Year: 2010

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Alberta Politics

wildrose challenges tories province-wide and liberals in edmonton.

A new survey reported by the Calgary Herald:

The survey by Environics Research Group, provided exclusively to the Calgary Herald, indicates 34 per cent of decided voters would support Ed Stelmach’s Tory party if an election were held today.

Thirty-two per cent would cast a ballot for Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Alliance, meaning the figures are within the survey’s margin of error. The poll of 1,011 Albertans, conducted between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2, shows the Liberals under David Swann have seen their support slip slightly to 19 per cent, while Brian Mason’s NDP sit at 13 per cent.

The number of undecided voters is 17 per cent.

After a very rough month of fumbling the healthcare file, the Progressive Conservatives have dropped to 34%, down six points from an internal PC Party poll taken in October 2010 and released at that party’s recent policy conference. This is a far cry from March 2008, when the PCs swept 53% of the province-wide vote. Another recent survey showed that only 21% of Albertans approved of Premier Ed Stelmach‘s performance, possibly hurting his party’s support as reflected in this survey.

The Wildrose Alliance should be pleased with these numbers, which show them growing their support back above 30% and putting some distance between themselves and the third place Liberals. These survey numbers will likely help boost the spirits of the 26 already nominated Wildrose candidates as they campaign door to door in an increasingly cold winter. The survey continues a year-long trend showing that the Wildrose have been able to solidify their position as an Official Opposition-in-waiting among Alberta voters.

The article also says that the Wildrose are tied with the Liberals for second place in Edmonton, which should be troubling for the Liberals, who are hoping for that conservative party to grab enough votes away from the PCs in Edmonton to regain some constituencies they lost in the last election. Since December 2009, the Liberals have been unable to break away from their third place position after at least fifteen years of second place polling.

Depending on the margin of error, the NDP have either held or mildly grown their province-wide support.

Early in its organizing phase, the new Alberta Party has yet to register on any major survey, which may be a result of it not being an option or that it is just not yet registering among Albertans. Regardless, it shows how much hard work still needs to be done by that new party’s organizers to reach out beyond the people they have already engaged. That party is in the process of establishing Constituency Associations and will have thirty founded by the end of this month.

If anything, this survey shows how fluid political support in Alberta has become as we approach the next provincial election in either 2011 or 2012. Here are this month’s survey results along with others released over the past two Decembers:

December 2010 (Environics)

PC: 34%
WA: 32%
Liberal: 19%
NDP: 13%
Other: 2% (assumed)

December 2009 (Angus Reid)
WA: 39%
PC: 25%
Liberal: 25%
NDP: 9%
Other: 2%

December 2008 (Environics)
PC: 62%
Liberal: 16%
Other: 14%
NDP: 6%
WA: 3%

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Alberta Politics

photos: rally for public healthcare.

MLA Raj Sherman was suspended from the PC Caucus for publicly criticizing the government about healthcare.

I joined hundreds of fellow Edmontonians today for an afternoon rally for public healthcare at the Alberta Legislative Assembly building. Speakers included MLA Raj Sherman and his lawyer, Brian Beresh, who announced that he was starting an investigation into the whisper campaign to discredit Dr. Sherman.

After a month of political turmoil in healthcare, rally speakers piled on the governing PCs, who despite nearly forty years in office appear incapable of providing stability within the healthcare system. Those speakers included David Eggen from the Friends of Medicare, MLAs Hugh MacDonald and Brian Mason, Vancouver-South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, United Nurses of Alberta President Heather Smith, AUPE President Guy Smith, and Elaine Fleming from the Whitemud Citizens for Public Health.

I snapped the below photos in the cold and you can view more on Flickr.

Former MLA David Eggen is the Executive Director of the Friends of Medicare.
Well?
Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Hugh MacDonald spoke on behalf of the Liberal caucus.
NDP MLA Brian Mason and Independent MLA Raj Sherman.
Vancouver-South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh spoke as the Official Opposition health critic in Ottawa. Mr. Dosanjh is the former federal Health Minister and Premier of British Columbia.

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Alberta Politics

catching up on health care politics in alberta.

I sure picked an interesting time to leave the province for a few days. After a short absence, it has been exhausting catching up on all the political games and intrigue that happened over the weekend and earlier this week.

