Juno News - Can Alberta Save Healthcare？

00:00:00.000 Alberta is calling, and gee, it's looking like those of us outside of the province should

00:00:07.440 consider answering. And at the very least, push our premiers to follow Daniel Smith's

00:00:12.080 lead on so many files, particularly healthcare.

00:00:14.600 Hi, Juno News. I'm Alex Brown, director of the National Citizens Coalition. Great to

00:00:19.500 be back with you to end the week. Love speaking to this audience, love all your comments.

00:00:24.460 Please subscribe and take advantage of our promo code at junonews.com slash not sorry for

00:00:30.140 20% off. Our story of the day, and it's a big one, a big week coming out of Alberta and

00:00:34.880 its governance and the principled and courageous actions taken by its premier, Daniel Smith.

00:00:40.380 Alberta isn't just fighting for a new deal to get a pipeline to the BC coast through needlessly

00:00:44.740 hostile and disloyal NDP territory. The province is standing up to protect vulnerable children

00:00:50.300 from an affirmation industrial complex, which has been quick to jump the gun on permanent

00:00:54.860 decisions and even standing up for women in sports. And now they're lighting the way for

00:01:00.020 dire healthcare reform. All provinces should take note and follow suit. Take a look at this

00:01:05.300 clip. A recent survey of wait times for elective surgeries in 10 of the world's wealthiest

00:01:09.680 countries, Canada finished dead last, trailing the UK, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand,

00:01:16.060 Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and even the United States. Simply put, our wait times

00:01:21.480 in Canada are well above what medical experts say is an acceptable amount of time to wait

00:01:26.080 for a surgery without risking other difficult physical and mental health challenges.

00:01:30.120 We're calling it the dual practice surgery model, and here's how it will work. The Alberta

00:01:35.400 government will introduce legislation to permit surgeons and supporting surgical professionals

00:01:40.340 like anesthesiologists to perform both publicly and privately funded knee, hip, eye, shoulder,

00:01:46.760 and other elective surgeries. Surgeons who elect to be part of this dual practice model

00:01:51.780 must commit to performing a minimum amount or ratio of publicly funded surgeries each year

00:01:57.140 to qualify. So for example, a surgeon could choose to perform publicly funded surgeries during

00:02:02.640 regular business hours while performing private surgeries after regular business hours or on weekends,

00:02:08.580 should they wish. So instead of a surgeon being limited to performing say a thousand surgeries

00:02:14.180 a year due to health system funding constraints, that doctor could also perform an additional two

00:02:19.460 or three hundred more surgeries for patients who can afford to pay for the cost themselves or that

00:02:24.340 have an employer insurance plan that covers the cost. To be clear, the UCP public health guarantee

00:02:29.780 continues to be in full force. No one will ever be forced to pay out of pocket for a needed hip,

00:02:34.980 knee, or other surgery. Everything your Alberta health insurance covers today remains covered.

00:02:40.020 The only difference is you will likely get that public surgery more quickly than you do now.

00:02:44.660 And surgeries for life threatening conditions such as cancer or emergency surgeries will remain entirely

00:02:51.220 publicly funded with no privately funded option available. This is a game changer. As a high ranking

00:02:56.980 healthcare source just told me, I love it. This is seriously great news, but now the hard work begins.

00:03:02.740 We need to make sure this is implemented properly. Our Medicare stalwarts will point to this as a

00:03:08.420 failed experiment if it doesn't work out. This is our chance to join our peer nations across the world

00:03:13.780 in two tier care. This failing status quo in Canada, it can no longer cut it. No province is on the cutting

00:03:19.860 edge quite like our energy province and wild rose country. Let's talk to Colin Craig from Second Street,

00:03:25.380 one of Canada's leading advocacy groups who have been all over the healthcare reform file. This is

00:03:30.260 incredible news and exciting time. Alberta needs our support. First, a word from our sponsor.

