Alberta Premier Says Province Will Pursue Health Care Reforms Regardless of Federal Funding

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the United Conservative Party AGM near Edmonton on Oct. 22, 2022. Amber Bracken/The Canadian Press

Alberta will be reforming its health care system with or without money from the federal government, Premier Danielle Smith says.

At a news conference on Jan. 10, Smith said that even if the federal government does not provide funding, health care is the “number one most important thing” that Albertans expect to be improved.

Smith said her first move was to put in a new official administrator to help implement health-care reforms. On Nov. 17, Smith announced the entire Alberta Health Services Board would be replaced by Dr. John Cowell, a full-time, experienced administrator who previously held the role. Cowell has been tasked with carrying out the health reforms Smith promised during her election campaign.

In November, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the Liberal government would raise the Canada Health Transfer funding it provides to provinces, but only if provinces agreed to conditions, such as a national “world-class health data system” and expanding the “use of common key health indicators.”

Some premiers, including Smith, have maintained calls for funding without any conditions.

“I can’t stop doing reform because the federal government doesn’t want to partner with us,” Smith said.

“It’s great if [the government] comes to the table with more funding support but we’re not going to stop with the reforms that we’re doing.

Smith said the province has committed $600 million per year for health care for the next two years.

Four Priorities

Smith said her government has four immediate priorities: reducing emergency wait times; reducing the time ambulances spend waiting at the hospital; reducing surgical wait times; and ensuring all Albertans have a family doctor.

“None of those things require me to sit back and wait for the federal government to come in and help. We have to act on these things regardless,” she said.

Smith said one way the province is moving forward with reforms is through non-ambulance transfers—a separate vehicle that can transport a patient to a hospital or to a routine medical appointment, freeing up ambulances in the community.

The premier also said there were 55 hospital operating rooms that have not been opened that required only minimal changes to bring operational, such as fixing the HVAC system in one, and installing cameras in another.

She said nurses will also triage in a different way, so that patients can be assessed and treated sooner, and released from hospital faster.

Smith said many of these “structural changes” do not require extra funding or cost more money.

“It’s incremental decisions, dozens of different decisions every day across the entire system, that’s going to make a big difference,” she said.

Smith said the province started with benchmarks such as a surgery backlog of 69,000 in November 2022, with an update expected later this month as to what progress has been made since she took office.

Smith also said a health spending account is being worked on, to allow “more money into the hands of individual patients so that they can pay for all the things that are currently not covered by the health care system.”