Is Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government seriously proposing to make anyone who wants an influenza or COVID-19 vaccination next year order it during an unannounced 78-day window that is already 20 days gone and closes on Dec. 15?
Alternatively, are they planning to base the amount of COVID-19 and influenza vaccine they’re expecting to order based on a survey on the government’s website that has not only never been announced but is partly hidden on a vaccine ordering page?
The statement on the government’s BookVaccine.Alberta.ca site reads: “Pre-ordering of vaccines for the 2026-2027 immunization season starts on September 29 and ends on December 15. Vaccines can only be pre-ordered during this period.” (Emphasis added.) You’ll have to start the process of pre-ordering before you will see the message.
A message about pre-ordering vaccines next year but without reference to the tight time frame is also found on low on the MyHealth.Alberta.ca vaccine ordering web page now operated by the Primary Care Alberta administrative silo.
No news release announcing this policy appears to have been sent to media by the government and no memorandum appears to have been circulated to provincial health care employees about it.
When the notices appeared on the booking website is not immediately clear. No one seems to have noticed it until last weekend, and no one in the government seems to have made any effort to draw the policy to the public’s attention.
On Saturday, a sharp-eyed physician spotted the statement on the BookVaccine.Alberta.ca website. “This is inexplicable news to share,” David Keegan posted on the Bluesky social media application. “If in Alberta and you want flu and covid shots for NEXT year (2026-2027), you have only until December 15 of THIS year to order them.”
He continued: “It’s a deliberate choice to prevent as many people as possible from getting vaccinated.
“The ONLY reasons to do this are to get more people infected, overwhelm the public healthcare system, destroy it, and usher in private healthcare. There are zero defensible economic or efficiency reasons to do this. Zero. It’s anti-life.”
I’m not certain that the only explanation is to get people infected, although it’s not hyperbole to say it’s plausible.
It’s also possible that Premier Danielle Smith and her coterie of MAGA enthusiasts in the UCP actually believe that COVID is a fake disease, or is better treated with Ivermectin or something, and deliberately want to suppress the number of people vaccinated to prove their case. But surely even MAGA accepts the reality of influenza!
Regardless, whatever the explanation, if the UCP really intends to proceed with this at the same time they are dismantling the integrated public health care system, it is both bizarre and extremely dangerous.
Clearly Premier Danielle Smith and Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange have some explaining to do.
While we’re at it, where’s our premier on Tylenol, Tylenot and Trump?
Both as a right-wing talk radio host and a politician, Premier Smith has often been quick to jump on the bandwagon of any quack cures and pharmaceutical conspiracy theories circulating through the extensive MAGA information ecosystem south of the Medicine Line.
How long will it be, one wonders, before the premier and her loyalists in the caucus and party take up the claims of her political hero, U.S. President Donald Trump, and his secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that Tylenol causes autism, with a boost from infant circumcision?
With RFK Jr. cast as Alberta’s de facto chief medical officer of health nowadays, in a sense it’s surprising Ms. Smith hasn’t already been all over this opportunity.
One suspects she would have been were it not for that embarrassing $70-million purchase of Turkish Tylenot back in 2022. What in the name of Almighty Trump, many of her most passionate supporters must be now asking themselves, was she buying Tylen-anything for?
So this is exactly what Ms. Smith doesn’t need now that she’s got former Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant’s limited and carefully equivocal conclusions about the acetaminophen purchase and other questionable contracts to let her claim that she, her staff, her cabinet and her caucus did nothing scandalous.
As Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean pointed out in an excellent dissection of Mr. Wyant’s conclusions and the whole dodgy contracts scandal on her Women of ABpoli Substack Saturday, the former judge “did not interview Ministers in place at the time” and “does not specify who refused to sit for an interview or who sat for interviews but refused to answer questions.”
Obviously, we still need a public inquiry. Just as obviously, as long as the UCP remains in power, we’re never going to get one.
