Alberta still won’t join the federal pharmacare program.

Never mind Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s explanation in her press release Friday – “the federal government has yet to share its vision for the future of national pharmacare,” yadda, yadda. That’s just a way to stall things until Pierre Poilievre can get himself elected prime minister and start dismantling the programs that bind the country together.
Pharmacare will be an excellent place to start because it won’t have been around long enough or benefitted enough people to generate much protest when it disappears again before Mr. Weaned-on-a-Pickle Poilievre moves on to bigger and more destructive things.
The federal Pharmacare Act came into force on Friday. Alas, like many of the promises of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, too little was delivered too late.
Indeed, the Liberal lack of enthusiasm for pharmacare, at least until Jagmeet Singh’s NDP Caucus in Parliament held their feet to the fire for a spell, was almost enough to make you wonder if there’s really all that much light between the Liberal neoliberals and the Conservative ones.
Vulnerable Canadians needing access to diabetic treatments and birth control would benefit quickly in huge numbers, but by restricting the first phase of the program to those things the federal government has made it easy for subsequent governments to eliminate. After that, it will be politically much harder to try again.

Ms. LaGrange’s news release was billed as a “statement,” presumably as a way to lend it some spurious gravitas. Albertans who follow the province’s politics will have noticed Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government has been issuing a lot of similarly branded statements lately.
Plus, if you’re in a hurry with a holiday weekend coming up, a statement also a great way to save the time it takes to figure out a news lead for a presser.
Alert readers will also notice that Ms. LaGrange said much the same thing back in February, complaining at that time that she wasn’t consulted before the federal Liberals closed the deal – as if she would have been happy to go along with it had that been the case. (Who says the UCP has no sense of humour?)
“Give us the dollars,” Ms. LaGrange said then. “Allow us to enhance the programs we actually have now, rather than create more bureaucracy.” That’s pretty rich coming from the minister responsible for replacing Alberta Health Services, the most cost-effective health care system in Canada, with four bloated bureaucracies! But, as with the Canada Pension Plan, the UCP always wants its cut.
As in the past, Ms. LaGrange spins a tale in which Alberta’s confusing, inadequate, and restricted public pharmaceutical and medical device programs should be the model for a national plan.

Well, look, as the premier says when she’s about to tell a whopper, the real reasons are pretty simple to figure out: The UCP is opposed to anything that will make (1) the federal Liberals look good (this is known here in Wild Rose Country as “owning the Libs”), (2) give citizens more reasons to value their Canadian citizenship, or (3) cut into corporate profits.
On all of those grounds, a national pharmacare program fails as far as the UCP is concerned, never mind the fact that it would benefit a large number of Canadians enormously.
No Conservative government, federal or provincial, regardless of the name under which it does business, will do anything that is simply designed to benefit Canadians or Albertans.
If there’s no grift, there’ll be no gift.

Premier promises: UCP’s Caucus Cookie Lady will never use that poop analogy again!
On her free CORUS Radio program yesterday, Premier Danielle Smith swiftly blew off a caller from Lacombe County unhappy about the welcome extended to Alberta’s notorious Poop-Cookie Lady, Jennifer Johnson, by the UCP Caucus.
Ms. Johnson was until last week the “Independent” MLA for Lacombe-Poonoka who infamously compared trans children in school to “a teaspoon of poop in the cookie batch” just before the last Alberta general election, in which she was running as a UCP candidate.
It’s long been said in this space that the UCP would invite Ms. Johnson back as soon it could – and now that Conservatives know just how much they can get away with, it has.
“I do not believe that she has changed and I think that you are gonna lose us grass roots conservative voters because you are pandering, pandering to the views of the right-wing extremists in the party,” the woman caller, sounding very earnest, declaimed. “You’re gonna lose us!”
“Well, look,” the premier responded, “I mean, I think the analogy she used was disgusting and said so at the time. … She has demonstrated genuine remorse for the language that she used. She will never, ever, use that analogy ever again.” (Emphasis added.)
There was more gaslighting, but that’s about all I can stand to transcribe. Readers who are gluttons for punishment can listen for themselves to the clip kindly provided by The Breakdown.
Albertans can rest assured, though, that in future all members of the UCP Caucus will find different, more coded metaphors to express their transphobia.