00:03:36.100 Folks, I want to take a minute to thank today's sponsor which is Macamie College. So Macamie College

00:03:41.300 has an applied politics and public affair program. It's a two-year evening online program available

00:03:47.540 across Canada. Students have the opportunity to learn to run political campaigns, organize grassroots

00:03:52.100 movements, and push policy in the right direction. Students will also have hands-on placements in their

00:03:57.460 community or with the party they believe in. So when they graduate, they have real job-ready experience.

00:04:02.820 Applicants only need a high school diploma or homeschooling equivalent to apply. Intake starts

00:04:07.780 in September and January. And folks, we are very excited to announce that anyone who who applies and

00:04:14.180 is successful in enrollment will get a $500 scholarship from Juno News. So apply using our link. It's in the

00:04:21.620 description. You can go to CandiceMalcolm.com slash MACAMI. That's M-A-K-A-M-I. And if you apply through

00:04:28.260 that link and you're successful, you get a $500 Juno News scholarship. You know, I went to the

00:04:34.580 University of Alberta and studied political science. And the thing you realize when you're doing a

00:04:38.020 university degree is that it doesn't lead you to a job. And so for me, after three years of being a

00:04:43.300 political science student, I looked around and realized I had no job skills. I had never worked in

00:04:48.340 politics. Everything was theoretical. It was all in the classroom. And I had to start working on

00:04:53.220 political campaigns just to get my foot in the door. The hard thing about politics is that you need

00:04:57.540 experience to get a job, but jobs require experience. And so doing something like this, I mean, the fact

00:05:02.980 that you can do it online, the fact that you could do it on the evening is really helpful. If you're

00:05:06.260 interested in politics and you're watching the show, I presume you are, this is something that you

00:05:09.620 really might want to consider, or, hey, maybe, maybe one of your adult children might be interested

00:05:14.500 in doing something like this. So again, check out this link at CanadaSmoke.com slash

00:05:19.700 Mackamee College. Colin Craig joins the show. Colin is the president of Second Street, one of Canada's

00:05:25.460 leading advocacy groups. They've been all over the healthcare reform file. Colin, thanks for joining us.

00:05:30.500 Well, thanks for having me, Alex. It's a big day. And you were in some ways ahead of the curve on our

00:05:35.860 news of the day. On November 17th, you and Second Street released new public opinion research that shows a

00:05:42.020 majority of Canadians now support more choice in healthcare, hiring non-government providers to

00:05:47.380 deliver treatment. The poll was conducted by Leisure between October 31st and November 2nd.

00:05:53.140 You're quoted as saying, it's encouraging to see the support for several European-style health reform

00:05:58.100 options that have proven to deliver better results for patients. If more politicians get on board with

00:06:03.220 that change, then our public system could improve. Well, we are seeing a politician get on board with

00:06:08.660 this, Daniel Smith in Alberta. Tell us more about the results of your findings there and why you're

00:06:13.780 encouraged by Alberta's move to modernize healthcare with a dual practice model.

00:06:19.620 Sure. Well, I don't think it's any secret that our system is in crisis. We're having

00:06:24.900 huge problems across the country. Governments have spent 30 years throwing money at the system,

00:06:30.820 hoping something would work. And if we really stand back and be objective as possible about this,

00:06:37.300 it doesn't matter if it's a conservative, liberal, NDP government at the helm.

00:06:41.780 We really haven't had a leader in healthcare. And what I mean by that is a province that is delivering

00:06:46.740 consistent, top quality care to patients, short wait times, access to family, doctors, whatever.

00:06:55.220 We're talking about like a very well-run system. We haven't had that in Canada for 30 years,

00:06:59.860 and it didn't matter which party was in charge. And the reason is because it didn't matter the party,

00:07:05.300 they all kept the same structure of the system. They just kept throwing money at the system.

00:07:10.500 And so, you know, insanity is the, you know, the idea that you're going to keep doing the same thing

00:07:15.140 and expecting different results. So the good news in all this is that if you look to European systems,

00:07:21.060 they have what Canadians want. They have public systems, universal, everyone's covered.