Leaked Private Health Care Agenda
The Liberals released an internal government document (pdf) showing a drive towards increased privatization of health care in Alberta through private insurance. The document was presented to the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health and also reported that the months-long province-wide consultation spearheaded by Edmonton-Rutherford PC MLA Fred Horne encountered a “high level of skepticism.” This skepticism was widely reported in the media and was not reflected in the committee’s final report released in September 2010.

Liberal leader David Swann

I was surprised to read Liberal leader David Swann‘s quote that this was the first time he had seen any evidence that the government was even considering a more private approach to health care, especially since he spoke at a rally in front of the now bankrupt private-for-profit Health Resource Centre only a few months ago (HRC sits across the street from his constituency office in Calgary-Mountain View). I am willing to believe that Dr. Swann may have been misquoted, but if not he should have a chat with his caucus colleague Kevin Taft, who co-authored the book “Clear Answers: The Economics and Politics of For-Profit Medicine” in 2000.

Earlier this year, former Premier Ralph Klein admitted that he had tried and failed to privatize Alberta’s health care system:

“I tried it twice — the Third Way and the Mazankowski report — and I failed.”
– Former Premier Ralph Klein (Source: “Klein urges two-tired health system,” Edmonton Journal, January 26, 2010)

Emergency Room wait-times amendment fails
Now Independent Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Dr. Raj Sherman‘s amendment to enshrine emergency room wait times in Bill 17: The Alberta Health Act has failed. After a long debate that started last Wednesday, continued overnight until Thursday, and resumed this week Dr. Sherman, members of the three opposition parties, Independent MLA Dave Taylor, and St. Albert PC MLA Ken Allred voted in favor of the amendment (it failed). I understand the intention of Dr. Sherman’s motion and his good intentions in general, but I have to agree with the Tories that enshrining wait-times may create more problems than solutions (or more lawsuits).

After the amendment failed, the Alberta Health Act quickly passed third reading by the PC MLA majority in the Assembly. This new law concentrates a concerning amount of authority over our health care system into the hands of the Minister of Health & Wellness, instead of the elected Assembly.

In five years time we could be walking round a zoo…
Only a week after he was appointed as Acting-CEO of AHS, Dr. Chris Eagle and Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky released a 5-year plan for health care. If you are questioning how a newly appointed Acting-CEO could come up with a five-year plan so quickly, you win the prize. According to Gordon Bontje, one of four recently resigned members of the AHS Superboard, the “new” plan is really a re-marketed version of an old plan.

The plan sets out some goals for emergency room targets and continuing care spaces, but does not address some of the key capacity issues that are creating the problems in the health care system. With this government’s habit of constantly tinkering and re-announcing projects and plans, Albertans should not be blamed for being skeptical about politically convenient re-announcements and health care policy created on the fly.

Stand by your man…
Terri Jackson, wife of now former AHS President and CEO Stephen Duckett, has written a letter to the Edmonton Journal defending her husband and criticizing the government for how it has handled health care.

PC MLA Fred Horne

Was Fred Horne just being “Fred friendly”?
Rumours began to emerge late last week questioning Dr. Sherman’s mental health. The whispering began after MLA Mr. Horne placed a phone call to the head of the Alberta Medical Association, Dr. Patrick White, concerning the state of Dr. Sherman’s mental health. A self-described friend of Dr. Sherman’s, Mr. Horne held a media conference last Friday clarifying that he did make the call, but it was not to discredit the Doctor.

It might just be me, but am pretty sure that calling up the head of your friend’s professional association to question the state of his mental health and then talking to the media about it does not make you a good friend (especially when this friend is an MLA and medical doctor who has just been suspended from your party’s caucus for being highly critical of their health care policies).

December 4 Rally for Public Healthcare
In response to the months-long political frenzy around health care, the Friends of Medicare are organizing a rally at the Legislature on Saturday, December 4 at 1:00pm. Speakers include Dr. Sherman, United Nurses of Alberta President President Heather Smith, the Whitemud Citizens for Public Health‘s Elaine Fleming, and the Friends of Medicare’s David Eggen.

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Alberta Politics

visit to ottawa.

I snapped this photo on Parliament Hill last night.
After spending the past few days in our nation’s capital city, I am happy to be back in Edmonton (and happy to have no shortage of political intrigue to write about!).