The UCP are disgusting on every level, and they show it so many times. Things such as a good dental support system and a pharmacare program are a benefit. People such as seniors would see positives from this. The UCP are about showboating, and picking fights. These phony Conservatives and Reformers only care about their rich friends, while destroying jobs, and stealing our oil and tax wealth, which Peter Lougheed helped get us. When I thought Ralph Klein was very bad, and I know he was, from what I’ve seen him do, and because even someone else who I remember responding to this blog had said the same thing, because they knew Ralph Klein and his family, since the early 1960s, I now believe Danielle Smith might be worse. Danielle Smith let Jennifer Johnson come back into the UCP party, because she is trying to save her butt, because there is an impending leadership review for her.
“Just give me my money” Lagrange, the former Catholic school trustee, is opposed to birth control. What a surprise. But diabetes — what does she have against diabetics? Is that a sin, too? Has that woman actually read The Bible (and I don’t mean the King Donald version)? Pretty sure diabetes is not mentioned once.
Pierre Poilievre looks like he’s just rolled out of a Diagolon trailer at the side of a road again. How is it he’s on the fast track to aging despite being younger, while the PM looks younger despite being older?
Well look, just a spoonful of sugar helps Alberta poop cookies go down in the most delightful way.
The U.S. election fever seems to have infected the vulnerable on this side of the 49th.
Abs: Not by name, but perhaps by diagnosis. There’s this, anyway: https://journals.lww.com/chri/fulltext/2019/06030/did_job_in_the_bible_have_flatbush_diabetes.11.aspx DJC
Abs I think you are missing something. He is looking more like how he acts.
Where to start with Pharmacare? Yes, it is a bit under the wire for the Liberals. Although it may outlast Trudeau, if the 40 or more rebel Liberals have their way. Unfortunately their leader does not know how to go gracefully. It will not get easier for him from here on as unfortunately over the last year he has become a lightning rod for too many voters discontent.
However, the Alberta Health Minister’s statement was basically a repeat of what she said before and really adds nothing. It will be up to the next Federal government about what to do with Pharmacare, and while Poilievre has been vague, I am not hopeful.
Interesting that some conservatives are calling into complain about the poop cookie lady. Yes, enough time has passed that this may not do major damage, but sometimes politics is on the margins. So this is exactly the thing that could further put off moderate conservatives, added to a number of other off-putting things Smith and her kooky gang are also doing recently.
I feel just like for the Federal Liberals everything will seem fine for the UCP and then the wheels will fall off quickly. Probably soon after Smith no longer has Trudeau to blame for and distract from all her problems.
Dave: I am skeptical that the lady who called, since old-time Conservative though she may be, much reflects the views of voters in Lacombe-Ponoka. SJC
DJC takes seriously the inclusion of celebrity photographs in his blog. Today’s collection includes Mr. Peepers and his puffy jowls. According to Glasgold Group Plastic Surgery, “The initial hours after receiving Botox are critical for recovery. A mild increase swelling is a typical reaction as your facial muscles adapt to the Botox. It’s important to address these effects properly to ensure a smooth recovery.”
Or has he just swallowed one of Ms. Johnson’s flavourful cookie delights?
Maybe he’s channeling Diefenbaker?
I’m of an age, Paul, that I thought that too. Let’s see if he starts going on about Jack Pickersgill and the Devil. DJC
Well, he can’t cancel the Arrow, again.
But to give the Chief his due. He may have been a fish out of water at times, but there was never any doubt that he was also a Canadian, and worked for what he believed in. The same for Pierre Trudeau. These days I’m not sure about some of our party leaders.
I agree, Paul. DJC
PS: I have seen both Mr. Diefenbaker and the elder Mr. Trudeau with my own eyes. In the case of the Chief, though, he didn’t come over and pat me on the head and tell me I would be prime minister one day, as he apparently did with young Master Jason Kenney. DJC
The thing I find most bizarre these days is that the comments and vile actions that, once upon a time, would have found politicians and people in general left behind in the dust now amount to blips that are easily ignored by those in charge. It’s like black is white and ugly is beautiful.
The United Conservative Party has a 3-P problem: partisan, political and psephological problems—uh—well, I guess, with “problems,” that makes it a 4-P problem. Aw— want the heck, lets’ go for the full-five mitt-full and throw patriotism in there, too because looking a federal pharmacare-program gift-horse in the mouth is all of that, plus not very patriotic, just like quite a number of other things the Smith&Parker Gang say and do about our federation also isn’t. I would go for the poop-cookie for six but let me focus on the first three.