00:07:25.540 You know, you get, you get in right away. It's quality treatment. Maybe not always. I mean,

00:07:30.580 no system's perfect, but it's, it's quality. And when patients are walking out the door,

00:07:35.700 they're not facing an enormous bill. So when you look at European systems and say, well,

00:07:42.180 how are they able to do what we want, but we can't do it? You have to look at the differences

00:07:47.620 between them. And when we polled Canadians on a few of those differences,

00:07:51.860 what you find is a large support. So one key difference in European systems, patients have a

00:07:58.100 choice. They can use the public system or they can pay privately. And in Canada, government barriers

00:08:04.580 generally prevent patients from doing this. You can go to another province and pay, but you cannot pay

00:08:09.860 in your own province. Quebec being one exception. So Canadians like the idea of being able to pay in

00:08:16.660 their own province if they don't want to use the public system. So that choice came in at about 59%

00:08:22.900 support. We pulled on that many times. It tends to range right around that 60% threshold. So, you know,

00:08:31.300 Canadians very much support moving forward with that, that change. Another key difference with Europe,

00:08:37.060 and this is significant, is that they fund their hospitals and the healthcare sector differently.

00:08:43.540 So what we do is we send a big check to a hospital each year and we say, good luck.

00:08:51.220 Doesn't make much sense. There's no accountability there.

00:08:54.020 No. And tons of administrators gobble that up as well.

00:08:57.140 Yeah, exactly. I mean, a lot gets eaten up in administration. There's no incentive to help more

00:09:01.860 patients because every patient walking in the door, it just means your budget goes like this and this.

00:09:06.180 And so you don't want patients. You know, one doctor famously said, like, the last thing a healthcare

00:09:11.620 or hospital administrator wants is a patient coming in the door because it's going to be done to budget.

00:09:17.060 Well, how does Europe do it? Well, like I said, they have a public system. So patients are getting

00:09:21.940 that quality care. What they do is they say, no, what we're going to do as a government is we're going

00:09:26.260 to give you a hospital money every time you help someone. And so they have a fee scale where they will pay

00:09:32.340 different amounts depending on what you're getting done. You know, you get like a small little

00:09:37.060 surgery on your finger or whatever. It's different than getting like open heart surgery, obviously,

00:09:41.140 right? When it's more, more complicated. So if you're a hospital and, you know, someone comes in

00:09:46.660 for a knee operation, let's say I'll make up a number here. They might get $20,000 for it. And then

00:09:53.380 another patient comes in and they need the same thing. They get another $20,000. So those hospitals are

00:09:58.340 incentivized to try to help as many patients as possible. Whereas our system has no incentive to

00:10:04.740 encourage you to just keep helping more and more patients. So, I mean, that's one key reason why they

00:10:10.500 have much shorter wait times. And then maybe a third thing that's very significant is they're not really

00:10:20.100 ideological like we are. We have this great debate about public and private and whatever, right?

00:10:25.620 And the union or stubborn, I think stubborn. They do this completely radical thing there, Alex,

00:10:32.020 their system focuses on what's best for the patient. Imagine that, imagine that a healthcare

00:10:36.740 system focused on what, what, what is best for the patient. So what I mean by that is their government

00:10:41.700 looks at it and says, it doesn't matter if a patient goes into a private clinic or a nonprofit or for

00:10:46.820 profit or whatever, we're, we as a government are going to pay the same amount. So let, you know,

00:10:50.660 I give the example of $20,000 for the, the knee operation. So if, if you need your knee done and

00:10:56.740 you live in whatever country, they will, that $20,000 will follow you into whatever facility

00:11:02.980 you believe will help you the best. So now you've got a bit of competition happening too.