A big thanks to Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont Member of Parliament Mike Lake for taking some time yesterday to show me around the Centre Block on Parliament Hill. It was very interesting to learn about how the Parliament building works from someone who has actually been elected to work there.

While there, I also had the opportunity to be introduced to a number of other MPs, including Edmonton-Sherwood Park MP Tim Uppall and Crowfoot MP Kevin Sorenson,  Carleton-Mississippi Mills MP Gordon O’Connor, and Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP John Rafferty (who were, of course, hard at work).

As someone who spends most of his political watching at the provincial and municipal level, it was fascinating to see some of the differences and many similarities about politics in Ottawa.

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Alberta Politics

guest post: the berry patch perspective on the alberta party.

By William Munsey

I was reading a blog the other day by a young guy named Justin who just couldn’t see the Alberta Party as something worth supporting… was holding onto the idea that the Alberta Liberal Party is the natural home to the progressive vote in Alberta.  He described himself as “the kind of person you’d expect to be in the Alberta Party.”  He continued on to describe himself as a young person who lives in a downtown condo with a job in the ‘creative economy’ and a strong supporter of human rights and a proponent of a mostly free market economy.

Young Justin’s blog was pretty good, but I think he’s missing a couple of things.

See, I don’t live in a downtown condo.  I’m not young and my grey hairs far outnumber my brown ones.  I don’t have a cool job in the “creative economy” nor am I ever likely to.  I live in a drafty old farmhouse.  We grow flowers and saskatoon berries, which bring in little money but require lots of physical work.  I spend most of my days in dirty coveralls.  We don’t have extra money to go to the theatre or take vacations.  In fact the only theatre I get to attend offers two girls fighting over one bathroom in the morning.

I can’t afford either the time or money to sit in Starbucks.  I make my coffee at home and carry it to work in a thermos and look for abandoned newspapers to catch up on the day’s happenings.  I have to budget just to buy new socks and long underwear for the coming cold.  The other night, while most people were snug in bed, I was working the job that supports my farm…. lying in the snow, between the rails, under a freight train, strapping up dragging equipment. Two days ago I was up to my elbows butchering a deer that will help keep us through the winter.

If Justin’s analysis was correct, I’m hardly the sort of guy you would expect to have any interest in the Alberta Party.  My world is so distant from the condo dwelling urbanites Justin describes as likely candidates to support the Alberta Party, I sometimes think there’s a time warp between us and I suspect if Justin met me… filthy from head to toe, deer blood on my coat, he might dismiss me completely for someone so foreign to his values we couldn’t even communicate.

But Justin (and a ton of other urban progressives) would be surprised by what we rural rubes know about our province… and for the worry we are saddled with for the future and for what is happening to this province.  Dismissing the Alberta Party as a party for urban Albertans is a mistake. It’s a mistake Liberal Party of Alberta and the New Democrats traditionally make (even though they say they don’t). The truth is, there is as much dissatisfaction in rural Alberta these days as there is anywhere else in this province and considerably more common ground than people like Justin can imagine.

My rural neighbours may never think of themselves as progressives.  In fact, I would say that a majority of rural Albertans strongly self-identify as small ‘c’ conservatives. We might never see ourselves as strong supporters of human rights, but you will never get a fairer shake than in the hundreds of little communities dotted around this province.  We might not be able to tell the difference between modern Twitter and a old-fashioned twit, but we know first-hand the tenuous nature of landowners’ rights in this province.  We may eat wild meat occasionally, but we also understand the vital importance of fresh water, the value of healthy food, the nature of true conservation and the value of our natural heritage.  And more, I suspect, than urban Albertans we can see by the crumbling infrastructure in our small towns that life in rural Alberta is not thriving.

Rural Albertans are looking for a change in government.  To date, the only party who seem to be courting us is the Wildrose Alliance.  I’ve been to their meetings and almost without exception I am the youngest person in the room (at 49).  I have heard the cozy words about “taking back the province” and “bringing accountability back to government.”  Yet there is something stale in the Wildrose Alliance.  They just don’t strike me as an option for a better future for this province… and their cozy relationship with the petrochemical industry frightens me.

