Had the United Conservative Party’s John Middleton-Hope won Wednesday’s by-election in Lethbridge-West, one wonders if Health Minister Adriana LaGrange would have invited him along yesterday to help her make her long-overdue announcement of the government’s funding agreement with Alberta doctors?
Alas for the UCP, Mr. Middleton-Hope was not the winner of the by-election. The Alberta NDP’s Rob Miyashiro was, so Premier Danielle Smith had to satisfy herself by publishing a longish post on social media congratulating Mr. Middleton-Hope for losing the election.
There was nary of a word of congratulations for the winner, of course, but that’s how the UCP rolls. Alberta Conservatives are poor losers. But it’s always worth keeping in mind that, as Ms. Smith’s government illustrates daily, they’re worse winners!
Ms. Smith’s note congratulating the loser for his loss included this interesting phrase: “While we did not come away with a win, our candidate and the UCP gained a higher percentage of votes than we had earned in the 2023 General Election.”
Let’s pause for a moment to examine this bit of hyperbole:
On Wednesday, Mr. Middleton-Hope captured 44.9 per cent of the vote, an increase of a whopping 2.4 per cent over the 42.5-per-cent accumulated UCP candidate Cheryl Seaborn in the 2023 general election.
By this standard, the UCP would also be entitled to boast that Mr. Middleton-Hope’s tally also topped party standard-bearer Karri Flatla’s 44.3 per cent in the 2019 general election.
Another way to describe this phenomenon, of course, would be to say that no matter how many people vote in Lethbridge-West – 13,561 on Wednesday compared to 22,635 in the 2023 general election – the UCP just can’t seem to get past 45 per cent. There are about 37,000 eligible voters in the riding nowadays.
Indeed, the last time a Conservative candidate got more than that – 48 per cent – the winner was Progressive Conservative Clint Dunford, the premier was named Ralph Klein, and the year was 2001. Mr. Dunford passed away in 2021.
On Wednesday, Mr. Miyashiro, the winner, captured 53.4 per cent of the ballots cast, compared with the 53.9 per cent taken by former MLA Shannon Phillips in 2023 – so, a Conservative might argue, this was a percentage loss almost as huge as the increase posted by Mr. Middleton-Hope!
Pay deal for family docs is finally official – almost
Getting back to Ms. LaGrange’s announcement, the deal agreed to by the government and the Alberta Medical Association, which bargains collectively for the province’s physicians, will provide a new payment option to family docs who have a full-time practice with 500 or more patients. It is expected to increase pay for many physicians.
This may in fact make it a little easier to recruit more doctors to Alberta.
The big mystery that went unacknowledged in the government’s press release yesterday is why a deal has that was first announced by the government on April 17 has been sitting on a desk in the provincial Treasury Department for almost long enough to bring a baby to term while AMA leaders pleaded with the government to sign and implement what they’d agreed to.
“This agreement should have been done back in May when the premier promised it would be signed within a couple of weeks,” NDP Health Critic Sarah Hoffman remarked yesterday.
Speculation has been that the government didn’t want to reveal anything that might impact ongoing negotiations with other health care workers such as nurses, medical technologists and care aids, not to mention civil servants, municipal employees, schoolteachers and other education workers. An additional $250 million a year for physician compensation might well have an impact on their demands.
The agreement still hinges on the willingness of a minimum of 500 doctors to take part in the new funding formula, so while the deal is done, it’s not really a done deal just yet.
UCP claims Chief Actuary’s CPP pullout estimate is missing
According to a political aide to Finance Minister Nate Horner, a report by the Chief Actuary of Canada on the UCP’s scheme to pull Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan is missing an estimate of how much the province would be entitled to get from the CPP’s huge investment fund.
“We received their interpretation of the legislation, but it did not contain a number or even a formula for calculating a number,” the CBC quoted press secretary Justin Brattinga saying yesterday.
Just a suggestion, but before we all freak out, perhaps someone should put in a call to the office of Chief Actuary Assia Billig to see what’s going on.
There has been, for one thing, some stuff taking place in Ottawa in the past few days related to federal government financing, and the finance minister who asked the Chief Actuary to deliver the report is no longer on the job.
Moreover, even without a need to replace a federal finance minister in a hurry and deliver a financial update, the week before Christmas seems like a peculiar time for the Chief Actuary’s estimate to have been expected by the province.
One thing that can be safely assumed is that with or without the Chief Actuary’s full report, the UCP’s estimate that Alberta, with about 11.5 per cent of Canada’s population, is owed 53 per cent of the CPP fund is both preposterous and obviously politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the UCP continues to refuse to provide any details of what the 94,000 Albertans who filled out the government’s flawed online survey last fall on replacing the CPP with an Alberta pension plan had to say. It’s not hard to guess why.
