It’s lot of work to destroy a well-established and popular public health care system, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems to have recognized that reality with her cabinet shuffle early this afternoon.
Instead of one minister of health, assigned the Herculean task of rubbishing the system, plus a minister of mental health and addiction to implement the province’s abstinence-based approach to addiction, there will now be four!
That is, one for each silo in the United Conservative Party’s new fragmented and excessively bureaucratic health care structure – which illustrates, as has been observed here before, that above all her other bad policies, wrecking public health care and smashing Alberta Health Services to smithereens is Premier Smith’s hill to die on.
So former health minister Adrianna LaGrange has seen her portfolio reduced to something called primary and preventative health services – that is, presumably, making life more difficult for physicians and keeping a thumb on public health activities, especially where vaccines are involved. Sounds like it was starting to sink in to the premier, though, that Ms. LaGrange despite her loyalty was becoming a liability.
Meanwhile, former jobs minister Matt Jones will become minister of hospital and surgical health services, also known as acute care; Jason Nixon will have assisted living added to his social services responsibilities; and Rick Wilson will switch from Indigenous relations to the ministry of mental health and addiction.
Moving on to a few of the others, Grant Hunter, the MLA for Taber-Warner in deep south Alberta best known for comparing the NDP to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and visiting Coutts in 2022 to lend his support to the convoy blockaders, was named the associate minister of water, whatever that means. Ensuring there’s enough of it, selling it to Americans, or assuring southern Alberta ranchers that coal mining residues in the stuff are no problem? Hard to say. The government’s news release offered no explanation.
Myles McDougall is new to cabinet as minister of advanced education. In 2020, the MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek apologized for controversial Facebook posts that he admitted were “racially insensitive and offensive, particularly to the Black and First Nation communities.”
Demetrios Nicolaides will have child care added to his portfolio and will get new business cards saying minister of education and childcare. This makes a certain kind of sense, seeing as the UCP seems to view public education as babysitting and little more. Certainly not, you know, much to do with education.
The former addiction minister, Dan Williams, becomes minister of municipal affairs, replacing Ric McIver, whose shuffle over to the Speaker’s chair announced three days ago and the end of the spring legislative session yesterday were described in the news release as the proximate causes of the shuffle. So presumably Mr. Williams won’t be asked any more questions about health care contracts.
Former tourism minister Joseph Schow becomes the Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade, and Immigration, replacing Mr. Jones. Former leadership candidates and advanced education minister Rajan Sawhney becomes minister of Indigenous relations.
I’m sure there will be more to say, probably much more, about these appointments and the others later. But that’s it for now.
Does this mean all these folks get the extra cash that comes with a cabinet post for the next 5 months before the legislature resumes sitting? You don’t suppose Marlaina is trying to buy loyalty? Or distract from the Corrupt Care scandal? Or the backlash to her harebrained support of the separatist nutjobs? Or the controversy over her husband and the gravy train project? It sickens me that we paying these people to destroy public healthcare and education.
UCP…….Useless Corrupt Pathetic…….as we continually witness the erosion of public institutions by the Corporate Machine and Ditchbilly class…..both need a tune up in order to protect Albertan best interests…….todays wealth transfer is a ticking time bomb……
Certainly giving credit to wrecking the health care system could not be given just one MLA, let’s see how many more can jump onto this bandwagon. The trouble is once the privatization is in place it becomes almost impossible to go back, even though operating in house is far more effective and costs way less. The way I see it, the UCP has run out of MLA’s with enough skill to run any of the departments. Remember LaGrange screwed up education, then was shifted to Health where she was even worse. Sadly Smith is going to run a whole bunch of things right into the ground before we can have an election to get rid of her.
Let’s remember former health minister Jason Copping said the deal to transfer control of lab services to DynaLIFE would save up to $36 million.
In a few months DynaLIFE lost a Alberta Labour Relations Board Ruling, needed a bailout and a funding increase that basically ate up the expected savings, triggered a public outcry over long wait times, and was taken back over by Alberta Health Services (AHS).
And left us with its debt, an additional $66 million.
And the UCP believes privatization saves money.
Divide and Conquer.
