Danielle Smith has a mandate to take on Alberta s bloated, intractable healthcare bureaucracy, and her success or failure in that task is going to impact how healthcare is managed across all of Canada, because you can rest assured, every Premier in Canada is watching her closely.
00:00:00.000So Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith, she's charging into 2024 with a mandate to take on Alberta's bloated, intractable healthcare bureaucracy.
00:00:10.400And her success or failure in that task is going to impact how healthcare has managed across all of Canada.
00:00:16.440Because you can rest assured, every Premier in Canada is watching Smith closely on this one.
00:00:22.060I mean, let's face it, Canada's healthcare system stinks, and no province is an exception.
00:00:26.480Costs are going up every year, while access is going down.
00:00:30.320People are dying on waiting lists, and the lists are only getting longer.
00:00:34.460Citizens are finally realizing it, and I think that's what's encouraging, you know, and empowering some politicians.
00:00:38.840They're realizing the vaunted reputation of Canada's healthcare system is a myth.
00:00:42.940But still, we've got defenders of the status quo fighting tooth and nail whenever anybody speaks of reforming the system or even changing a few little things, much less acting on it.
00:00:52.080Unions, bureaucrats, assorted socialist activists, they refuse to accept that the system's broken, and they're doing everything possible to prevent anybody from fixing it.
00:01:00.400Now, as more and more Canadians find themselves and their loved ones suffering under the broken system, the appetite for change is finally growing.
00:01:06.320And Daniel Smith is the first Premier to really stick her neck out on the issue, and her battle low is just beginning.
00:01:11.400I mean, she began by cutting from the top with Alberta's massive healthcare management bureaucracy.
00:01:16.680Shortly after she became Premier a little over a year ago, her government fired Chief Medical Officer Dina Hinshaw.
00:01:22.160Then she fired the entire Alberta Health Services Board.
00:01:25.620That's the bureaucracy that runs Alberta's healthcare.
00:01:28.800And finally, she fired Dr. Verna Yu from a position of CEO at AHS.
00:01:33.880Not Premier Smith personally doing all this, but under her guidance, the government did.
00:01:37.980Now, the NDP and the unions and the rest of the usual suspects, of course, they were apoplectic.
00:01:42.120Look, legacy media members and activists alike, they rallied in 2023 in the spring election to ensure Smith didn't win.
00:01:50.920And now she does have a real mandate to reform that system.
00:01:53.480And it looks like she's going to go for it.
00:01:54.740Since the election, Premier Smith has split Alberta Health Services into several different entities.
00:02:00.640Now, ostensibly, this is to allow for more specialized policies in different aspects of healthcare, but there's likely, and there likely is some merit to that.
00:02:07.100But more importantly, and more likely, that organization is split up because it makes it harder for the bureaucrats to put up an organized front in hindering reforms.
00:02:15.900Premier Smith warned when she won the last election in one of her speeches.
00:02:19.360She said she won't let herself be slow-rolled by the bureaucracy.
00:02:22.040But it appears that Alberta Health Services managers didn't get the message as they've been dragging their heels on mandates to improve service.
00:02:29.360I mean, one simple mandate, for example, was with ambulance services.
00:02:32.300Tens of thousands of trips are made every year using fully equipped ambulances crewed by paramedics to transport non-emergency patients.
00:02:39.840It's a terrible waste of resources, and it ties up highly trained workers and highly specialized equipment when we don't need to.
00:02:46.040The mandate was handed down for AHS to seek some private contractors to take over some of the role of the non-emergency patient transports.
00:02:53.440It's simple, common sense, and it's a big problem, and it frees up ambulances.
00:02:57.500Instead of taking the mandate seriously, though, AHS bureaucrats devised a ridiculous set of conditions and created a number of barriers for any private contractors trying to seek the contracts.
00:03:06.060They're moving as slowly as possible, and they're continuing to find excuses not to approve applications.
00:03:11.500Meanwhile, Alberta's literally hitting situations where regions have run out of ambulance service, including just on New Year's Eve this year in major cities.
00:03:19.220Premier Smith has had enough of it, and she's laying down the law.
00:03:21.900In a recent interview, she made no bones about it, and she said, that's what our focus is.
00:03:26.300It's firing the managers who we have paid to solve these problems, and they've allowed the problems to perpetuate, and they've done nothing about them.
00:03:32.900Yeah, the premier is bold, to the point, and unequivocable.
00:03:37.020Managers have better proved they're getting things done, or they're going to be fired.
00:04:26.420In fact, nobody has for years, and look where it got us.
00:04:29.660Shaking up the Canadian health care system has been considered political blasphemy for way too long.
00:04:34.420The system's failing, and thankfully, Premier Smith is willing to break away from Canadian dogma, become an apostate, and get the job done.
00:04:41.480The battle of wills is just beginning, though, but I'm betting on Smith winning it.
00:04:44.800And when Smith wins, and health care begins to improve in Alberta, rest assured, other Premiers who are too cowardly to put their necks on the line will follow.
00:04:54.700Alberta's lucky to be in a province with a Premier willing to lead.
00:04:58.280Her actions and tenacity are going to benefit us all within and outside of Alberta, and it's about time.