The Sovereignty Act: Sound and fury, signifying nothing
If you have time this holiday season, it would be well spent reading the latest post on the University of Calgary Law Faculty’s blog, in which Professor Emeritus Nigel Banks and Assistant Professor Martin Z. Olszynski examine the Smith Government’s use of its Sovereignty Act to try to try to derail the federal greenhouse gas emissions cap. With a Shakespearean flourish, they find the government’s legal strategy to be “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5, in case you missed the performance.)
“Such motions, even when implemented, can do nothing to better the legal position of the province when faced with federal statutes and regulations with which it does not agree,” the authors conclude. “This is indeed political theatre.”
Alberta: province of sore losers.
While some might see the new funding arrangement with family doctors as being a positive, remember the UCP always seems to have greasy tricks up their sleeves. I have doubts that this is a true token of generosity, but another step down the US style private health care road. Keep in mind that parking at hospitals is not part of the Canada Health Act and patients and their families have to pay out of pocket to park there. What I am imagining is the same thing will happen to so called uninsured services like referrals, letters, test result reviews and so on. When the UCP say the old funding model no longer works, and this new model is unlike any other in the country, it is a tip off that privatization and extra charges are in my view on their way!
The timing of this of course fits with the way the UCP usually announces things, on a Friday before a long weekend, of just before Christmas where most people have other things on their minds and hopefully don’t pay too much attention.
Up is down, down is up here in UCPland. The loser is the winner. Don’t congratulate the winner. Be a poor sport. As I recall, the winner graciously thanked the loser for his participation in this race.
Were there any numbers in the report from the chief actuary? Who knows? The UCP won’t show us the letter and the media either haven’t called her or couldn’t reach her. We’ll have to take the UCP’s word for it. They wouldn’t lie, would they? One might think that even without actual numbers, the information in the letter might be instructive. Did it mention pounding sand? Or did it simply defer the subject to 2025?
Well, a new year is on the way. Turn that frown upside down, Premier Smith, before you can’t Botox it away. Your guy in the White House won, so don’t be so glum. That should make your life easier, amirite?
You are right. With Smith, we have no Hope!
That is too funny! Smith is extolling moral victories in the Lethbridge West by-election. As for congratulating the UCP candidate for coming second, Smith should remember, like in Olympic hockey, you don’t win silver, you lose gold.
Since Mr. Horner is reluctant to say how much he thinks the province would be entitled to get from the CPP’s investment fund, he might ask his fellow Albertan and PM in waiting, the affable Mr. Peepers. He in turn could consult with the bulk of his caucus, Ontario MPs. Would they be happy to give Alberta whatever it wants? Likely they would tell Mr. P to fold the proposal five ways and stick it between the cheeks.
Hopefully, this starts a trend of having the UCP eliminated in the 2027 provincial election. The UCP aren’t making Alberta prosperous.
Years now. The UCP has succeeded in undermining at least half the population of the province who reside in cities. Stupidity is their brand!
We have fracked the archives and low and behold, our consortium has unearthed a gem! https://youtu.be/UMVjToYOjbM
Congratulating the loser not the winner seems typical for Smith, who some have said is not always in touch with reality. Some have also said the UCP can often be petty and mean spirited. Well, I suppose at least they are consistent. I don’t feel the small vote shift from the previous election is anything to crow about, but I suppose their well paid communications people had to come up with something.
At least they have come up with something for our long suffering doctors, who were suffering in large part due to the UCP messing around with their pay previously. This is how they govern – they make a mess, they clean it up and try to make it seem like progress. But perhaps instead of focusing their red tape reduction on others, they need to look at themselves. Why should something that was announced in April should take until now?
Of course, despite their own slow pace they expect a faster one from the Feds on CPP. Although I have a feeling when they do get an answer, it will not be the one they want – cue the predictable outrage, Smith will probably huff and puff some more then. But in a way its ok if she keeps going on about taking over the CPP, it really turns off a lot of people who would otherwise lean towards supporting the UCP, including a lot of older voters and retirees who have concerns about how well their pension funds will be managed.
Despite all the UCP and their communications staff best efforts to spin that Albertans are actually ok with their agenda, they really are not and the by-election results show that.
This is a disgusting display of journalism. I fully intend on avoiding your articles in the future. The world needs fair and equivalent facts instead of pushing to divide.
