Lucia Stachurski was the Liberal Party candidate in the St. Albert-Sturgeon River in the 2025 Canadian federal election (source: David J. Climenhaga)
Delegates to the Liberal Party’s national convention in Montreal earlier this month voted unanimously in favour of two policies that take direct aim at key pieces of Premier Smith’s political agenda.
Introduced by past St. Albert-Sturgeon River candidate Lucia Stachurski, the policy proposals call for the Liberal Party to oppose the implementation of Bill 11 and a big item on Smith’s sovereignty agenda: the creation of an Alberta Pension Plan.
“Our universal healthcare system is under coordinated across the country. There is a shift towards for-profit clinics that divert federal transfers away from public care and in many cases bill Canadians out-of-pocket for assured services,” Stachurski said when she took the floor to introduce the motion. “We cannot allow a two tier healthcare system to become the Canadian norm.”
Federal Minister of Health Marjorie Michel (source: Marjorie Michel / Facebook)
The National Post’sRahim Mohamed reports that federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel admitted to speaking with Alberta’s Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange about Bill 11 earlier this month.
LaGrange is the senior of Alberta’s four health ministers who were named following the province’s dismembering of the Alberta Health Services province-wide health authority in 2024. She introduced Bill 11 into the Legislature last year.
Prime Minister Mark Carney (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)
Alberta separatism, referendums, library book bans, and gerrymandering are catching a lot of the headlines these days but a law passed by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government that allows for more private-for-profit health care is becoming harder for the federal government in Ottawa to ignore.
Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), known as Bill 11 when it was passed through the Legislature last December, would allow physicians working in Alberta to practice medicine in both the public system and in private-for-profit businesses, something that isn’t allowed anywhere else in Canada.
Premier Danielle Smith’s push toward privatization of the public health care system, which UCP defends as “European style” health care, is almost certainly more American-inspired. But wherever the inspiration comes from, it will almost certainly mean more out of pocket expenses for Albertans — something Smith has long advocated for — and more public funds subsidizing private companies.
Alberta’s Legislature grounds in Edmonton under construction in July 2024 (photo: Dave Cournoyer)
With the end of summer fast approaching and the Labour Day long-weekend just days away, I’ve opened up the mailbag to answer a few Alberta politics questions about health care privatization, early election speculation, and small nuclear reactors sent in by Daveberta subscribers. Read it all on the Daveberta Substack.
Premier Kenney presented a 54-minute long PowerPoint presentation to the press on April 8, 2020.
When the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Alberta many months ago, Premier Jason Kenney was front-and-centre.
Ever the Anglophile, Kenney quoted Winston Churchill and compared the pandemic to the Battle of Britain. Under Kenney’s leadership we were going to fight COVID on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets.
He delivered a bleak televised address to Albertans, presented an awkward to watch 54-minute powerpoint display in an attempt to explain Alberta’s pandemic modelling, and elbowed his way to the front of Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s press conferences on a weekly basis. It was clear that he wanted Albertans to know he was their Commander-in-Chief in the war against the pandemic.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw and Premier Jason Kenney at a March 15 press conference about COVID-19. (Source: Government of Alberta)
In one of his more notable comments, Kenney compared Albertans to a herd of buffalo that “move closely together and go into the storm head on, coming out of it faster, stronger, and united.”
But at some point over the summer, as new cases of COVID dropped into the teens and single digits, Kenney shifted gears. He stopped showing up at Dr. Hinshaw’s press conferences and his government ostensibly shifted toward an economic recovery message. But in reality the UCP government began a game of catch-up after the pandemic delayed the United Conservative Party‘s political agenda by five-months – a political agenda designed for a pre-pandemic Alberta.
Health support workers on a wildcat strike outside the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.
The glorious battle was over and it was time for Kenney’s government to resume its multi-front war with nurses, doctors and health care workers.
Health Minister Tyler Shandro announced plans to privatize large swaths of the public health care system and lay-off more than 11,000 nurses and health support workers. As a result, many physicians have indicated their plans to leave Alberta and health support workers represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees walked off the job at more than 40 hospitals and health centres in a one-day wildcat strike last week.
A sensible political leader would appreciate that picking a very public fight with health care workers in the middle of a global pandemic is a bad way to run a government. But despite his falling approval ratings, Kenney appears to be moving forward as if everything has returned to normal. It clearly hasn’t.
Now the second wave of COVID-19 has hit Alberta. Dr. Hinshaw reported 800 new cases today, shattering previous records. The public health care system is showing signs of strain as nurses and health care workers are over-worked and understaffed, and COVID outbreaks are being reported at hospitals around the province.
The beaches are being stormed, but, unlike eight months ago, Kenney is no longer showing up at Dr. Hinshaw’s press conferences, confidently quoting Churchill or comparing Albertans to buffalo stampeding together through a thunder storm.