00:11:08.100 Yeah. And, and these, these clinics are incentivized to make sure the money is spent on services that

00:11:14.420 can help you, the patients. So doctors, you know, surgeons, everything related to providing that

00:11:20.500 service to you, not adding another vice president or having more administrative staff or all these

00:11:27.460 expenses that don't actually help patients. So, some pretty radical differences there between us and

00:11:34.100 them, but like I say, generally European countries deliver better care. And when you ask Canadians

00:11:39.300 about each of those policies, I mentioned a majority support them. So yeah. And the framing has always

00:11:44.100 been dishonestly. It seems you either get the wild west of the American model where everything,

00:11:50.180 every hospital visits going to cost you 25 grand and it doesn't, if you have a proper healthcare plan,

00:11:55.460 you know, or you have ours, but it's like, no, there's clearly a middle ground. These are,

00:11:58.820 these are similarly progressive countries that, that share our, our values and our, our Canadian

00:12:03.860 mindedness. Like we can follow places like in Europe and Japan. Like before we get more into

00:12:10.100 this, I want to refer our audience to a terrific video you produced in Japan and, and I'll link it

00:12:15.060 in the show notes. I mean, gosh, getting healthcare right away. Imagine that. What was, what was that

00:12:20.020 experience like? And, and what did you learn? Yeah. So we, we went over there to learn about their

00:12:24.420 system. Um, and one of the interesting things is that there was a report by, I believe it was the OECD.

00:12:30.420 We referenced it in the video and anyone can watch the video it's on our YouTube page. Um, so it's

00:12:34.660 available for free, but the, the OECD report looked at a whole bunch of systems and they looked at

00:12:42.500 different categories of treatment and they were trying to look at where are the problem areas.

00:12:48.180 And then they showed it by country. So you could see for Canada, there was like a dot beside every

00:12:54.340 category, meaning we had problem, wait times for like everything, literally everything dots across

00:12:59.780 the board. Yeah. And then you look at Japan and it's like, there's no dots. There are no problems

00:13:05.380 with waiting for like, you know, cardiac surgery or to get a diagnostic scan or to get orthopedic

00:13:11.220 surgery, whatever, no dots, no wait time problems. So we went there to learn more about their system.

00:13:17.300 And for me personally, I had lived there 20 years ago, teaching English as a young and so to go back

00:13:23.540 to the country, it was, uh, uh, it was, it was great. Um, but it, the, the culture shock I experienced

00:13:30.340 was learning about their system because I didn't really use it when I was young, when I was living

00:13:35.300 there, I used it a couple of times, but for nothing major, but to go back and just hear again and again,

00:13:40.340 and again, oh, you need your knee done. Well, you could probably get in next week, the week after

00:13:44.980 we'll get you in within the month. This is what people in the healthcare system were telling us.

00:13:49.140 And it didn't matter if it was a, uh, a university hospital or a private hospital. I mean, that was

00:13:55.380 sort of the, the reality there, they can get you in right away. And, and one head of a, uh, hospital

00:14:03.380 in Tokyo, the university hospital there, it's in the video. This guy was shocked when I explained to him,

00:14:08.900 it's going to take a year to get your knee down. He's like, I loved that part. There was

00:14:12.580 bewilderment. Yeah. Like this guy was shocked, but this is, this is what you hear when you go

00:14:17.780 to other countries and you start talking about our system. Like they are shocked. They're like,

00:14:22.100 what Canada, you're a developed nation. Why are the wait times so long?

00:14:26.420 And we had, I think this is a recent, I think this is the correct stat. I was, I was reading it

00:14:30.420 recently. It was like, we had, I think Canada had 500,000 people walk out of emergency rooms last year,

00:14:36.260 having not received care. That's huge. It's something like that. MEI, the Montreal

00:14:41.620 Economic Institute, they've crunched that number. They do great work in that. Cause that's an

00:14:44.900 important question. And it's true. People are, they're walking out. The other thing that's just

00:14:49.620 as bad as a lot of people just aren't going in the first place. Yeah. It's not worth it. It's

00:14:54.180 going to take a day. Like if I ever have an ailment where I think, you know, uh, oh, this is an

00:14:58.900 emergency that the first thing I do is like, I grab a book. I charge my cell phone. It's like,

00:15:04.020 that's not actually emergency minded behavior. It's this is going to take a day. Let's let's

00:15:09.060 buckle down here. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, thankfully you're still with us,

00:15:14.500 but some people aren't with us because they had to wait so long.