Are they still giving out Covid vaccines. I thought the rest of the world has largely ditched it with all vaccine injuries/bad reactions and what not. Despite this there are those who stubbornly persist, getting booster after booster. The Covid vaccine has become the ultimate symbol of benevolent state intervention. As long as the state is ready to act on our behalf all is right with the world.
My gawd the stupid is strong..
David, despite her/his blind spot over Covid vaccines, I find that Ronmac actually has made some interesting and intelligent observations on this site. However, when she /he, gets on the Covid hobby horse and cites studies, I check them out to try to understand what misinformation she/he has fallen for. Usually, the studies are one-offs, not repeated, poorly designed, and/or highly criticized and contradicted. I have concluded that Ronmac’s credulity is likely due to a lack of familiarity with the process of scientific research and research validation.
And there’s no cure for stupid. Not even ivermectin.
Covid has killed 20 Albertans since Aug 24, 2025.
https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans
Probably it killed mostly unvaccinated people.
Covid has killed over 200 between August 24 and Oct 11 2025. And no, it hasn’t killed mostly vaccinated people. And yes, some vaccinated people do get Covid, fewer than unvaccinated, and with milder symptoms. Do the measles numbers not mean anything to you! For 50 years, measles had been eradicated because of the widespread use of vaccines.
Over 200 who? Where did your number com from?
This link shows 168 covid-related deaths in Canada since Aug 24, but since only 9 or 10 of 13 provinces and territories report some data, the total could be higher.
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/respiratory-virus-surveillance/covid-19.html#severity
WTF! I suppose if i were Dave, I would include a comment from a backwards thinking person, who unfortunately belongs to a group that numbers more than one person. Dave, please don’t write about gravity for fear that perhaps the same commenter will dispute its existence.
I don’t think that the MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal saga is over just yet. Danielle Smith is still going to take herself and the entire UCP down.
I spoke with MLA Jackie Lovely out here in enemy territory. I asked her when the UCP would be issuing an apology to Athana Mentzelopolous for the psychological, financial, and moral injury inflicted upon her by certain party members’ misdirected, and deplorable actions.
And her response? Or do we even want to know….
Our rural vet advises, strongly, to keep the dog out of the pasture after the horses have had an annual dose of Ivermectin (worms and all that). Dogs seem to like to ingest (devour, munch upon, eat) horse (you know what) and until the aforementioned Ivermectin has worked its way through the horse and sat undisturbed for at least two (2) weeks, it is lethal to the dog. So, it seems that Ivermectin is not something one would want inside oneself but, who to believe, who to believe . . . the rural vet with many years experience or Mr Kennedy and Ms Smith and their followers. I shall ponder on this.
I owned a horse for 20 years. I’ve talked to multiple vets, and never once did I hear that Ivermectin in horse manure could affect, much less kill, a dog.
I have a riding lesson tonight. I’ll ask my instructor–who owns multiple horses and two dogs on her farm–about this. I’ll report back to you tomorrow.
As for Ivermectin use in humans: during the Covid crisis, when the fake report came out that it “cures” Covid (debunked at the time) journalists reported that Ivermectin can be safely used in humans to treat internal parasites–specifically, roundworms. That’s what Ivermectin’s designed to do.
HOWEVER: 1) lab tests showed no, repeat, NO effect on the Covid virus. 2) Horse dewormer is formulated for horses, not humans, so the dosage per kg is different. Swallow more than a fraction from a tube that can treat a 2,000 lb horse, and you WILL get enough dewormer in you to be toxic. 3) The same reports said that Ivermectin, in the proper dosage, was certified for human use by the US Food & Drug Administration, to treat internal parasistes. At the time 2021, it was not certified for human use in Canada.
If I can find a reference for the above, I’ll post it tomorrow.