Shuffling deck chairs on HMSmith’s Titanic. The worst part will be that for all the talk about saving money through efficiencies, neither will happen. Think $100M to save $40M at Alberta Lab Services. Nah, these buffoons will declare that the new PM give AB $1B or else they will separate from Canada. Wait, we’ve threatened Carney/ Canada with that already!? Its getting stale to most Albertans, except for the “we want red meat TBA crowd”
This is kind of a strange cabinet shuffle. All they really needed to do was replace McIver and in my opinion Health Minister LaGrange. Yes, the rest were not stellar, but hey you have to work with what you got.
So Smith has made it into a much bigger shuffle of the deck chairs, which makes health even more disjointed and confusing. I suppose it sort of matches the rest of the structure and at least Lagrange’s role is diminished. Perhaps that is some consolation at least.
However, for the most part it seems mostly a shuffle of existing faces with a few new additions who do not seem remarkable. I suppose thats what is sometimes done in politics when they get a bit bogged down or tired, a big shuffle to give the appearance of doing something.
Can we please discuss how Mark Carney got attention this week by appointing his cabinet and how dare he steal the spotlight when the premier of Alberta is supposed to be the centre of attention 24/7, so let’s just have a cabinet shuffle to shine the spotlight back on the centre of the universe where it belongs, okay?
Soon the focus will be on some by-elections that apparently there isn’t enough time to select candidates for, or is that a general election because a polling company is rumored to be projecting a big win for the UCP with all these corruption allegations, separatism threats and the rampant spread of measles making them more popular than ever with their anti-vaxx, anti-everything base? Too bad the RCMP won’t allow ditch-camping convoyers to plant their f-f-f-flags this spring, in the annual midsummer nightmare airing of grievances. Imagine trying to seize the attention of the entire world media during the G7. Wouldn’t that be quite a coup? Alas, some of the most experienced agitators have ditched the ditches for the ostriches in B.C. Sigh.
Abs: I agree if the kind of polling you reference continues that the government will find an excuse to go early. Thats said, since the last election was in 2023, it’s probably too early right now. DJC
Abs and David; the convoy idiots are trying their hardest to catch avian flu at an ostrich farm in BC right now and I believe some want to go to the G7. I doubt that they will get past security.
But it sounds like a Michael Crichton thriller showing how the next pandemic starts.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/05/16/BC-Ostrich-Farm-Far-Right-Crusade/
@sisuvanhell has been following this in detail:
https://x.com/sisuvanhell/status/1923897789257482546
Val, RE: Ostriches.
I’m trying to figure out for what purpose someone has 200 ostriches.
Generally, anyone with a herd that size of anything is raising them for farming…feathers, eggs, meat, milk, whatever.
One of the sad facts about farming is that when disease strikes, you have to be willing to sacrifice the infected not only for the good of the herd but because…in this case, if ducks *gave* the disease to the ostriches, what is to stop the same wild ducks from being infected again and spreading disease wherever they go? If the infection lives in the soil, grass and other areas, there are tons of other non-farm animals running back and forth and spreading contagion, everywhere.
I feel for them, I do. They probably DO care a great deal about the ostriches, given how long they live but I have to ask, “why are there ostriches in Canada if not for some kind of profitable farming enterprise?”
Nobody has 200 animals, for pets. It’s expensive. Something is off about their story here–and I think that part requires further inquiry.
Abs:
I am so *with* you on this.
There’s millions of political stories on air yet massive global oxygen is sucked up by these two chaos demons who can’t shut up for a single day. I mean seriously, why would some American McDonald’s worker care about another story about Dixie Dani and in what way does that even impact their life? Most can’t even find Canada, never mind Alberta, on a map.
Orange Mussolini insulted another world leader? In the end–will that really make a difference?
The constant garnering of outrage is a tactic. See this? Then you aren’t looking at *that*. This is why clickbait is killing our ability to fight back, effectively.
Doesn’t the government save the Friday afternoon of a long weekend for announcements they really don’t want anyone to notice?
Bob: Yes, although I think in this case they’d like us to notice, just not to look too closely. DJC
Okay, wait, whut?
The minister for Aboriginal Affairs is now the Mental Health and Addictions minister and there is no Aboriginal Affairs minister? Anybody else see the problem with that and the implications? *Adding more ministers*–aren’t conservatives allergic to that?
