I taught high school in Alberta for 32 years. The Calgary Herald always used to rank schools by PAT and Diploma exams results. I found it infuriating that private schools who could cherry pick their students and maintain small class sizes were always praised for being at the top of those lists.
The same goes for private surgical facilities. There's not a snowball's chance in hell one of these facilities will take a really complex case if they can help it.
Absolutely. Why do public hospitals charge more for the surgeries? Because they do *all* of them and it evens out the cost per surgery/follow up care etc.
The chartered clinics are changing less because they will not take a complex surgery, period.
Interestingly, private surgical facilities wouldn't even be allowed to take on complex cases, as any cases which present complication (nevermind any chance of death) are required to be handled in a full hospital setting. The. private surgical facilities are meant to be mundane mechanical one trick pony shows. We 'R Knees, Hips 'R Us, and such. In, chop-chop, and out.
If we had a truly comprehensive socialized healthcare system that was actually stable, there might even be an argument for such machine shops (see: Europe). But we don't. So there isn't.
Two surgical sites being built and pressure/extensions given for an existing one, seemingly without a contract in place. Hmmm. Do they know something we don’t? Were they promised contracts? Why can’t AHS and say maybe .. the public .. know who owns these companies? ANY government contracted work should be completely transparent for these exact reasons. Smells like fish and Danielle’s personal grudge at play.
Strange how Smith knew nothing about any of this since the AHS firings have been in the news consistently right from the very first AHS board Smith fired immediately after being elected. Since then it's been one after another change of boards. It's been one after another change of Alberta Health Services make-up. It's almost as if the UCP don't have a clue what they're doing? Oh, yeah! Right! They don't!
My hope is that Danielle Smith steps up, tells the truth, fires whomever needs to be booted and gets on with holding AHS to account. I feel that the biggest problem is still theirs, top heavy, bloated bureaucracy. They were the ones that couldn’t ‘find’ $240 k for RAH for the surgical team, they are the ones using the contractor long before Smith arrived. And-by the way - we do PAY for all surgery, whether private or in hospital. I will seek out the private option , thanks for the option.
You may not have a choice -- they only take the easy cases and leave more complex ones for the public system. They get choice -- not you. Like private and separate schools; it's about them being able to refuse people and public systems can't do that.
I'm not sure how AHS will be less top heavy as four separate silos requiring the same bureaucracy. Instead of one CEO, we get four. Instead of one accounting department, we get four. I don't really care either way, but it seems like asking to quadruple the expense and I don't really get how that's a "conservative" option.
I really did prefer it when she just wanted to be known as incredibly stupid. I've seen some of the stuff around this and it's quite amusing to me that this batch of UCP managed to get themselves so tangled up in it. It wasn't even about them before they started accepting gifts they shouldn't have, and signing orders to do things they shouldn't have. It wasn't about them at all but they're so focused on their own "freedoms" that they couldn't see the rules were in place to protect them. Just tickles my funny bone to no end.
Danielle Smith’s whole political career has been painted with actions that are aimed at centralizing power and reducing transparency. The only stepping up that Smith needs to do is to resign. By the by, is so nice that you can afford the “private” option and let the rabble scrabble for the scraps. That, Lauretta is what private health care is about … stepping past the masses to the head of the line, not because you are more ill than the rabble, but because you have more money. It is always a story of privilege, “let them eat cake.”
It's not really "private" in terms of cost. It's still paid for by AHS (or Alberta Health, or whomever has the public chequebook now). They will operate like the chartered/separate schools; they choose who they will provide services for and who they will refuse. Public has to accept everyone, chartered facilities do not.
I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that the Separate (Catholic) schools in AB are *not* charter; they are "public" alongside the Public schools, inasmuch as our property tax dollars go to one or the other, by our choice. And "charter" schools are the private ones.
Charter schools in Alberta are better described as "private-adjacent." The original thought behind them is that once they demonstrated they were a viable educational provider, they would be fully reabsorbed by the normal Public system (Edmonton Public avoided much of this through their "schools of choice strategy").
