Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government just flip-flopped on plans to make health care workers pay for COVID-19 vaccinations and to stop making cabinet ministers file expense claims. So what gives?
On Tuesday, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, which represents health care professions other than nurses and physicians, announced that its recent tentative agreement on a new contract includes free COVID-19 immunizations for members who want them.
“Through advocacy at the AHS bargaining table, HSAA has secured the government’s agreement to make COVID-19 immunizations available at no cost and on a fully voluntary basis for all HSAA members,” the union said in a terse, 87-word news release, which concluded, “more details will be shared by your employer soon.”
Later the same day, United Nurses of Alberta, which represents mainly Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric Nurses, published a statement saying, “Alberta Health Services has informed United Nurses of Alberta that all UNA members employed by AHS and other health care pillar organizations will be provided with the COVID-19 vaccine free of charge.”
“Other health care unions have been informed of the same policy, which the government says will be fully voluntary,” UNA’s statement said.
HSAA President Mike Parker told The Canadian Press his members demanded the change in bargaining and the government extended it to other unions.
This represents a significant and dramatic change in direction for Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP Government, after a Friday the 13th announcement in June saw Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange announce that henceforth, healthy seniors, health care workers, and other Albertans would have to pay as much as $110 a dose if they wanted the vaccine that the UCP’s MAGA base both hates and fears.
The UCP also introduced a hard-to-follow “new approach to COVID-19 immunizations” that would not only make vaccinations more complicated to get and more expensive, but would amount to a vaccine rationing policy that would see the government order 250,000 doses fewer than were administered the previous year.
The policy was excoriated by public health experts and ordinary citizens as dangerous and contrary to public health practice everywhere else in Canada. The government appeared unmoved, claiming it was just acting to eliminate waste – a dubious statement given its own vaccine-suppression efforts the year before.
When media picked up on the union statements Tuesday, the government admitted it had changed course, but didn’t exactly toot its horn about it. A spokesperson for Ms. LaGrange told media that, yeah, it’s true. The only thing the government seemed to want to emphasize was that “immunization will remain voluntary” – an obvious sop to the UCP’s extremely influential anti-vaccine cohort, which is likely to be furious about anything that makes COVID-19 vaccines available to anyone. So far, there has been no news release.
Also Tuesday, the government flip-flopped on its all-but-unannounced Aug. 1 move to stop making cabinet ministers and senior government staff publicly disclose receipts for expenses over $100. When the scheme took effect that day with a discreet public notice and no press release, eight years of expense reports also immediately disappeared from the government website.
There was no news release announcing the course change on Tuesday either, just a statement from another press secretary, this time Finance Minister Nate Horner’s, saying “cabinet recognized the importance of an expense posting policy that achieves both security and transparency,” so the reports would be reinstated with hotel addresses removed as an apparent face-saving gesture.
So what’s up? We’re unlikely ever to be told, so we can only speculate.
It is a fact though, that both the government’s irresponsible and dangerous COVID vaccination policy and its sneaky new approach to big shots’ expenses were vigorously attacked by members of the public at Premier Smith’s rowdy “Alberta Next” town hall that went off the rails in Edmonton on Aug. 15.
It seems off brand for the unfriendly and aggressive response received by Ms. Smith and her separatist road show in the provincial capital to have been enough to get the UCP to change course – albeit without apology or meaningful explanation.
After all, it was in Edmonton, which lately has been seen as a stronghold of the Opposition NDP, whose MLAs hold every riding in the city and some nearby suburban communities too. But maybe the UCP strategic brain trust has received hints of similar hostility bubbling up in Calgary, which could pose a bigger problem for the government.
Or perhaps Ms. Smith feared controversy about COVID-19 and inconvenient expense reports had the potential to distract from her Alberta sovereignty referendum hobbyhorse.
Nobody’s been more effective on the COVID file than Alberta’s health care unions, she must have realized, so maybe this could settle them down.
If it looks like HSAA was able to influence government policy through collective bargaining, so be it – the premier probably thinks COVID vaccines and collective bargaining alike will be out the window anyway the instant she’s president of the Wild Rose Republic, Albertastan, or whatever.