It’s often observed that the UPC is extremely partisan; for example, the party’s founding objective was to undo whatever the preceding NDP government did as a matter of course; or undermining elected municipal governments because urban Albertans tend vote for the Loyal Opposition; or beggaring healthcare for almost purely ideological reasons despite the fact that Albertans want and need a universal public system. Now, partisanship is not a bad thing per se—it is actually essential in developing policy proposals from a particular point of view among like-minded citizens, and in organizing election campaigns. However, we don’t need to list the many evidences that the UCP doesn’t use partisanship to do good public policy. Indeed, its partisanship is such that it does very little good public policy, or, depending on one’s opinion, perhaps none at all.
Politics is getting public policy done. However, the UCP spends much of its time doing what might be called ‘politics of keeping the party together’—which could possibly, depending on one’s own partisanship, elicit some sympathy since considerable tension exists, singing like a tightened guitar-string about to part, between holdovers from the once-powerful ProgCon party, destroyed by Jason Kenney, and the extreme right faction of the Wildrose party which K-Boy also destroyed by forcing the two now-defunct parties together (ex-Wildrosers smarting enough to destroy K-Boy’s political career in return). Whatever sympathies for how hard this high-wire act must be —as the rural Take Back Alberta faction champs at the bit for more and more extreme policies while the dwindling ProgCon faction wonder, like so many erstwhile, largely urban centre-right moderates used to, how long it can hold its nose by remaining ostensibly loyal—, the product for which Albertans pay still isn’t good public policy. And since this is the UCP’s sophomore term, that leaves the province much wanting as the TBA/UCP inmates alternate between untangling or strangling each other with its barely dry umbilicus.
Of course that leads to a basic psephological problem as obvious as the ProgCon defeat after 44 years in power but, with regard the UCP, evident in its near-defeat in last year’s election, the impressive number of dollars donated to the NDP Opposition under its new leader (who happens to be a “purple” bridge between partisanships closely huddled near the centre of the spectrum, and a popular former mayor of one of those city councils the UCP is now trying to poison), and, for that matter, disgruntled conservative-minded voters like the lady who complained to Smith’s phone-in radio show about the “Poop Cookie Lady,” Jennifer Johnson whom Smith just welcomed back into the UCP caucus after booting her out of the 2023 UCP campaign for incendiary remarks she made about trans school kids. Come to think of it, that would have been a rare, psephologically politic move had the UCP’s reputation for ethical flexibility not preceded it. And pundits immediately—and correctly—predicted the punishment was insincere and the Poop Cookie candidate, elected as an Independent, would be invited back into the UCP in due time.
Thus the UCP has plain partisan and political problems which render it psephologically challenged. The Smith&Parker Gang’s pursuit of increasingly unpopular policies appears not to care if it gets re-elected or not, the trail leading back to, naturally, its perversion of partisanship and politics.
Okay, okay—which leads forward to the Poop Cookie Lady—of whom I would say, “That ain’t no lady.”
Alberta’s politics is a case study of how not to do politics —or any of the other Ps—except the last one.
Hold your noses, my Alberta friends, only two-and-a-half more years to go!
Partisan, political, psephological, (un)patriotic … and poop. Never mind the problem, I count 5 Ps.
“Well look” is Trash Can Dani’s short hand for “my hands are tied by the lunatics that control my performance review in November; and I never cared what you thought anyway.” She’s a charlatan in a paper suit blowing in the wind of a thousand insane reactionaries all high on their own supply. The UCP Is a party of losers, incels, hateful bigots and folks who have never left innisfail. This province is a joke.
I forgot to add :
Apparently the alberta advantage is we pay more for everything, and get paid less than everyone else, now that we ONCE AGAIN have the lowest minimum wage in the entire country. Slow clap everyone, we did it ! We created an economic basket case !! Let’s give the EPS another billion dollars to fly drones over whyte ave and snatch addicts off the street but improve the overall quality of life by negative percentages!!! #AlbertaAdvantage #itsAtrap #dontcome
Hahaha! Poo-noka.
ILH: Glad somebody noticed. Debating whether I should spell it that way just this time, or for as long as ms. Johnson is the MLA. DJC
After listening to the audio clip twice, three things struck me.
1. The constituent caller said she was disappointed with Smith’s decision.
2. The caller said she didn’t believe the MLA from Lacombe was sincere after reading reports in the Lacombe Globe.
3. The caller stated that Smith was going to lose conservative voters, like herself, for pandering to right wing extremists.
It was the polite/disappointed/almost timid/slightly pleading/slightly threatening timbre of her voice that struck me.