As it has turned out, though, Charters have maintained a jealous hold on their independence, and so have come to represent a permanent move away from the normal Public system. Nonetheless, Private schools proper are their own creature, different from Charters, even while they continue to enjoy greater and greater access public funds under the UCP.
Thanks, that clarifies things re: charter vs. private schools. I just wanted to make the point that the Separate (Catholic) system is as "public" — or "normal," as described above — as the Public system is.
Hey Deirdre, where DOES the buck stop? Couple a hundred million dollar contract and Smith knew nothing, never asking who provided the hockey tickets? Her Health Minister and her DMs firing boards and CEOs and the Premier knows nothing , except now she heard some grumbling earlier in the year. Now the obfuscation of 6 month investigation.A batch'o political resignations are in order.🤍
This is a critique of a careless statement that you threw into an excellent article for absolutely no reason. The careless statement was “all politicians lie “. I’m sick of Media people like yourself throwing this out as a “sop” to appease conservative and to “both sides “ your statement that a conservative has lied.
QUIT the both sides narrative. Haven’t you figured out yet that you’re catering to the far right conservatives by doing it? You should have figured it out.
Maybe I didn’t make my point clear. Using the currently popular phrase “all politicians lie “ is the example of the both sides narrative in this article. Youre lumping liberal political parties govern for the benefit of the general public with conservatives who govern for the wealthy and themselves. And those two sides of the political narrative are not the same.
Just because they have a few more principles doesn't mean they don't lie. I'm not a good partisan -- tried it once and it didn't take. I don't write with a partisan lean. Rachel Notley had better intentions than Smith but she didn't offer up knowing about her caucus member Thomas Dang's hacking (which happened in September and he didn't step away from caucus until December).
It's not a partisan statement to say they all lie, unfortunately, but it is logically inconsistent so now I have to edit it.
I refreshed my memory about the dang issue and I must say that that incident is not, in my opinion, in the same league as Danielle Smith’s lies or PP’s lies and disinformation campaign. The two sides of our political scene are fundamentally so different they should not be casually loved together.
Not saying they're the same, but actually pretty close because the acts as found, and alleged, are criminal.
I don't want to get into the disinformation and misinformation, or campaigns, because that's not what Smith is doing right now. She's just lying. And, unfortunately, that isn't as big a deal to anyone as it should be.
I agree. Smith’s lying should be a huge deal to every Albertan and it’s incomprehensible to me that it’s not. Glad to see articles like yours, bringing it to the attention of Albertans.
Just remember you felt that way when I inevitably write something about a party or politician you like :) it doesn’t happen often, because the magnitudes are usually very different, but once in a while, they get on my radar :)
In the four years of NDP government and I can’t think of a single significant ethical lapse. Which isn’t the same thing as agreeing with all their choices. But if ethics are something you consider important, all parties and politicians are demonstrably not the same
I think they only had one; the Thomas Dang issue. The issue became “why didn’t Notley act sooner?” (Sept breach, December resignation from caucus but sat as an independent).
The NDP wasn’t the government at the time. Dang had no responsibilities or authority. The two months before he was officially removed from the party caucus were a reasonable amount of time to look into the facts given that he wasn’t in charge of anything to be removed from
If that’s the biggest ethical lapse their party made in the last decade, I think it represents a clear difference in ethical standards between the two parties
Well, I agree with you, Karin. It is a throw away statement because all “people” lie. That has been the subject of countless papers in psychology and sociology and it’s true. The real problem is the nature of the lies, the purpose of the lies and the frequency of the lies. It is the pathology of the lying if you will. That pathology should dictate a critical response not a clinical balance sheet.
She wants to hide this in an investigation by the 3rd party of her choice for 6 months. Her 3 years will be up then and a new liar in chief will be appointed. It is the Harpo🤡 script.
I taught high school in Alberta for 32 years. The Calgary Herald always used to rank schools by PAT and Diploma exams results. I found it infuriating that private schools who could cherry pick their students and maintain small class sizes were always praised for being at the top of those lists.