Well, don’t count on that ever happening, but that’s a story for another day.
Whatever the UCP’s motivation, I imagine a lot of Alberta seniors – still facing steep immunization fees and the fear they may not manage to get accepted for a hard-to-find COVID-19 vaccination – must be wondering, “What are we? Chopped liver?”
All the more reason to say to heck with the agenda and speak up about COVID-19 at future Albert Next meetings too.
Apparently, despite her rigid far right policies Smith is for turning here. I feel she probably realized that this was not the time to be so loosey goosey with expense claims. It would not be a good look for the UCP facing a potentially much bigger deficit due to lower oil prices. Their unearned image of fiscal competence could easily be at risk or shattered now.
As for COVID vaccines, perhaps the UCP has realized it is better not to anger too many seniors who vote, some of them for the UCP. So this may be a trial balloon for retreat. If the far right does not get too upset about this then perhaps they will retreat further.
I suspect however the UCP will still take the Trumpian approach to this tactical retreat with no apology, contrition or embarrassment any barely any acknowledgement of the change. They are not ones to learn from or dwell on their mistakes and they will likely soon come up with some good distraction to try make sure Albertans won’t either.
So like her fellow Republicans getting an earful @,their town halls, she throws out a couple of distractory bones and runs to a safe spot…ie: UCP members town hall in Cochrane. The Airdrie- Cochrane constituency is represented by Peter Guthrie, which might make for some more interesting questions from the crowd. Safe is safe, until it isn’t; I guess we’ll have to wait and see/hear since it’s usually no phones allowed.
As for the back track on the expenses , being called out in the Western Standard might have been a message sent out by the return of the Stornoway Squatter: I’m assuming he has to be sworn in (at) again. It’s too bad the petition to have all MPs have a mandatory security clearance hasn’t gone through .
And because it’s never just one thing going on with the UCP, maybe she’s also trying to keep eyes off of Lethbridge, where she’s doing her best Abbott/ Texas impression ( with Mr Nuedorf) and is trying gerry-mandering Alberta version by dividing Lethbridge into 4 districts. The mayor is not impressed. This should be a perfect time for Mr Nenshi to put his best Gov Newson ** strategy to work.
(** the right snowflake meltdown is rather cathartic, as they just don’t understand what’s happening….lol)
Speaking of lol, apparently Jeffrey Rat(h) was on the Ryan Jesperson show and is quoted as saying ” he was out for dinner in Calgary with his wife and daughter, and saw one of the many ‘planned Forever Canadian micro targeted flash mobs where people lined up and stay for 45 minutes and leave.
He proceeded to say that of course they are planned because how can you have all those people sign in only 45 minutes. Whereas their own town halls bring out over 150,00 people. (1500 ?- sounds like Skippy’s numbers).
If nothing else, it seems that Thomas has gotten under his ‘hat’.
And just a final thought on Damien Kurek’s new job as a ‘lobbyist’.
The Lobbying Act of Canada enforces a 5yr prohibition on lobbying activities for designated public office holders after they leave their positions.
Exemptions can be granted by the commisioner— as yet, I have not heard of any such exemption. So if his salary was to be commiserate with the MP salary, he’s going to be a $200k @yr office boy for the next 4 yrs until he can run in BR-C ..again?
Must be nice work if you can con it.
We’ll know more when the once and future president of Albertastan starts telling Alberta museums to toss their collections because they’re too woke. Can you believe they have dinosaur bones?
Abs– if they got rid of the million+ yr old dinosaur bones, it’s alot easier to sell the story of Adam and Eve, and if you want everything positive and uplifting, well they’re going to have to do a reboot on their bible, unless that’s what he’s selling in his new one .
Biggest irony–“positive attitude”– from the most angry negative people I’ve ever come across. The expression ‘mad dogs & Englishmen’ has been purloined by the Cons as a motto.
