{"id":8080,"date":"2026-08-05T08:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/?p=8080"},"modified":"2026-08-05T08:44:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:44:25","slug":"ucp-set-to-announce-plan-to-bust-up-ahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/?p=8080","title":{"rendered":"UCP set to announce plan to bust up AHS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alberta<\/figure>\n

Health care in Alberta is moving confidently into the 1990s!<\/p>\n

The United Conservative Party (UCP) government led by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is about to bring the province\u2019s health care system back to the future with a massive infusion of new red tape, just like the old red tape. <\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be so much like the Nineties you\u2019ll be ready to celebrate New Year\u2019s 1994 on January 1!<\/p>\n

Instead of Alberta Health Services (AHS), the largest provincial health care agency in Canada created in 2009, there will be new health care boards, new bureaucrats to staff them, and loads and loads of chaos to bring the bring the entire system closer to collapse! <\/p>\n

And the expense \u2013 it\u2019ll be fabulous!<\/em> Literally billions of dollars, most likely. Some consultants are going to get very, very rich. Some of them are doubtless already getting rich as we prepare to completely restructure a system that we\u2019ve just spend a decade and a half and another billion or so completely restructuring. <\/p>\n

Well, one thing will be different: all those streams of red tape will lead directly back to the premier\u2019s and health minister\u2019s offices, which will now make all the province\u2019s health care decisions. That should work out well. <\/p>\n

Anyway, Premier Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, her Mini-Me on the health file, have promised for months to do something to instantly fix the intractable problems facing health care in Canada, so something dramatic had to be done. <\/p>\n

Never mind that what they\u2019re proposing won\u2019t help with the fundamental problem facing health care \u2013 the worldwide shortage of health care professionals, especially physicians and nurses. In fact, it\u2019s almost certain to make it worse in Alberta.<\/p>\n

And the elephant in the Operating Room, of course, is that this is also about wreaking revenge on AHS in particular for its enforcement the public health measures during the pandemic that so annoyed the UCP\u2019s QAnon-influenced base, especially the Take Back Alberta faction that now dominates the party. <\/p>\n

Why, you may wonder, do we know this already if the government isn\u2019t going to announce it until later today?<\/p>\n

Well, because the NDP published one of the foundational documents of the government\u2019s big plan for health care yesterday<\/a> \u2013 a slide show prepared for the provincial cabinet that was leaked by an unknown whistleblower to the Opposition. The Canadian Press<\/em> confirmed later that the slides are the real thing, <\/p>\n

The release of the slide deck, the NDP\u2019s news release, and the questions asked by Opposition MLAs in the Legislature yesterday certainly rained on the parade of puffery the government planned for its announcement today that it\u2019s about break up AHS into easy-to-privatize chunks. <\/p>\n

As the slides explain, heavy spin and paid advertising will be required to persuade the public this won\u2019t be another expensive disaster with \u201cpotential to fragment care delivery\u201d and \u201crisk of service disruption\/failure,\u201d to quote one slide.<\/p>\n

In Question Period, beyond the premier\u2019s assertion she is \u201c100 per cent committed\u201d to the plan as shown in the slides, LaGrange told MLAs (and by extension the rest of us) to wait for today\u2019s announcement. <\/p>\n

So we have no choice, I\u2019m sure readers will agree, but to toss aside the hallowed journalistic commitment to balance and go with the NDP press release for the time being.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmith\u2019s long-promised breakup of Alberta Health Services is mostly a transfer of AHS functions into the Government of Alberta under the direct supervision of the health minister and premier,\u201d the NDP news release summarizes. \u201cThere is no plan to move decision-making outside of the two major cities. Instead of regional boards, there will be four new government bureaucracies for continuing care, acute care, primary care, and mental health and addiction<\/em>.\u201d (Emphasis added.) <\/p>\n