The same goes for private surgical facilities. There's not a snowball's chance in hell one of these facilities will take a really complex case if they can help it.
Absolutely. Why do public hospitals charge more for the surgeries? Because they do *all* of them and it evens out the cost per surgery/follow up care etc.
The chartered clinics are changing less because they will not take a complex surgery, period.
Interestingly, private surgical facilities wouldn't even be allowed to take on complex cases, as any cases which present complication (nevermind any chance of death) are required to be handled in a full hospital setting. The. private surgical facilities are meant to be mundane mechanical one trick pony shows. We 'R Knees, Hips 'R Us, and such. In, chop-chop, and out.
If we had a truly comprehensive socialized healthcare system that was actually stable, there might even be an argument for such machine shops (see: Europe). But we don't. So there isn't.
Two surgical sites being built and pressure/extensions given for an existing one, seemingly without a contract in place. Hmmm. Do they know something we don’t? Were they promised contracts? Why can’t AHS and say maybe .. the public .. know who owns these companies? ANY government contracted work should be completely transparent for these exact reasons. Smells like fish and Danielle’s personal grudge at play.
Strange how Smith knew nothing about any of this since the AHS firings have been in the news consistently right from the very first AHS board Smith fired immediately after being elected. Since then it's been one after another change of boards. It's been one after another change of Alberta Health Services make-up. It's almost as if the UCP don't have a clue what they're doing? Oh, yeah! Right! They don't!
My hope is that Danielle Smith steps up, tells the truth, fires whomever needs to be booted and gets on with holding AHS to account. I feel that the biggest problem is still theirs, top heavy, bloated bureaucracy. They were the ones that couldn’t ‘find’ $240 k for RAH for the surgical team, they are the ones using the contractor long before Smith arrived. And-by the way - we do PAY for all surgery, whether private or in hospital. I will seek out the private option , thanks for the option.
You may not have a choice -- they only take the easy cases and leave more complex ones for the public system. They get choice -- not you. Like private and separate schools; it's about them being able to refuse people and public systems can't do that.
I'm not sure how AHS will be less top heavy as four separate silos requiring the same bureaucracy. Instead of one CEO, we get four. Instead of one accounting department, we get four. I don't really care either way, but it seems like asking to quadruple the expense and I don't really get how that's a "conservative" option.
I really did prefer it when she just wanted to be known as incredibly stupid. I've seen some of the stuff around this and it's quite amusing to me that this batch of UCP managed to get themselves so tangled up in it. It wasn't even about them before they started accepting gifts they shouldn't have, and signing orders to do things they shouldn't have. It wasn't about them at all but they're so focused on their own "freedoms" that they couldn't see the rules were in place to protect them. Just tickles my funny bone to no end.
Danielle Smith’s whole political career has been painted with actions that are aimed at centralizing power and reducing transparency. The only stepping up that Smith needs to do is to resign. By the by, is so nice that you can afford the “private” option and let the rabble scrabble for the scraps. That, Lauretta is what private health care is about … stepping past the masses to the head of the line, not because you are more ill than the rabble, but because you have more money. It is always a story of privilege, “let them eat cake.”
It's not really "private" in terms of cost. It's still paid for by AHS (or Alberta Health, or whomever has the public chequebook now). They will operate like the chartered/separate schools; they choose who they will provide services for and who they will refuse. Public has to accept everyone, chartered facilities do not.
I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that the Separate (Catholic) schools in AB are *not* charter; they are "public" alongside the Public schools, inasmuch as our property tax dollars go to one or the other, by our choice. And "charter" schools are the private ones.
Charter schools in Alberta are better described as "private-adjacent." The original thought behind them is that once they demonstrated they were a viable educational provider, they would be fully reabsorbed by the normal Public system (Edmonton Public avoided much of this through their "schools of choice strategy").
As it has turned out, though, Charters have maintained a jealous hold on their independence, and so have come to represent a permanent move away from the normal Public system. Nonetheless, Private schools proper are their own creature, different from Charters, even while they continue to enjoy greater and greater access public funds under the UCP.