An intelligent woman, hopefully a kind, thoughtful woman. What does she think she is conserving by voting UCP?
It takes as long as it takes for people to figure stuff out.
Politically, Albertans are willfully backwards.
Wow. What happened to the eternally youthful and extraordinarily buff Skippy Pollivere? It’s like the A.I. screen that been surrounding him the last several months has broken. Shades of the ‘Wizard of Oz’ no doubt. And it appears that TBA is breathing down Queen Danielle’s neck again, and making her do all those weird things that will allow her to keep the premier’s gig she hates so much.
Now that the social-media sphere is abuzz with Kamala Harris heading an appearance on Foxnews (and maybe Joe Rogan’s podcast as well.) it looks like the Democrats in the US have decided to make this contest a knife fight after all. As for the great Orange Hope, he appears to be blabbering to no end. Yes, Trump’s best years are behind him — but he’s not about to admit it.
Instead of answering you question, Just, I’ll just have POGO play some of my favourite tunes while I halfheartedly air-conduct. DJC
PP and family are living in a forest of giant trees now?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GZ4HL7DWAAA6h1q?format=jpg&name=medium
Just Me— the grounds of Stornoway; which despite the ads showing the end of the house at a perspective that makes it look like some quintessential middle class house– eyes roll eye— it doesn’t show the gates leading up to the 19 room mansion: that taxpayers are footing the bill for . Anyone can Google up Stornoway and get the specs, (and see how Mr I’m not an elite is enjoying his second $120.00 (?) Thanksgiving day turkey, compliments of the taxpayers) in those ‘humble’ surroundings.
Once upon a time, the “lake of fire” dude torpedoed Ms Smith’s first crack at becoming Premier. Now she is Premier, and the “poop cookie” woman had no detectable negative impact on her becoming Premier. What does that say about Alberta politics?
On a broader note, progressive parties struggle to get any traction in rural Canada from coast to coast to coast. Canada’s left emerged out of western Canadian agrarian populism in the interwar period of the last century, and until fairly recently New Democrats were able to win seats in rural and small-city Canada in most provinces — Alberta being a prominent exception. Rural Canada has — or, perhaps, had — a communitarian spirit that arises from the need to work together to overcome the challenges of farming in a sub-Arctic northern climate and to band together to resist the pressures of wealthy corporations, like the banks, the railways, and the agricorps, that increased their costs and limited their returns.
What happened to that spirit? The modern reality that a right-wing party could run a mailbox under its banner in any rural seat you can name and it would be elected by a landslide is no longer limited to Alberta: this is now true in every province at both the provincial and federal levels. (It’s also the same south of the border, where the Republicans have a lock on less-populated parts of the country, while Democrats seem only able to be elected in big cities).
Does anyone truly understand why parties of the left are so unattractive to rural — and “rurban*” — voters?
*I’m using this term, “rurban”, to refer to the populace of smaller cities where rural sensibilities predominate despite their urban characters — places like Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Grande Prairie.
Why are the non-fash parties so unpopular in rural areas! It’s because the population of the rural areas is white; they hate and fear anyone who isn’t.
I have recieved an email from Alberta Health for setting up a MyAHS account, as have many others. I did not solicit this e-mail. Therefore, I will not be clicking on the links provided. I will be following the instructions as provided in the e-mail. Please beware.
Well, I guess this isn’t such a good time to be a rural UCP supporter who used contraceptives, or has diabetes. I suppose Alberta rural folks like to pay out of pocket for those meds, when people in other provinces will get them for free.
Keep voting UCP and keep losing benefits all other Canadians enjoy.
Impo— the diabetes part of this is just going to be “collateral damage ” , to the main issue which is
FREE CONTRACEPTIVES ….
This goes against the “we want to ‘produce’ more babies— (drump) , family values (Skippy)
the latest from the Rustad policy platform ” women’s health, 2 free IVF treatments, 1 mth off for miscarriages ,etc. ”
Add in the ‘Catholic’ bias **, the Talibangelist attitude and Parker’s ad nauseam about what women should be doing and there’s the answer, as I see it.
(**I was raised in a Ukrainian catholic family, we evolved(?): contrary to the regressive conservative party. )
(?) Cold meds for stuffy nose and head….
Sidebar— ‘way’ back when we were kids on the farm, when someone did something “crazy/ idiotic” there was always the the threat that if you didn’t stop you would end up being sent to ‘Poonoka’ (lol)…….just saying