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Alberta

Alberta, Ontario premiers blast gov’t minister for remarks on slashing federal funds for new roads

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By AnthonyMurdoch

Danielle Smith suggested that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault ‘return to the real world’ and Doug Ford said his province will build roads on its own.

Premiers Danielle Smith of Alberta and Doug Ford of Ontario tore into Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault after he said the federal government would no longer fund any road construction projects and instead funnel the savings to “climate change” projects that promote people walk instead of drive.

“So now our Environment Minister wants to cut federal funding for roads … because we should all just walk more,” Smith wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday in reaction to a news report about the minister’s comments.

“Does this minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal? Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to work each day.”

Smith then said to Guilbeault, “Can we return to the real world Minister @s_guilbeault?”

Guilbeault made the comments on Tuesday at a transit conference in Montreal, saying, “Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.”

“Of course we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network,” he added.

Smith has been battling the minister for the last few months over his extreme climate change policies that seek to destroy Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

Guilbeault’s reasoning for stopping funding to build roads was that according to an “analysis” his office did the current network is “perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have” and that investing in public transit can help them achieve his “goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.”

Ford says he is ‘gobsmacked’ by Guilbeault’s road defunding comments 

Ford said his province would continue to build roads on its own.

“I’m gobsmacked. A federal minister said they won’t invest in new roads or highways,” Ford wrote on X.

“He doesn’t care that you’re stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I do. We’re building roads and highways, with or without a cent from the feds.”

 

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also took a shot at Guilbeault, saying the federal government would no longer fund new road projects and that the minister is “out of touch” with “reality.”

“Millions for ArriveCan, not one more federal dollar for new roads. Guilbeault wants us all to walk everywhere. The Trudeau government gets more out of touch with reality every day,” Moe wrote  Wednesday on X.

The reality is that Canada, the second largest country in the world by land mass, has only one four-lane highway that connects the West Coast to the East. However, the TransCanada highway past Manitoba goes down to only two lanes.

To date, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent about $30 billion in promoting public transit as well as approximately $400 million to promote walking, e-bikes, roller blades, cycling, and other transportation means, which for most of the year due to winter are not feasible for most.

Also, the Trudeau government has attacked gasoline and diesel cars, even though Guilbeault said on Tuesday that “(w)e must stop thinking that electric cars will solve all our problems.”

Just before Christmas, Guilbeault announced the “Electric Vehicle Availability Standard.” The plan is to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, which would in effect ban the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

Smith noted that when it comes to Trudeau’s EV mandate, “Ottawa is trying to force increased demands on the electricity grid while simultaneously weakening Alberta’s and other provinces’ grids through their federal electricity regulations.”

Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau has continued to push a radical environmental agenda like the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet  are involved.

The reality of Trudeau’s push for so-called renewable energy showed itself just over a month ago after Alberta’s power grid faced near certain collapse due to a failure of wind and solar power. Many called out the Trudeau government’s green energy agenda that is attempting to phase out carbon-based power in favor of “renewables” as the reason for the near failure.

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Alberta

Alberta takes big step towards shorter wait times and higher quality health care

Published on April 9, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Nadeem Esmail

On Monday, the Smith government announced that beginning next year it will change the way it funds surgeries in Alberta. This is a big step towards unlocking the ability of Alberta’s health-care system to provide more, better and faster services for the same or possibly fewer dollars.

To understand the significance of this change, you must understand the consequences of the current (and outdated) approach.

Currently, the Alberta government pays a lump sum of money to hospitals each year. Consequently, hospitals perceive patients as a drain on their budgets. From the hospital’s perspective, there’s little financial incentive to serve more patients, operate more efficiently and provide superior quality services.

Consider what would happen if your local grocery store received a giant bag of money each year to feed people. The number of items would quickly decline to whatever was most convenient for the store to provide. (Have a favourite cereal? Too bad.) Store hours would become less convenient for customers, alongside a general decline in overall service. This type of grocery store, like an Alberta hospital, is actually financially better off (that is, it saves money) if you go elsewhere.

The Smith government plans to flip this entire system on its head, to the benefit of patients and taxpayers. Instead of handing out bags of money each year to providers, the new system—known as “activity-based funding”—will pay health-care providers for each patient they treat, based on the patient’s particular condition and important factors that may add complexity or cost to their care.

This turns patients from a drain on budgets into a source of additional revenue. The result, as has been demonstrated in other universal health-care systems worldwide, is more services delivered using existing health-care infrastructure, lower wait times, improved quality of care, improved access to medical technologies, and less waste.

In other words, Albertans will receive far better value from their health-care system, which is currently among the most expensive in the world. And relief can’t come soon enough—for example, last year in Alberta the median wait time for orthopedic surgeries including hip and knee replacements was 66.8 weeks.

The naysayers argue this approach will undermine the province’s universal system and hurt patients. But by allowing a spectrum of providers to compete for the delivery of quality care, Alberta will follow the lead of other more successful universal health-care systems in countries such as Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland and create greater accountability for hospitals and other health-care providers. Taxpayers will get a much better picture of what they’re paying for and how much they pay.

Again, Alberta is not exploring an untested policy. Almost every other developed country with universal health care uses some form of “activity-based funding” for hospital and surgical care. And remember, we already spend more on health care than our counterparts in nearly all of these countries yet endure longer wait times and poorer access to services generally, in part because of how we pay for surgical care.

While the devil is always in the details, and while it’s still possible for the Alberta government to get this wrong, Monday’s announcement is a big step in the right direction. A funding model that puts patients first will get Albertans more of the high-quality health care they already pay for in a timelier fashion. And provide to other provinces an example of bold health-care reform.

Nadeem Esmail

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Alberta

Alberta’s embrace of activity-based funding is great news for patients

Published on April 9, 2025

By

From the Montreal Economic Institute

Alberta’s move to fund acute care services through activity-based funding follows best practices internationally, points out an MEI researcher following an announcement made by Premier Danielle Smith earlier today.

“For too long, the way hospitals were funded in Alberta incentivized treating fewer patients, contributing to our long wait times,” explains Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI. “International experience has shown that, with the proper funding models in place, health systems become more efficient to the benefit of patients.”

Currently, Alberta’s hospitals are financed under a system called “global budgeting.” This involves allocating a pre-set amount of funding to pay for a specific number of services based on previous years’ budgets.

Under the government’s newly proposed funding system, hospitals receive a fixed payment for each treatment delivered.

An Economic Note published by the MEI last year showed that Quebec’s gradual adoption of activity-based funding led to higher productivity and lower costs in the province’s health system.

Notably, the province observed that the per-procedure cost of MRIs fell by four per cent as the number of procedures performed increased by 22 per cent.

In the radiology and oncology sector, it observed productivity increases of 26 per cent while procedure costs decreased by seven per cent.

“Being able to perform more surgeries, at lower costs, and within shorter timelines is exactly what Alberta’s patients need, and Premier Smith understands that,” continued Mrs. Wittevrongel. “Today’s announcement is a good first step, and we look forward to seeing a successful roll-out once appropriate funding levels per procedure are set.”

The governments expects to roll-out this new funding model for select procedures starting in 2026.

* * *

The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

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