Democracies are inherently unstable. It’s why they need constant nourishing. Public engagement including protests, evil-doers nailed with ethics violations, a great deal of forensic accounting, etc etc.
But when an elected official is actively *causing* massive de-stabilizaton for a whole country? That’s either their plan–or a hidden agenda including them as either front-runner or dupe.
It isn’t random.
I don’t know *what* Dani actually thinks. I only know what she says. And her last rambling tweet on twitter (in fact I have little respect for any politician who does politics via twitter as there is no upside) looks unhinged.
I keep asking “who benefits?” and most folks think, O&G. True, they are villains. But corporations don’t benefit during chronic instability until the end game…so I have to ask “could this be corporate warfare and we peons are caught in the crossfire?” and “what’s the end game here by causing the whole country to uproar in outrage?”
I don’t think we’re going to get the full truth of this for awhile.
Sooner or later, some little scrap of (what may appear to be insignificant at the time) info will give the game away.
Keep digging DJT!
B: Rajan Sawhney is now minister of Indigenous relations. DJC
DJC:
That joke writes itself.
Just sayin’
Well I must admit I am a two trick poney! The epiglottis and the sternum. Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/wT_n4Khmq0o
Not a whole lot of talent to choose from, apparently. This cabinet shuffle reads like a who’s who list of who(?). These guys went from shoveling the shit on the farm to shooting the shit as power players. Such is politics in Alberta. I suppose this means instead of one major lawsuit against one health minister we can soon look forward to four major lawsuits against four health ministers. Cheers to us!
Firth:
Hey, I wish we DID have some actual family farmers. At least most of them know how to balance a budget, know how subsidies work and how detrimental it is to crush family businesses, how easily working people can be hurt on the job requiring healthcare and when regular people will suffer from a corporate policy.
What’s actually running our governments are mostly various corporate suits/pantsuits and high-flying corporate lawyers looking to gain executive positions when they eventually find themselves job-seeking after a lost election. The hacks mired in a system where they have the most to gain from investment capital, think wages are for peons and unions are an impediment to their plans–not a necessary function in a capitalist society.
This holds true for the most part–even in Alberta.
Whenever some politician yells “FREEDOM!” fight for your life. They never complete that sentence as in…”Freedom *from* what? Freedom *to do* what? Freedom *for* whom”?
Apparently, to carry the water for the smoke generator, that is the one who is wise in her own conceit, is a much sought after position. And knowing which side one’s bread is buttered on and being attentively and studiously obsequious in the political dominance hierarchy means having a steady pay check and avoiding the stress and financial penalty of being sued. HINT:
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-marshall-smith-sues-mentzelopoulos-and-globe-and-mail
Noting, that the people who always positively win in the legal arena are the litigators, on both sides, that make bank representing their clients.
Further, ‘a hill to die on’, suggests potential consequences for pursuing a certain course of action, which further suggests that a significant segment of the population both thoroughly understands and is opposed to the politically and economically motivated ‘restructuring’, that is “The normalization of for-profit health care in Canada is opening the door to rising costs and conflicts.”
https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/the-real-cause-of-the-alberta-corruptcare
“This means that as long as the government is footing the bill, it can pay private providers however much it sees fit, opening the door to governments providing juicy contracts to their friends, even if a less costly option for the same service is available.”
So, where private gain is the only imperative, it is unlikely that the above mentioned lawsuits specifically and the Court more generally will result in any ‘truth finding’ that provides any meaningful details of the real backroom lobbying conspiracies against the public that have enabled and continue to enable the operation of a 21st century capitalist economy in the Province of Alberta.
Further, the details and mechanisms concerning how an ideological political class can be systematically captured and psychologically dominated by special economic interests and the lure of ever increasing wealth that is never satisfied will also likely be left unexplored.
To conclude, be aware of and be wary of the profit seekers, because “The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
I stand by the characterization of health care as Ms. Smith’s hill to die on, Salad. The issue does in fact have the potential to damage her politically and she doesn’t care because she is an ideologue who believes she is on the right side of history and that one way or another it will all fall out to her advantage. DJC
Yes. Apparently it’s been a lifetime dream of hers.
IM CITIZEN: It does look like it.
Anything the UCP touches, they make worse.