So, the release quotes Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, \u201cany UCP members who cheered for more rural or local decision-making in health care at their AGM this weekend are about to find out they\u2019ve been brutally double-crossed by Danielle Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the massive new bureaucracy described in the files, the UCP plan will add seven new agencies with impenetrably bureaucratic new names like \u201cIntegration Council,\u201d \u201cCentre of Recovery Excellence,\u201d and \u201cProcurement and Systems Optimization Secretariat.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s missing, as Notley pointed out, is that \u201cthere are no new doctors, no new nurses, no new paramedics, no new nurse practitioners and no new LPNs in this plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be entire new office floors filled with people at computers trying to figure out what the heck the UCP wants from them,\u201d she said. \u201cI strongly suspect many of those folks will skip this altogether and simply pursue their health care careers in other provinces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heading down a very dangerous path when we allow politicians to decide on medical treatment methods,\u201d Notley added. \u201cWe have massive, radically disruptive change, putting Albertans\u2019 lives at risk. \u2026 Patients are forced to navigate 13 new agencies where there used to be one. Rural communities get absolutely no new decision-making powers and no new doctors, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care workers just desperately want some help and some more people working beside them. Instead, they are facing yet another onslaught of chaos from the UCP,\u201d said Notley, who also asked, who benefits? \u201cThe only person who benefits from this is Danielle Smith, who gives herself sweeping powers to reach into any part of our health care and override medical professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, we\u2019ll see this morning how the government tries to spin this. <\/p>\n

The UCP has scheduled an \u201cembargoed news conference,\u201d an oxymoronic concept, at 7:30AM There will be another public newser at 9AM, after the participants have had a chance to practice their answers, at 9AM The NDP will hold its own news conference at 11. <\/p>\n

UCP to dump ethics commissioner, chief electoral officer<\/h2>\n

Never mind health care, the UCP also plans to get rid of its ethics commissioner, who recently authored a critical report about Premier Smith\u2019s interference in the justice system on behalf of a political ally, as well as the province\u2019s chief electoral officer. <\/p>\n

Marguerite Trussler and Glen Resler will be gone when their terms expire on May 24, the <\/em>Globe and Mail <\/em>reported yesterday<\/a>. Both were appointed by previous Progressive Conservative governments, which from the perspective of the Take Back Alberta cabal that now controls the UCP, may make them worse than New Democrats. They will certainly be replaced by individuals more simpatico with the TBA worldview. <\/p>\n

Danielle Smith will share stage with Tucker Carlson, no matter what<\/h2>\n

Questioned in the Legislature yesterday about her plan to appear on stage with far-right American bloviator Tucker Carlson, known for advocating the violent overthrow of the Canadian federal government, Premier Smith made it clear she won\u2019t be missing the opportunity to hob-nob with the MAGA celebrity just because of his loudly expressed racist, Islamophobic, white supremacist, homophobic, anti-vaccine, and anti-Canadian views. <\/p>\n

This seems on brand, actually, as Ms. Smith appears to share many of Mr. Carlson\u2019s opinions, in addition to her past career as a right-wing talk radio bloviator. <\/p>\n

Certainly, Ms. Smith has advanced a separatist \u201csovereignty\u201d agenda. And Mr. Carlson has described Canada as a dictatorship and opined that \u201cI\u2019m completely in favor of a Bay of Pigs<\/a> operation to liberate that country.\u201d (Alert readers will recall that the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 did not result in a change of government in Cuba, but whatever.) <\/p>\n

Mr. Carlson also complained vociferously when Mars Inc.\u2019s M&M\u2019s marketing spokescandies were redrawn to eliminate characters wearing spike heels and hooker boots. \u201cThe company added obese and distinctly frumpy lesbian M&M\u2019s,\u201d he complained. \u201cM&M\u2019s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous, until the moment you wouldn\u2019t want to have a drink with any one of them.\u201d I suppose it didn\u2019t occur to him that the original cartoon characters might have been \u2026 in drag!<\/em> <\/p>\n

Nice to know our government is working with serious people to, well, to do whatever serious things they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

The post UCP set to announce plan to bust up AHS<\/a> appeared first on rabble.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Read the original article on rabble.ca<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health care in Alberta is moving confidently into the 1990s! The United Conservative Party (UCP) government led by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is about to bring the province\u2019s health care system back to the future with a massive infusion of new red tape, just like the old red tape.  It\u2019ll be so much like the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,3],"tags":[69,29,33],"class_list":["post-8080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commodities","category-technology","tag-impact-eth","tag-signal-avoid","tag-stage-stage-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}