Personally, I think they just should have started a conspiracy theory that those bones are just from big cows, and the ony reason we thing they are from dinosaurs is the Deep State and Big Archaeology. DJC
LMAO– it’s ironic that when you can take the most nonsensical story, add a Q-tip to it, and it goes in one ear and out the other and comes out as facts to the Ditchbillies.
Those aren’t big cows, they were “really” really big buffalo.
The dinosaurs are just fake plaster casts. Nowhere in the bible does it state that God made dinosaurs. They wouldn’t have fit in the ark if he did; unless they got left behind and got washed off the edge of the earth in the great flood. Hmmm??
Some of rural Alberta’s biggest tourist attractions are dinosaur museums. There’s the Royal Tyrell in Drumheller, of course, and there’s also the less well-known Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum in Wembley, just 20 minutes west of downtown Grande Prairie along Highway 43 to BC.
Going after those museums would be attacking their own rural base’s tourism industry.
https://dinomuseum.ca/
“Don’t have to file expense claims”??!!
This is how government corruption is rooted out. It’s how we know when politicians are receiving illegal gifts as bribes (where’s the cost of that plane ticket? how did you pay for that Mercedez?) plus it’s how taxpayers know how their own money is being spent by those who are supposed to be public servants.
News Flash: Taxpayers should not be on the hook for your vacation to Bali.
When you work in a job, you hand in your expense accounts to your employer so they know what you spent on the company dime and you can be fired if you wasted their money on frivolities or took bribes from their competitors.
In public service, this is even more important.
What I want to know is how much in American and corporate bribes are hiding in there because that might blow the lid off the entire separatist movement, the move to privatize health care, the constant pushing of Big Oil and any number of other scandals plaguing the Alberta government.
No surprise why Dixie Dani’s cohorts need to cut off that source of public information. It’s exactly how the USA turned into a kleptocracy.
How about that AHS corrupt-care scandal, eh?
Great column, DC. Moving from COVID to measles, see today’s article in the Globe and Mail reviewing newly released government emails on the growing measles outbreak. The UCP government is a big part of the problem: “The documents, obtained through a freedom of information request, offer the most detailed illustration yet of the early days of Alberta’s measles outbreak and how the government impeded some health officials’ efforts to stop it.” One document quoted in the article reads: “Until further notice, all presentations given to an external audience will require the minister’s approval.” The minister is of course, the minister for preventing health, Danielle Smith loyalist Adriana LaGrange.
“On Tuesday, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, which represents health care professions other than nurses and physicians, announced that its recent tentative agreement on a new contract includes free COVID-19 immunizations for members who want them.”
So how about the Health Sciences Association opens up its membership to the public — a special category called “Non-contributing Members at Large” — and that way the sane citizens of Alberta who understand the value of vaccines and the wisdom of public health policy don’t have to pay for their COVID-19 booster?
That way, Premier Danielle Smith can save face, pretend that she is saving anti-vaxxers from deadly vaccines that “don’t work particularly well”, and glower down with her Grinch frown upon unwashed Albertans from her perch atop the Legislature (see photo above).
My brightest ideas come to me early in the morning before I wake up.
Alas, so very befuddled group is this UCP!!
Need to add the other headline about this ‘government’ considering solar installations at provincial prisons to help lower costs of power!! But not for the rest of us, just like vaccinations for the rest of us!
Sadly for them [and us], the wheels of reality just won’t play by their rules.
Even before their lame attempt to hide their expense reports, the UCP treated taxpayer dollars as a bottomless travel fund used primarily to escape cold Alberta winters for free vacations in warmer climes. Can you imagine the abuse if this coverup goes through? The corruption of the UCP doesn’t seem to bother most Albertans, so I wonder why the expense report policy was reversed.
I think the “corruption of the UCP” does bother Albertans. If not now then in the not so distant future. We live in uncertain times. If the economy were to tank and people became aware of the money MLAs had spent on themselves, it could be enough to toss them out of office in the next election. It isn’t that difficult to track an MLA or government official if you want to. A nice list of where some one went during difficult economic times could undo the political aspirations of more than a few politicians.
The policy may have been reversed because some one might have thought of a method to force the information to be made public, even if a group lost their court case its not good optics to refuse to release information regarding money spent by politicians.
