking of the pandemic convoy protests as we were, an Order in Council Wednesday names Calgary lawyer Brendan Miller as a member of the Law Enforcement Review Board for a term to expire on Aug. 27, 2027.

Mr. Miller of Foster LLP is well known to many Canadians for his very public role representing some of the convoy protesters during hearings of the Public Order Emergency Commission in the fall of 2022.