Mike: Thanks. That’ll actually be an interesting question to answer. I have had dogs who have eaten chocolate – supposedly deadly to their species – and not only survived, but lived long and prospered, insofar as a dog without a bank account can prosper. Mind you, it was milk chocolate, not the supposedly deadlier dark chocolate. If the news from your riding instructor comes back negative, though, I and many dog lovers will be relieved. And good for you for being brave enough to get up on a horse. It’s a long way down to the ground from one of those things. DJC
“…being brave enough to get up on a horse.” Our Leader of the Official Opposition the adorable Mr. Peepers displayed such courage during his fiercely contested campaign in the Alberta bye-election. As the photo in Alberta Politics proved, despite brandishing a shootin’ iron he managed to keep his balance and didn’t fall off.
True, Tom, but remember those horses were carefully selected by thier owners for calmness, trained to tolerate crowd noise and parades–and to tolerate poor riders. In short, I believe they were very good lesson horses. (A few walk-trot lessons for the Polievres wouldn’t have hurt, either.)
thanks, DJC. I recently started riding again after a hiatus of some years. First time back in the saddle, I did indeed think, “This is higher up than I remembered.” Fortunately, riding arenas have (relatively) soft footing, mostly sand, that’s “groomed” regularly, to cushion the horses’ footfall. It also kinda cushions a human who falls off, as I’ve learned at the cost of some bruising….
Re dogs and chocolate, my sister (who had a series of small dogs) said the same. Apparently there’s one component that’s more concentrated in dark chocolate, which can make dogs sick. In some 30 years of hanging around horse farms, I haven’t seen or heard of a dog eating horse poop; honestly, I’d have thought they’d rather roll in it. The mind boggles….
Hi Cecil. I asked my riding instructor about dogs and ivermectin, and she said you were right. (Thank you for that; you taught me something new.) Dogs can indeed be harmed by ivermectin, though some breeds are more susceptible than others. A quick web search via DuckDuckGo did show, though, that ivermectin is prescribed for dogs with heartworm:
https://vcacanada.com/know-your-pet/ivermectin
As for dogs ingesting manure from recently-dewormed horses, we didn’t really discuss that. I can’t figure out how to prevent a dog from eating such, though.
As for ivermectin and Covid-19, here’s a summary from Kansas University Medical Centre, published 1 Dec 2022. Very briefly, a relatively small trial (1,800 people signed up) didn’t find a significant difference in outcome between ivermectin and a placebo.
https://www.kumc.edu/about/news/news-archive/jama-ivermectin-study.html
(The KUMC article has a link to the original publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for those who’d like to know what real medical research is like.)
In the meantime, I wonder if Dr. Oz will turn up to save the chickens at the children’s petting farm in Calgary. It seems as if both the farm and AHS have done the right thing by shutting down the place for now, but has Ms. Smith heard about it? Too busy shutting down the children’s schools maybe.
Too late for Dr. Oz. It’s safe to assume those birds have already died. Besides, they’re not ostriches.
This problem at Butterfield Acres started on the same day as the teachers’ strike: October 6. Schools are closed for now but if this highly pathogenic avian influenza does actually spread to humans this time, what will happen when schools reopen? Remember how we were told that kids don’t catch Covid, then they did? Then we heard that Covid doesn’t spread in schools because schools were closed for spring break? I doubt anyone in Smith’s government will lift a finger.
It’s time to change policies around petting zoos and poultry but rapid action will be needed if this spreads to humans. Lockdowns? Not in Alberta, strong and free.
Marlaina is more concerned about putting UCP slogans on our license plates than she is about public healthcare.
Dr. Keegan nailed it. The UCP are deliberately doing everything possible to destroy the public healthcare system as soon as possible so they can fill their pockets with taxpayer dollars through privatization.
I think they want us all to die so they can use up our pension money.
I don’t know who discovered this and posted it on social media, but thank you!
Who would think to go back to the government website during the middle of this year’s vaccinations to see if the rules have randomly and silently been changed yet again?