So what do we have?  The PCs?  Nope… unless they bring back Peter Lougheed and his band of young thinkers.  The WRA?  Not unless I see some distance from the monied old interests and a lot more youth at local gatherings.  The Liberals?  You’re kidding right?  I want a chance to be on the winning side of an election and the ALP hasn’t had a chance in nearly a hundred years.  The NDP?  (see Liberal… only way more so).

People talk about a party that can capture the imagination of Albertans.  That’s the problem.  Albertans’ imagination and dreams were captured 40 years ago… and they are still being held captive.  I’m looking for a party that sets those dreams and aspirations free again… a party that encourages dreaming and imagination… that will reward and support new ideas that diversify our economy without devaluing our environment… or dismissing elements of our society.  What I am looking for is a party that takes good ideas from wherever they come… the left… the right… the centre… the north… the south… wherever.  I’m looking for a party that offers Albertans the chance to dream again.

I want to counter the perception that the Alberta Party is for young, progressive urbanites only.  What attracted me was the coming together of people from diverse backgrounds.  We may not always speak the same language.  We may not always see the world in the same light.  We may sometimes differ about the best options for Alberta.  That’s all ahead for us.  However, it is the spirit of working together, being respectful of good ideas wherever they come from… and above all the chance to build an Alberta we can be proud of again.

I’d like to tell young Justin, “we can all meet in the Alberta Party.”  If he brings the latte… I’ll bring the jerky and saskatoon wine.

—-

This post can also be read on William Munsey’s blog, The Berry Patch Perspective.

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Alberta Politics

nominations update: a bloom off the wildrose in little bow.

A little bit of the bloom came off the Wildrose this week as the entire executive committee of that party’s Little Bow Constituency Association resigned in protest central party interference of their recent nomination contest. The resignations come as local members nominated Vulcan County Councillor Ian Donovan, who defeated 2008 candidate Kevin Kinahan (a comment on Mr. Kinahan’s Facebook Page indicated that the vote was 209 to 204).

Wildrose Alliance support in Little Bow jumped from 857 votes (9.4%) in 2004 to 2,051 votes (23.1%) in 2008, making this one of that party’s best showings in the last election.

Leader Danielle Smith was quick to declare on Twitter that “I stay neutral in these contests” and provided a link to a statement by Party President Hal Walker.

UPDATE: The former Little Bow Constituency Association executive have responded to Mr. Walker’s statement.

The internal turmoil was not limited to Little Bow. Earlier this week, Bobbie Dearborn, the Secretary of the Medicine Hat Wildrose Constituency Association resigned after a heated board meeting. According to the Medicine Hat News, some local members are apparently unhappy about a dispute over local finances and the quick nomination process that selected candidate Milva Bauman earlier this year.

It might be too soon to call them a wilting rose, but these are certainly the largest round of internal resignations to hit the Wildrose Alliance since Ms. Smith became party leader in late 2009.

NDP and Liberal nominations
The other parties had more smooth experiences with recent candidate nominations. The NDP nominated former MLA David Eggen in Edmonton-Calder. Mr. Eggen represented Calder from 2004 to 2008, when he was narrowly defeated by PC candidate Doug Elniski. The NDP also recently nominated Ali Haymour in Edmonton-Decore. Mr. Haymour stood for election in neighbouring Edmonton-Castle Downs in 2008, placing third with 13% of the vote.

The Liberals nominated former MLA Rick Miller in Edmonton-Rutherford. Mr. Miller served as the MLA for Rutherford and Official Opposition Finance critic from 2004 and 2008. He was narrowly defeated by PC candidate Fred Horne in 2008 and has since served as the Chief of Staff at the Official Opposition Caucus. The next election will be Mr. Miller’s fourth time standing as a Liberal candidate in that constituency (he stood against former Reform Party MP and PC candidate Ian McClelland in 2001 and defeated him in 2004). Other candidates already nominated in Rutherford are the NDPs Melanie Samaroden and the Wildroses Kyle Macleod.

View an updated list of declared and nominated candidates.

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Alberta Politics

everybody loves raj.

Like the belle at the ball, newly Independent MLA Raj Sherman is being courted by the Wildrose Alliance and the Liberal Party as MLAs continue an all-night debate on Emergency Room wait times (see the below messages sent out by the two parties on Twitter this morning).