00:15:17.220 I know they go in for a heart complication. They're, they're sitting in a hallway. They

00:15:20.740 eventually go home. They've hit their head. It it's terrible. And then if they even get a consult,

00:15:25.860 it could take months. And then whatever the issue is, is metastasizing, you know, it, it, it, it's so

00:15:31.860 disappointing and we can't, we can't run a healthcare system on spite and we can't run it

00:15:36.180 on, on that stubbornness. Now, what kind of stories, obviously the news of the day ending

00:15:42.660 the week here is, is Alberta is Daniel Smith's sort of standing a thwart managed decline and

00:15:50.100 status quo and, and their decision to, to try to implement these changes. What kinds of stories

00:15:54.500 have Albertans shared with second street about traveling abroad for healthcare? How do you think

00:15:59.380 allowing this local private sort of payment option would benefit both patients and the economy?

00:16:05.220 Yeah. So it's fantastic. But Daniel Smith has announced, I mean, what the government is doing

00:16:09.780 there, they're leading the country when it comes to health reform. And what they're doing is trying

00:16:14.260 to take Alberta system closer and closer to these European models that I described. They're going to

00:16:19.300 allow choice. So Albertans no longer have to leave their province to pay for treatment. If they don't

00:16:24.340 want to use the public system, they can pay in Alberta, which is good for Alberta's economy on top of it.

00:16:29.300 It's good for the economy. It's good for those that don't pay because they're going to wait on,

00:16:35.140 wait for the public system. But these people that do pay will take pressure off of the public system

00:16:41.140 because every, you know, every time someone doesn't need the public system, then that's good

00:16:45.380 for the public system. It can concentrate on helping people that don't have that, that opportunity to,

00:16:50.180 to pay. So that is a good one. They're also changing how they fund the system in Alberta too.

00:16:55.140 They're going to be copying what I was talking about where they're funding procedures and services

00:16:59.860 to patients rather than sending big checks into healthcare systems and hoping that somehow the

00:17:04.660 money makes its way down to helping patients. So big changes in Alberta, two thumbs up. We're

00:17:10.020 going to have to wait and see how well this gets implemented, of course, but what they're promising to

00:17:14.740 do is really good. When you ask about patient stories, I mean, we've talked to lots of patients from

00:17:20.500 Alberta. We talked to a, a lady that was bouncing around in the Alberta system. This was several

00:17:26.100 years ago now, but she'd been bouncing around for like seven years, chronic pain, finally went to

00:17:31.620 Germany to get some surgery done. I believe it was on her neck and it helped a lot. She was able to get

00:17:36.580 like a good portion of her life back. Yeah. Uh, we talked to, uh, another lady, I think she went to

00:17:42.500 Mexico for her back surgery. I sat in, um, Calgary. This was, uh, I can't remember when it was several

00:17:52.420 months back. The video is on our website, but I sat down with four women from Alberta who had all

00:17:58.580 traveled all the way to Lithuania to get hips, hip operations. Like it's crazy. If you pull out a

00:18:06.500 globe or a map and you look at how far it is from Calgary to Lithuania, it's something like 7,000

00:18:10.820 kilometers. It is crazy far away. And these were women, they were in such bad shape that they wanted,

00:18:18.260 they needed to get their hips done so they could get their lives back. So they went all that way.

00:18:23.540 Um, you know, I know a guy I'm in the lower mainland and I know, uh, uh, uh, the guy who,

00:18:29.060 who blew his, uh, ACL, uh, ACL, MCL, uh, skiing. Okay. And he, he was told like two years and like,

00:18:36.900 you can't stay hobbled for two years. That's we used to push elders out on ice flows for less than

00:18:42.260 that. Like that is, uh, you know, foundationally sort of crippled and, you know, ended up having to go

00:18:48.340 to the BC lower mainland. I suppose has their, their one example of this private is that the can be

00:18:53.140 surgery clinic where he was able to go and actually be taken care of. But generally speaking,

00:18:58.340 if you're, you're in a pinch now in Ontario, it's, it's not even a dirty little secret. You go to

00:19:02.500 Buffalo or if you're in the BC lower mainland, you go down to Bellingham, you, you know, cannonball

00:19:07.460 run down to Washington. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's crazy. No other country does, but we do.