Just saw on CBC news that Albertans can get their COVID shot in B.C. free of charge. Some sort of agreement which was signed in the past. Perhaps the NDP in BC pointed out the error of Dani’s ways. If medical staff had to travel to B.C. for a free vaccine, they could decide to stay.
Electability and outright shame are the only actions which this UCP government reacts to – not because of an ounce of integrity or apology. What we are seeing is a MAGA approach to governing – assault , fear, division and cruelty, not a conservative approach to governing.
Coincidentally like Mr. Pounder, being a reliable insomniac, I come up with my best ideas and theories in the very wee hours of the night. I’m guessing maybe Danielle Smith is part of our club as well. This is where her musings on future policies come from, and also her, “Look, yada yada … ” bizarre defenses of them originate.
When they hit the light of day however, the strings of logic that hold these deranged policy ideas together evaporate like the Wicked Witch of West when she comes in contact with water. I think this is what’s happened with her two recent deranged “initiatives”. My guess is Smith’s plan to obscure gifts and expenses of her cabinet ministers was to keep them at heel and buy their loyalty; like her finding cabinet positions for most of her caucus after her election and then giving them chunky raises, “transitional” allowances, and a 14% increase in housing allowances to boot. The policy to cover up their “gifts” and expenses however, was too brazen for even the likes of the Western Standard. There ain’t no way to put lipstick on that pig! How do you spell c-o-r-r-u-p-t-I-o-n?
It also dawned on me that messing with the Covid vaccine accessibility (and influenza vaccine roll- out as well) is perhaps not just about appealing to Smith’s anti-vax base. The fall-out of these policies, as in higher numbers of mortality among the senior population, wouldn’t be such a bad thing in her attempt to steamroll the Master Agenda of “sovereignty” and grabbing Albertans’ CPP.
Having signed up to canvass for signatures for Thomas Lucaszuk’s “Forever Canadian” petition, I noticed that by far the majority of signers who do NOT want to separate from Canada are seniors. Other canvassers have noted that as well. At our (advertised) event at a small town farmers’ market, where we got almost 200 signatures in two hours, we had three very elderly fellows come just to sign the petition. Two were brought by family members and one who was in his 90’s, drove himself. Veterans, legionnaires, retired farmers. Many people expressed anger that we are having to go through this, that the UCP are posing direct threats to our country through their push for secession. I was reading on one of the volunteer social media sites that the seniors lodges are asking canvassers to come, and seeing photos of them putting on tea parties for them in appreciation.
The unions dumped water on Smith’s plan to restrict health care workers (of all people) from protecting themselves with Covid shots before the next viral wave hits. They laid bare her absolutely indefensible position. When you’re in labour negotiations there is no way to spin the kind of B.S. she deals out. She probably calculated she needs some health care workers- at least to staff the private surgical facilities. But, does she need seniors lining up to sign anti-separation petitions?
Unlike the jibberish and word salads that pass for rationale from Danielle Smith’s “viewpoint”, this theory of mine definitely holds water.
Wikipedia: “The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character in the classic children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by the American author L. Frank Baum, is the evil ruler of the Winkie Country, the western region in the Land of Oz. She is inadvertently killed by the child Dorothy Gale with a bucket of water.”
Betts— if a bucket of water does the trick—- na na na na bouch!!*
(* For the y’ung uns– Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In)
I’m not surprised seniors are signing the petitions. At 75 I clearly remember the lack of vaccines when polio struck. When I started grade one, one of the other girls’ mother was in a wheelchair and her Dad had died, all due to polio. A vaccine had not been developed yet. People of my age may also remember a time when there was no provincial medical and if the parents didn’t have money to pay for doctors or had insurance through your employer you were S.O.L.
It wasn’t just the woman at the microphone, a good 25% of the attendees started yelling at Smith over vaccines. That’s what prompted her “it’s not bullshit” meltdown. We got under her skin.
I’m waiting to see what comes out the upcoming town halls, especially Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Airdrie and Calgary. If those get fractious, Smith will probably reverse course. Especially if it’s one of the smaller municipalities plus Calgary.