Of course, this love is not extended by the PCs, who indefinitely suspended Dr. Sherman from their caucus earlier this week after he went public with his concerns about Emergency Room wait times and criticized former Health Minister Ron Liepert. Dr. Sherman apologized to Minister Liepert, but the Minister refused to accept anything less than a complete retraction of the comments.

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Alberta Politics Guest Post

guest post: a liberal party perspective on the alberta party.

By: Justin Archer

Dave Cournoyer and I have known each other since 2005, when I got my first real job working in a junior staff position with the Alberta Liberals. Dave started working there shortly after I did, and the two of us became friends. He’s mentioned to me before that I could do a guest post at some point if there is a topic that seems to fit, but I’ve never asked to take him up on that offer until now.

Let me just explain first that I am the kind of person you’d probably expect to be in the Alberta Party. I live in a condo downtown and have a pretty good job in what is thought of as the “creative economy”. I’m politically active. I still like to think I’m young (though I did find my first grey hair the other day, which needless to say was traumatic.) I am a strong supporter of human rights, and a proponent of mostly free markets with some government intervention in the economy to protect the common good. I also know quite a few people involved in the Alberta Party, and I like them and respect them. I agree with them in a broad sense on how this province should be governed, because their values are my values.

I think they might be making a Big Mistake though, and that’s what I want to talk about here.

The first part of my argument is that there are a couple of no-such-things:
1. There is no such thing as a post-partisan political party.
2. There is no such thing as a political party that falls outside of the traditional left/right spectrum.

No-such-thing 1 is essentially self-evident. The word partisan basically means “someone who supports a cause and works to achieve some end associated with that cause” . If an organization is trying to get people elected and maybe even form a government, it’s a partisan group. It’s not even really open to interpretation, that’s just what “partisan” means. It has been suggested to me that perhaps the Alberta Party intends to introduce a less partisan style of politics to the debate. I don’t really understand what this means, but if it means something along the lines of “no talking bad about the other guys”, I would be shocked if that sentiment sticks around the nascent organization for long, if it is even there now. Which it probably isn’t. No-such-thing 2 is also quite simple: When you get down to it, what a government does is take in the money and then figure out how to spend it. If you look at how each government philosophically approaches this job, you can figure out where it sits on the spectrum.

It’s like this: Some people think that the government should take in lots of the money and make sure that everyone gets a nice amount. Those people often think that the government should be involved in lots of things and intervene in many economic transactions. Those people are on the left.

There are other people who think that the government should take in some of the money, and make sure that everyone gets at least a least a little bit. These people also usually think that the government should allow economic activity to take place free of government interference except where there is a real problem that needs fixing. Those people are in the centre.

Then there are people who think that the government should take in only a little bit of the money, and it’s up to individuals to get things for themselves. These people also usually think that the government should keep its damn nose out of pretty much everything (unless their rich friends are in trouble, in which case those rules no longer apply). These people are on the right.

I’ve heard it said by people in the Alberta Party that this party is not possible to pin down on the spectrum I’ve described above. It would be fun and exciting to think this, but it would be wrong. I haven’t seen the policy that the Alberta Party passed at its recent convention, but I would very surprised if an analysis of that policy wouldn’t reveal that the party is in the centre. In fact I’d almost guarantee it. I think if you follow Alberta politics closely and you know the people in that party and the sorts of things that those people tend to think, you’d have to agree with me.

So if the Alberta Party is in the centre, and it is partisan, it is basically the Alberta Liberal Party only cooler and better looking. What I mean is that the values are very similar, the policies are likely quite similar, but it’s a newer and more exciting organization. It has an ambitious and fun culture, lots of wonderful and smart people, and a great attitude about how to engage people in the political process. It has also embarked on a great citizen engagement process and done a great job of getting ink for its work. But the actual values, the guts of the party, are not very different from those of the Liberals.

I also think that the Alberta Party will take many votes from the Liberals. I do not buy the argument that the 60% of people who didn’t vote last time will be the deciders in the next election. I think that for the most part, people who didn’t vote last time won’t vote next time. From the inside of a political party it is easy to start to believe that there is something big happening out there, and people are getting turned on. Largely though, political activity in Alberta takes place outside of the notice of the majority of the population and people who don’t follow politics are not getting turned on. In my view the pool of votes might be a little bigger next time, but not much.