00:19:15.700 I should say no other developed country does this. There's some debate.

00:19:18.580 Yeah. We do the Cuba. We do the Cuba model. So it's us in Cuba. Congratulations.

00:19:23.060 Yeah. There's some debate about Cuba. I don't know. I mean, we, we, we have my colleague called

00:19:27.780 down there. She speaks Spanish and she asked a clinic and they said, no, you can't pay locally.

00:19:31.620 Someone else tells us, no, you can. I don't know. I mean, it's crazy when you're even having to ponder,

00:19:35.940 like, are we the exact same as Cuba or not? North Korea being the other ones. I mean,

00:19:40.020 Oh, good company.

00:19:40.900 North Canada. I mean, one of these things is not like the other.

00:19:43.940 Yeah. Or, or shouldn't be. Yeah. I think our, I think our economies, uh, are growing probably

00:19:49.220 the same amount at this point too. Now, how do we, how do we ensure this actually gets implemented

00:19:53.300 properly? I, I, there are regulatory boards that, you know, that need to buy in you. We have our

00:19:58.020 Medicare stalwarts that need to buy in it. Do you know of how the heck we, we ensure that this is a

00:20:05.140 success? Because I think my worry goes to my, my comms brain starts turning, which is, you know,

00:20:10.340 if there are some early hiccups, you're going to have the status quo folks turn around and go,

00:20:14.900 see, huh? We, we tried it. It didn't work. Let's go back to everyone dying on a wait list.

00:20:20.260 Yeah. Uh, very, very good question. I mean, the first thing I would do to, uh, for anyone that's

00:20:25.380 watching who thinks this is a good idea, all these changes I'm talking about, uh, take this video once

00:20:31.780 it's posted and share it with all your friends. The more Canadians that understand that the suffering

00:20:37.380 that's going on in this country doesn't need to be like it is that there are better systems that

00:20:43.220 we can copy and then deliver better results for Canadians, the better. So make sure that your

00:20:47.860 friends and family know about what's going on. So spread this clip around. Um, if you're, uh, you know,

00:20:54.180 if someone feels so inclined, share it with your local elected officials, your, your MLA is especially

00:20:59.300 because healthcare's provincial responsibility and make sure they understand these different changes

00:21:05.460 that can be done that help move our system towards what Canadians actually want. You know,

00:21:10.980 a universal model where everyone's covered, wait times are reasonable, uh, cares delivered in a

00:21:17.380 quality manner and people aren't facing NASA bills. So, you know, I think that's really important to,

00:21:23.620 you know, talk to your elected officials, let people know about what, uh, what's going on so that the

00:21:28.820 public understands, Hey, these governments on the road, you know, in the case of Albertans,

00:21:32.420 especially the provincial governments on the right track, you know, like I say, two big thumbs up.

00:21:36.020 They're what they're saying they're going to be doing. It's good. It's excellent. It's about time

00:21:41.780 we see this happen in this country. And, you know, I will be watching to make sure they implement it.

00:21:46.100 Right. But yeah, definitely want to see them, uh, keep moving in that direction.

00:21:50.420 No, we all need to get to get behind them on this. Cause it's some status quos are, are worse than others.

00:21:55.860 This one, you know, is we're needlessly losing people. We're making ourselves sicker.

00:22:01.300 Colin Craig, thank you for all your terrific work on this file and thank you for joining us.

00:22:05.140 Okay. Thanks a lot, Alex. Take care.

Juno News - November 22, 2025

Can Alberta Save Healthcare？

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