Thanks, that clarifies things re: charter vs. private schools. I just wanted to make the point that the Separate (Catholic) system is as "public" — or "normal," as described above — as the Public system is.
Hey Deirdre, where DOES the buck stop? Couple a hundred million dollar contract and Smith knew nothing, never asking who provided the hockey tickets? Her Health Minister and her DMs firing boards and CEOs and the Premier knows nothing , except now she heard some grumbling earlier in the year. Now the obfuscation of 6 month investigation.A batch'o political resignations are in order.🤍
This is a critique of a careless statement that you threw into an excellent article for absolutely no reason. The careless statement was “all politicians lie “. I’m sick of Media people like yourself throwing this out as a “sop” to appease conservative and to “both sides “ your statement that a conservative has lied.
QUIT the both sides narrative. Haven’t you figured out yet that you’re catering to the far right conservatives by doing it? You should have figured it out.
There is no "both sides narrative". Maybe some people think only the "other side" does it, but I could probably find an instance to prove them wrong.
Maybe I didn’t make my point clear. Using the currently popular phrase “all politicians lie “ is the example of the both sides narrative in this article. Youre lumping liberal political parties govern for the benefit of the general public with conservatives who govern for the wealthy and themselves. And those two sides of the political narrative are not the same.
Just because they have a few more principles doesn't mean they don't lie. I'm not a good partisan -- tried it once and it didn't take. I don't write with a partisan lean. Rachel Notley had better intentions than Smith but she didn't offer up knowing about her caucus member Thomas Dang's hacking (which happened in September and he didn't step away from caucus until December).
It's not a partisan statement to say they all lie, unfortunately, but it is logically inconsistent so now I have to edit it.
I refreshed my memory about the dang issue and I must say that that incident is not, in my opinion, in the same league as Danielle Smith’s lies or PP’s lies and disinformation campaign. The two sides of our political scene are fundamentally so different they should not be casually loved together.
Not saying they're the same, but actually pretty close because the acts as found, and alleged, are criminal.
I don't want to get into the disinformation and misinformation, or campaigns, because that's not what Smith is doing right now. She's just lying. And, unfortunately, that isn't as big a deal to anyone as it should be.
I agree. Smith’s lying should be a huge deal to every Albertan and it’s incomprehensible to me that it’s not. Glad to see articles like yours, bringing it to the attention of Albertans.
Just remember you felt that way when I inevitably write something about a party or politician you like :) it doesn’t happen often, because the magnitudes are usually very different, but once in a while, they get on my radar :)
😊
In the four years of NDP government and I can’t think of a single significant ethical lapse. Which isn’t the same thing as agreeing with all their choices. But if ethics are something you consider important, all parties and politicians are demonstrably not the same
I think they only had one; the Thomas Dang issue. The issue became “why didn’t Notley act sooner?” (Sept breach, December resignation from caucus but sat as an independent).
The NDP wasn’t the government at the time. Dang had no responsibilities or authority. The two months before he was officially removed from the party caucus were a reasonable amount of time to look into the facts given that he wasn’t in charge of anything to be removed from
If that’s the biggest ethical lapse their party made in the last decade, I think it represents a clear difference in ethical standards between the two parties
Well, I agree with you, Karin. It is a throw away statement because all “people” lie. That has been the subject of countless papers in psychology and sociology and it’s true. The real problem is the nature of the lies, the purpose of the lies and the frequency of the lies. It is the pathology of the lying if you will. That pathology should dictate a critical response not a clinical balance sheet.
She wants to hide this in an investigation by the 3rd party of her choice for 6 months. Her 3 years will be up then and a new liar in chief will be appointed. It is the Harpo🤡 script.
She should resign.
And that should signal her resignation.
They might be waiting for her to take AHS.
When is this idiotic, lying, corrupt tool of the UCP going to walk into the sunset, preferably right off the west coast of Vancouver Island?
After AHS is fully dismantled? I’m honestly not sure.