Now this is the part where it’s easy to say, “sure, well if the Liberals are so great, why aren’t all these engaged young difference makers joining up with them?” The truth is that the Liberals haven’t done a good job of answering that question. But I actually don’t know that it’s the right question to be asking.

You see, I think that we are on the cusp of one of those generational shifts in Alberta politics where a new government will come to power. If you are reading this blog you don’t need a primer in Alberta politics – we can all agree that historically there has been a one-party culture here, and when a change in government comes, it is fast and total. Many people, and particularly many rural constituencies, want to be on the side of the winning team, so support tends to move quickly to the party who looks like it may form government. I think that because of this, in the next election, small “c” conservative support will begin to drift from the PC Party to the Wildrose Alliance Party. In the election after that, that conservative support will firmly coalesce around the Wildrose Alliance Party, and that party could easily form a government at that time.

There is a strong parallel to federal politics here. Let’s be honest, the Chretien/Martin government years were made possible in large part by the split in the conservative family over much of that time period. Now that the federal conservatives are re-united under one banner, it’s not so easy for those in the centre to form a government, as we’ve continually seen. I think that this is probably one of the only times where we’ll have a similar political situation here provincially, and as moderates in this province it looks like we’re about to waste it by grouping in factions instead of realizing that we all pretty much agree on things. If centrist political organizers and voters are divided during the next five or six years between the Alberta Party, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Alberta Liberal Party, the moderates in this province will probably lose the opportunity to form a government for the next generation.

In summary my argument is this: We’re about to miss an opportunity while the conservative house is divided because of things like process and personality. I believe that process and personality are important in politics, but when you peel it all back, the values underneath are what really matter. And in the absence of a divergence on values, is it not foolish to have competing organizations?

I don’t know how to solve this. I’m not saying the Alberta Party should stop doing what they’re doing. I’m not saying the Liberals should fold up the tent. But I do think this is a real discussion that needs to take place on this side of the coming electoral opportunity, rather than a lament on the other side of it.

Anyway, thanks to Dave for letting me air this here. Please chime in in the comments.

——–

Justin Archer is a young guy in Edmonton who is involved in this and that around town. He grew up in Calgary but moved here about five years ago to take his first big kid job as a Liberal staffer. After a 2008 election night filled with tears and despair (but I thought we were gonna be the governm…….*sob* *sniffle*), he went to work for a Edmonton-based PR firm, where he is now a consultant. He believes that Alberta is a great place and most of the whole redneck thing is exaggerated. Follow him on Twitter @justin_archer.

Read other guest posts to this blog.

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Alberta Politics

stephen duckett has been resigned.

After less that two years at the helm of Alberta Health Services, President and CEO Stephen Duckett was relieved of his duties by the AHS board of directors. As they made their decision, board members were on the recieving end of pressure from their political masters in the provincial cabinet.

On The Rutherford Show this morning, AHS Board Chairman Ken Hughes said that “we did receive very clear directions from the Minister,” which suggests that the AHS Board’s autonomy disappeared once Dr. Duckett became a political liability for the PC Government. Speaking on CBC Radio this morning, AlbertaScan editor Paul McLoughlin said that the AHS Board had initially decided to suspend Duckett for two weeks until Minister Gene Zwozdesky ordered them to revisit their decision and terminate Dr. Duckett.

In what can only be described as bizarre day, the AHS press conference announcing Mr. Duckett’s future was rescheduled at least four times yesterday. Originally scheduled for 1:00pm, the conference was first rescheduled for 10:30am, then 3:30pm, and finally 4:45pm when the announcement was finally made.

A similar incident occurred later that evening, when a media conference scheduled for Premier Ed Stelmach and Minister Zwozdesky was moved from 5:15pm to 6:30pm. Unfortunately, the media room at the Legislative Assembly was half packed with reporters by the time Liberal caucus Communications Director Neil Mackie waltzed in to let the media know that the conference had been rescheduled.

There has to be some irony in that for everything he did during his time as CEO, it was the now infamous “I’m eating my cookie” video on YouTube video that was the catalyst for his dismissal. It used to be said that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. This experience lends some credibility to a new saying, never pick a fight with anybody who has a free YouTube account.