God help all the seniors who need help to book vaccines, the babies that haven’t been conceived yet and everyone who will move here in the next 12 months. Your Alberta doesn’t give a damn about you. Here’s the UCP theme song for future reference.
https://youtu.be/ImAlx0amAIc?si=Fzsg8h8KCvy_hiAe
Queen Danielle may as well just go whole-hog and declare that faith-healing and frequent visits to your local Evangelical mega-church is the cure for everything, including impotence, dementia, and hair loss. This is where we are, and this is what Alberta voted for.
By the time everyone gives their head shake, it will be too late. But there are those who will still support Smith and the UCP — come Hell or high water — because they are convinced that the Rapture is coming.
Soon.
Any day now.
Eventually.
You just wait.
Thank you Janice and Abs for drawing our attention to the special vulnerability of seniors. We are, in fact, economically “dead” to neoliberals like the UCP (“Are there no workhouses?) which has led me to wonder about their interests in giving Albertans our Very Own pension plan could possibly be.
While it’s true that pension payments our made from money we saved over the course of our working lives (and not so-called “government handouts”). My suspicion is that they want to make pension funds government money so they can hand the $$$ to themselves!!!
I hope sane Canada will put walls up around the plague rat province. Too bad we can’t sell Alberta to the orange human filth.
What do you really think, Cool? DJC
Allegedly covid, long covid, and viral mutation is still “a thing” and the implied goal of vaccination, according to medical professionals, is to prevent and/or mitigate hospitalization, death, and severe disease, assuming that saving lives and preventing infection and severe disease is even a priority for “I think it’s because it doesn’t work particularly well, if you want the truth,” Smith said.”
Shameless, inhuman, and scientifically ignorant all rolled up into the same arrogant package. It is truly an impressive accomplishment for a single individual that has 2 university degrees.
Apparently the thing has been programmed to follow closely the example set by its ‘distinguished’ role model and hero:
“In a news release, Smith’s government pointed out that guidelines offered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, under anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The U.S. federal health agency recommended stopping vaccines for healthy pregnant women and healthy children.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/11242499/alberta-premier-defends-charging-albertans-for-covid-19-vaccinations-questions-its-effectiveness/
“”Monkey see, monkey do” means to imitate someone’s actions without understanding the reason behind them or considering the consequences.” Obviously some people are better monkeys than others.
Dave, when I pre-ordered the 2026 COVID vaccine today, the message stated that the pre-order is for planning purposes & people who don’t pre-order can still receive the vaccine next year. That’s a relief. Thanks for all your work, much appreciated.
Queen Danielle has gone beyond batshit crazy.
It is time Albertans adopted the anti-maga rallies:
“No Queens”.
If you go further into the pre-order it states that you can still order vaccine next year.
Neil: It does now. It depends a bit on the timing, I’m opretty sure. They were bust straightening things out tonight. My second post on this topic has been published. DJC
I called AHS today and as Doug Lier said, this was for planning purposes. However, they also said Danielle Smith thinks people don’t want a vaccine, so this “well concealed site” was to determine people’s interest in getting the vaccine. So if no one sees the site and no one signs up, then that means people don’t want to get vaccinated. Let’s all sign up if you believe in vaccines!
Jeannine: This is a good plan. As noted in a second post on this topic earlier tonight, the government has now changed the message on its vaccine website to say what it meant, or what it means now, or whatever. DJC
@djc
Many thanks, I just booked vaccines for wife & myself.
Will remind my 80 something parents to do so promptly as well.
At her Edmonton town hall gong show, I asked her who was paying for her vaccine. She didn’t answer. One of her sheeple heard and tried to get in my face after wards, saying no one needs vaccines. I stared the idiot down with a simple sentence – “Darwin will come around for you.” Fool was baffled and walked away.
They’re still going on about Tyen. contributing to autism, that is bad enough but that line about circumcision omg, has anyone told Israel yet and all those pediatricians in New York, Vancouver, Toronto, France, etc. Muslim males are also circumcised. Kennedy is an idiot and Smith is looking like she wants to be idiot #2.