And that photo actually was an under representation of the number of seniors and senior adjacent in the crowd – it was more like 2/3 of attendees. The demographic that votes.
My guess is after doing some speedy polling the goofy government found that the crowd really did reflect Albertans views and on the two issues, hence the clumsy climb down. Now all that is needed are a crowd of raging grannies for the next townhall to end the online vaccine mess. And the public to get onside.
I’m a senior who has lived in Alberta for over 50 years. What about me and people like me? How do we get free access to our COVID vaccine? I’m beginning to think Batshit would rather me and those like me just pass away like the useless eaters that we are.
You and me both, Athabascan, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the way Ms. Batshit feels about most seniors, especially those of us who would prefer to hang onto their Canada Pension Plan. The UCP wants to punish someone for the pandemic, and it looks like it’s us, since the only way we can punish them back is by withholding our votes and they reckon we’ll all either be dead or have forgotten everything by the time they get around to calling an election. There are a couple of regular commenters to this blog who feel that Alberta seniors are just too stupid to be allowed to vote and, I must admit, there are days when I think they may be right. DJC
The Western Standard and CBC News both published articles indicating Alberta posted an $8,300,000,000.00 (8.3 billion dollar) fiscal surplus at 2024 year end.
Premier Smith says the covid shot will be charged to each Albertan out of pocket.
Except for a select few.
Is she pandering to her donors, to her base voters? It sounds a lot like she just hates, and I mean hates, the government in Ottawa.
The “gee, we just can’t afford it here in Alberta” doesn’t fly.
Hello J. I said just that in a sarcastic “contact the premier” message the day the surplus was announced:
(posted to https://www.alberta.ca/premier-contact.cfm on 27 July:)
“Hey Danielle! Nate’s bragging about having $8.3 BILLION extra cash–and that’s $2.5 BILLION more than you guys thought you’d have. Now that you’re rolling in cash, you have no excuse to ration Covid vaccines. Pretend you’re being generous, and reverse this stupid policy of skimping on vaccines.
“Hey–you better set some of that extra aside, to pay for emergency-room visits by the anti-vaxxers in southern Alberta who voted you into the Premier’s office. They’re gonna get mad if they have to pay out of pocket, and Justin’s not around to blame anymore.”
I’m certain it didn’t do a bit of good, but it sure FELT good to click on “submit.”
Ditzi Danni surely isn’t appealing to her base as Covid is more likely to kill the very young (non-voters) and in her mind irrelevant.
It is also more likely to kill those 65 plus. These are the Albertans most likely to vote for the UN Canadian Party, I might think. Perhaps if they see Ditzi Dani as aiding and abetting their permanent departure, they may decide to assist in sending the UCP to the miden of history as a token of distaste for the Party’s novel eugenics methods.
Watching the UCP mind its ‘P’s and ‘Q’s is like watching balls of mismatched wool being blindly consumed by a herd of innumerate cats with needles who can’t keep count of their knits and purls. One prefers the nauseam of aesthetic anaesthetic to explications of why buttonholes are required in the resulting scrolls of political toilet paper—otherwise there’s no help for it.
Already observed are the facts that the UCP regularly tests misguided policy missiles without recording range, resulting damage or psephological effect, and that it is basically unpatriotic and unconstitutional; but this latest, typically inconcealable (despite every effort) recantation of the hotly topical decision to charge citizens for Covid vaccinations should equally put to bed any question that Danielle Smith’s government is also politically gormless.
What saves the Smith&Parker Gang from being branded totally politically bereft is the superficial illusion that securing a contract with the province’s nurses and other healthcare professions vis a vis their respective bargaining unions is good public policy —but that ignores the larger context of the UCP’s ideological sabotage of universal pubic healthcare which has brought this vital service to the brink in Alberta: not appeasing these workers by including free Covid vaccinations in contract negotiations might hasten the system’s complete collapse at an unpropitious time for the party—although, as mentioned, the UCP isn’t much noted for psephological caution. Think of this settlement as ‘transactional’, ‘in-the-moment’, and completely ‘tactical’ rather than cleverly strategic. It reminds of a certain foreign government nearby.