For all his faults as the chief administrator of Alberta’s health services, removing Dr. Duckett from his position will not solve the challenges facing the system. Although Dr. Duckett was not even close to universally loved in the health care system, he did not create many of the large problems in health care. The sole responsibility for many of the problems facing our health care system fall to a government that has become accustomed to constantly restructuring, and even creating near-chaos, within a public health care system that all Albertans depend on.

Meanwhile, MLAs were in the Assembly for an extended all-nighter until early this morning to debate an amendment to Bill 17: The Alberta Health Act (the amendment was introduced by now Independent Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Raj Sherman). Dr. Sherman’s amendment would introduce legislated wait-times for emergency room visits.

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sue huff acting leader of the alberta party.

Former Edmonton Public School Trustee Sue Huff is now the Acting Leader of the Alberta Party. Ms. Huff replaces Edwin Erickson, who became leader in late 2009 and announced his intentions to step down at the party’s Annual General Meeting in October. The Alberta Party is preparing to hold a leadership contest that will take place next spring.

The first set of policies ratified by participants of their first convention were also released this week. The party is currently in the process of establishing and organizing constituency associations across the province (founding meetings are being held this week in Edmonton-Centre, Leduc-Beaumont-Devon, Calgary-Mountain View, and Edmonton-Glenora).

(I shared some closing remarks at the Alberta Party’s first policy conference, which you can read here.)

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Edmonton Politics

edmonton expo 2017 bid denied.

The federal government announced yesterday that it will not to provide an estimated $700 million to support Edmonton’s bid for the 2017 Expo. Many people saw this bid as an opportunity to invest more federal and provincial funding for transportation and public infrastructure in Edmonton.

In response, Mayor Stephen Mandel was livid when delivering a speech lambasting the federal government for taking Edmonton for granted. Mayor Mandel also singled out Edmonton-Spruce Grove MP and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, accusing her of not supporting the bid.

But as much as Alberta could see the potential, our Federal partner is not there. Our own Minister Ambrose completely failed to stand up for this City and Province. And in the end, her lack of support cost us this opportunity.
I stand somewhat incredulous at this result.
This is a Government that has far too easily ignored the needs and aspirations of this Province, indicating instead that we are not the political priority.
And I get it – taking electoral success for granted here has become a habit.

I have a lot of respect for many of the people involved in the bid to host the 2017 Expo and I understand why they would be angry about the denial of federal funding, but I have to admit that I have remained very indifferent towards the project. While it would have been great to have the extra infusion of infrastructure funding, I have been skeptical why it needed to be camouflaged under the guise of a mega-event.

Also, as furious as Mayor Mandel may be, I have a difficult time believing that the death of Edmonton’s 2017 Expo bid will be a catalyst for a major change in Edmonton’s representation in the House of Commons.

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Alberta Politics

public health care is not broken, it just needs some tender loving care.

This week’s political intrigue, the suspension of Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Raj Sherman and Stephen Duckett‘s cookie-tantrum, are overshadowing the larger challenges facing our health care system.

The plan proposed by Alberta Health Services top dogs late last week to deal with Emergency Room wait times is a version of a plan already initiated three years ago (known as “full capacity protocol” or “surge capacity” at some facilities).

It works like this: when the number of patients in the Emergency Room hits a magic number, patients are put on stretchers and pushed to wards in the hospital where they are placed in hallways or in rooms (in many cases with patients already admitted). It does not take a health economist or health care professional to understand that pushing patients away from the Emergency Room into hallways is not a solution to this problem. This “out of sight, out of mind” approach may decrease the number of patients physically waiting in the Emergency Room, but it does not do much to actually increase patient care. It also does not deal with the root causes of why Emergency Room wait times have increased in Alberta.

Anyone who has had the misfortune of having visited an Emergency Room will see that there is a serious under-staffing problem. In many hospitals, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are being run off their feet trying to make up for a lack of proper staffing levels. If new beds are to be introduced, so must an appropriate number of new staffing positions. Patient care will only be improved if there are medical and nursing staff to accompany new beds.

The challenges facing Emergency Rooms go beyond just Emergency Rooms.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a family doctor in Alberta. This challenge and limited access to urgent care centres in many communities leaves Emergency Rooms as the only option for many Albertans. When fully operational, the new East Edmonton Health Centre could provide a good model of the kind of accessible family and urgent care that people are currently turning to the Emergency Rooms for.