Wish you luck
PJ: Happy not to have you as a reader. Here at AlbertaPolitcs.ca, we try to judiciously weed our readership from time, if only to improve the quality of the commentary. DJC
I’m fed up with this kind of reporting as well. So she tried to give their candidate some encouragement after a loss, big deal. It’s divisive journalism for sure
Gdog: This is a blog, for starters. The Lethbridge West by-election result showed how disgusted voters were with the phony Conservatives and Reformers in the UCP.
Oof more “sound and fury” by the looks of it
Agree 100%. I thought journalists are supposed to be non biased and just reporting facts. We really don’t care about your opinion
Way to let us know that we can’t trust your “stories” and that your work isn’t credible whether Conservative, Non -partisan, Liberal ect.
Not to mention that you have an inflated ego AKA not being able to take criticism
This is a blog. Bloggers opinionate. Our host may be a former professional journalist, but while his stories are always well sourced, they are not journalism in the traditional sense, because he has a well-documented point of view.
As for criticism, he is always welcoming of informed criticism presented with courtesy and respect. He and I have crossed swords on occasion, most commonly on stories about geopolitical affairs rather than provincial politics. But I still read his columns regularly, because they provide intellectual value on the news of the day — even on those rare occasions when I disagree with him.
The bottom line is, if you don’t like what you’re reading here, stop reading it.
D: This is a blog. Can you tell the difference?
Poor Journalism: Your first mistake was not seeing that this is a blog.
When you think about.
What the NDP does for the people of the province of Alberta, with the deficits they like to run.They’re no different than Justin Trudeau up there in Ottawa.I wouldn’t congratulate anybody for winning either.If it was indeed be they’re destructive.
Balanced budgets are a fantasy sold the world by a charlatan , who has a name : it’s Milton Friedman.
THE REASON everything sucks and nothing works anymore is ALL political parties in this country have been taken in by this nonsense. (It’s because economics is terribly boring and PAINFUL to learn about so people prefer pat answers like they got in Sunday school. )
Let me ask you a question, what do you think “balanced budgets” actually achieve? Second question what where they designed for ?
Because for me, someone who has read enough economic theory to want to blow my brains out whenever I see someone using the word “deficit” like this, I see something very specific.
Neoliberal economics has achieved largely two things, the stratification of wealth to levels not seen since pre-revolutionary FRANCE, and the strangulation of government to the level where it can barely provide basic services, let alone challenge this new royalty. Being that what conservatives call “entitlements” are used at a higher percentage by minorities, this has the added effect of negatively impacting whom conservatives have decided are their natural enemies, with often dire consequences in real life. Whether or not you think that’s intentional is up to you, I happen to think that it is.
So that’s what the end result of “balanced budgets” is, and it’s why it’s cruel and heartless. Why it’s meaningless is that it clearly doesn’t work to stimulate the economy, as more and more people struggle to pay for basic things that used to be a given, and give up a lot of the little extras that making a working class life liveable.
I’m not even going to get into why the UCP budget is a farce (outrageous cuts + run away oil prices), but I doubt very much the average UCP staffer could do the books of an average small business, and they want to be trusted with one of the largest economies in the country.
And I’ll say this, economics isn’t the side show of politics, it’s the entire game. If you control how the money flows, and the very idea of WHY, you control everything. It doesn’t matter which party is in power, they’re all playing with your dice.
Clarence Tams: As a regular reader of this excellent blog, I’ll have to correct you. The NDP were in power for a mere 4 years. When the NDP landed in power, they had oil prices that sunk to low levels, the year prior, which was in 2014.
The Alberta PCs were in power for almost 45 years. Peter Lougheed’s excellent legacy was totally ruined by the worst oil and corporate tax rates, an enormous orphan well mess of $260 billion was left for Albertans to contend with, $575 billion was lost from the said bad oil royalty rates, billions of dollars more was wasted on very pricey shenanigans, infrastructure was left in a very bad state of disrepair, while the public healthcare system, the public education system, and social services were all gutted.
Under the UCP, we see more very pricey shenanigans, that cost us millions and billions of dollars, more very bad oil and tax rates, public healthcare, public education, are in a mess, utilities are increasing in costs, poverty levels are rising, and the environment is suffering.
What does this have to do with the NDP?
Here we go:
https://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/en/oca/oca-factsheets-other-reports/chief-actuary-position-paper-subsection-1132-canada-pension-plan
You have heard of Paw Patrol? Someone obviously alerted The Troll Patrol to comment.
Gracious people with manners and class in sports, business, Hollywood films and politics used to congratulate the winner and accept the will of the decision makers. The loser may have deserved an attaboy for having the courage to run in the wolfish politics of today, but the winner deserved a nod from the Premier.
It seems some folks have a lot of class; all of it apparently low.