Psephology is essentially the science of elections, or of getting elected—or re-elected. A governing party’s implementation of unpopular polices early in its mandate, for example, is a common psephological tactic that relies on the electorate’s infamously short political memory, and/or on the probability that voters will have forgotten the taste of bitter medicine early in the term by the time the next election rolls around three or so years later, and remember only the sweetness of late-term policy ‘cookies’ psephologically designed to be most-memorable whilst one ponders the ballot in hand. Put to the test, how does the Smith&Parker Gang measure up?
Assuming the Take-Back-Alberta faction which supported Danielle Smith’s noted anti-vaxxerism and her successful party leadership bid controls slightly more than half of the UCP, assuming the UCP is supported by about half of the Alberta electorate, and presuming the Loyal Opposition NDP stands a fair chance of winning the next election even by a small margin, it is a fair question whether the cost of excluding or frustrating ordinary citizens from getting Covid vaccine while allowing it for healthcare workers only because they might otherwise alert citizens to the precarious condition of their medical services is psephologically worth it. Simply considering that ordinary citizens already know their public medical system is under attack, and by whom it is, suggests that, no, it is not psephologically worth it. And considering how many hyperbolic custard pies the UCP is juggling at any given moment, we are reminded once again of the tRumpublican modus operandi necessitated by 100% tactical and zero % strategic policy-faking and of Smith’s blithe, Peewee Herman-like snook-cocking at her critics, at the peels of laughter because of her patently pathetic bituminous-obsequiousness, and the painful parasitism of the petro-pathogen that is the TBA/UCP in public office.
From this perspective it’s hard to tell if the tumultuous Edmonton ‘town hall’ was an embarrassment for Smith’s corralled chauvinists or an attempt to flatter by perfunctory imitation of tRumpublican congresspeople being raked over the coals at their own town halls— even in supposedly tRumplican Red States. In any event, backsliding, moving the goal posts, stacking the deck, and rearranging the deck chairs is par for the course when sextant and compass have already been checked overboard.
@Scotty
{{{cLaP, cLaP, aPplaUsE aPplaUse}}}
Stephen Leacock salutes you, sir!
@Scotty
Here’s my from in the room perspective: it was an embarrassment. A huge one. The jeers to cheers ratio was markedly jeers every time Smith opened her mouth. I spent a large part of the event watching her face & body language (that picture even captured me doing so).
If the clown party tried to stack the event, they failed miserably. The body language of her sheeple was a major tell. They wore that sullen, just got severely chastised look, for almost every speaker at the microphones. So for most of the night. Even when their cult leader spoke, they were usually out shouted.
In summary: it was a very real coal raking.
The UCP government claims that due to the millions of dollars worth of COVID shots wasted last years, they now have to charge for shots this year and make them available in medical facilities only. First of all, should the public be penalized because someone in the health ministry screwed up when ordering? I wonder if its the functionary who ordered the “Turkish Tylenol”? Secondly, as Dr James Talbot has pointed out, no evidence or information has every been presented to validate the government’s claim that millions of dollars worth of vaccine was actually discarded. Perhaps we should simply accept the government’s word for it. It’s not like they have ever lied to us (LOL)!
i’m sure the brother’s & sister’s in the union’s in scope of the paid vaccination announcement, are thrilled with the thought of longer or additional shifts, consequential from those who volunteer to remain unvaccinated and remain off work when they contract the disease with increased severity of symtoms.
On the expenses flip-flop, I think the real driver of that was probably that the call was coming from inside the house: they were getting flak from their ideological allies, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Normally fellow travellers of every conservative party in Canada, they called out this hiding of expenses and receipts, and the UCP brainless trust listened.
As for me, I still don’t think they should be redacting the names of hotels used by travelling politicians. If a northern Minister stays at the Banff Springs instead of a more mid-market lodging, or any Minister goes to Victoria and stays at the Empress instead of the Best Western, Coast or Days Inn, don’t we have the right to know that?