The reality is that many of the problems faced by our health care system have been created by constant political restructuring of the administration of the system over the past 15 years.

As I wrote last week, stability is something that has been lacking in our public health care system since Ralph Klein became Premier in 1992. Since 1995, the administration of our system has been changed from around 200 hospital and local health boards before 1995 to seventeen, to nine in 2001, and then one centralized province-wide health authority in 2008.

As the health authorities were being restructured in the 1990s, over 10,000 health care staff were laid off or had their jobs downgraded, which has led to much of the staffing issues Albertans are witnessing today.

Current Minister Gene Zwozdesky has tried to put a kinder face on the Health & Wellness portfolio, but the last major restructuring, the creation of AHS took place under the guidance of Minister Ron Liepert in 2008.

In what some political watchers believed to be an extension of a public battle between Calgary Health Region CEO Jack Davis and the provincial government, Minister Liepert dissolved the nine remaining regional health boards and centralized them under AHS (Mr. Davis received a $4 million retirement package when his position was eliminated). Minister Liepert, who was recently criticized by his former parliamentary assistant Dr. Sherman, was not known for his diplomatic skills while serving as Health Minister:

Created only months after the March 2008 provincial election, there was no mention of intentions to dissolve the regional health authorities anywhere in the PC Party election platform. The largest overhaul of Alberta’s health care system was not made in consultation with Albertans, but in closed-door meetings.

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

Couched in nice-sounding words like “European-model”, groups like the Wildrose Alliance argue that the solution is to introduce more private-for-profit involvement in the health care system.

As Albertans saw with the bankruptcy of the Health Resource Centre in Calgary, the flagship for the private health care industry in Canada, introducing more private-for-profit health care is not a viable alternative. I do not believe that this is a solution to improving our health care system. The solution is to fully support and provide stability to a public system that is accessible and accountable to the general public.

While I am disappointed that the Wildrose has taken a negative tone when talking about health care, it has helped remind many Albertans about why they support a public health care system and why it is important to our society.

“Alberta Health Act”

Eclipsed by the past month of health care news is Bill 17: the Alberta Health Act, which is up for third reading this week. This Act is vacuous on details, but as enabling legislation it will allow for more decisions about our health care laws to be made in closed-door cabinet meetings, rather than in the public and open debate on the floor of the Assembly.

As we have learned from the past month and the Alberta Health Services experience, our health care system needs decision makers who are not driven by private agendas behind closed doors, it need openness, transparency, and stability. It needs some TLC.

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Alberta Politics

raj sherman suspended from progressive conservative caucus.

Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Raj Sherman has been suspended from the PC caucus.

According to the Edmonton Journal, government caucus whip Robin Campbell has confirmed that Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Raj Sherman has been suspended from the PC caucus and will sit as an Independent MLA.

As the only medical doctor in the PC caucus, Dr. Sherman shook the political establishment last week with a bluntly worded email to the Premier, cabinet ministers, and his medical colleagues about the state of Emergency Room wait times in Alberta. On Friday, Dr. Sherman told the Edmonton Journal that he’d “had enough” and was “fed up.” In that interview, Dr. Sherman reserved some particularly harsh criticism for Alberta Health Services Board Chairman Ken Hughes and former Health Minister Ron Liepert.

Dr. Sherman is the fifth PC MLA to leave or be ejected from the governing caucus since the 2008 election.

Long-time Calgary-Glenmore MLA Ron Stevens retired in 2009. Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Guy Boutilier was kicked out of the PC caucus after speaking out about the state of health care in Fort McMurray in 2009. Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Rob Anderson and Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Heather Forsyth left the PC caucus to join the Wildrose Alliance in January 2010. Mr. Boutilier joined Mr. Anderson and Ms. Forsyth this summer.

There are now two Independent MLAs in the Legislature. The other is Calgary-Currie MLA Dave Taylor, who left the Liberal caucus earlier this year.

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Alberta Politics

stephen duckett: “i’m eating my cookie.”

Caught sneaking out of a high-level meeting about the situation in the province’s emergency rooms, Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett refused to speak with reporters, claiming that he could not talk while eating his cookie. Yes, his cookie.

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Alberta Politics

winter in edmonton: legislative assembly and high level bridge.

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