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Alberta

Encouraging news: Update on E. coli outbreak in Calgary

Published

2 years ago

7 minute read

The Emergency Department at Calgary’s Peter Lougheed Hospital at the height of the E. coli outbreak, Sept 7, 2023

As hospital admissions and daily numbers of new E. coli cases continue to decline, health officials are seeing signs that the initial outbreak that affected several Calgary daycares has peaked.

The number of secondary transmissions connected to this outbreak remains low, indicating there is limited transmission of the E. coli bacteria beyond the initial outbreak.

The kitchen connected with the original outbreak remains closed indefinitely. In addition, precautionary measures at specific daycare facilities remain in place. Parents and operators have been made aware of these measures directly and through communication with Alberta Health Services.

“I am relieved every time I hear of a child who is well enough to leave hospital. My heart goes out to each family member who has been impacted, and I want them to know that we will get to the bottom of this. Thank you as well to our front-line staff for supporting these children and their families on the road to recovery.”

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health

“Families have had their lives turned upside down by this outbreak. I’m relieved many of them are seeing their children recover and start to get back to their normal routines. I want to reassure parents they can place their trust in our high-quality child-care system and that they are not alone. We are here to support them in any way we can.”

Searle Turton, Minister of Children and Family Services

“We are cautiously optimistic that the outbreak has peaked and that we will continue to see case numbers drop. That said, this does not diminish the fact that we still have some children who remain very ill, and my heart goes out to them, their parents and their loved ones.”

Dr. Mark Joffe, chief medical officer of health

Hospitalizations and cases

As of Sept.19, there were a total of 348 lab-confirmed cases connected to this outbreak, no increase from Sept. 18. Between Sept. 9 and Sept. 14, there was an average increase of 33 new cases a day. Since then, the average case numbers decreased to fewer than four a day to no increase on Sept. 19.

There have been a total of 27 lab-confirmed secondary cases, with no additional secondary cases confirmed, since Sept. 16. Some cases of secondary transmission are common and expected in significant outbreaks such as this.

Currently eight patients are receiving care in hospital, down one from Sept. 18. All these patients have been confirmed as having hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), including two on dialysis (a decrease of one since Sept. 18). All patients are in stable condition and responding to treatment. Front-line health care teams continue to provide the best care and support possible.

A total of 707 children connected to the outbreak have been cleared to return to a daycare facility.

Daycares

As of Sept. 19, six daycare facilities are under closure or partial closure orders:

  • Active Start Country Hills – Dolphin and Starfish preschool classes
  • CanCare Childcare – Scenic Acres location­ – Busy Bees, Bumble Bees and Butterflies   classrooms
  • CEFA Early Learning Calgary South ­– JK 3-1 classroom
  • Renert Junior Kindergarten – all four Junior K classrooms
  • 1st Class Childcare Shawnessy ­– “Main daycare” area is being closed
  • Calgary JCC Child Care ­– a closure order was issued for infant and toddler rooms on Sept. 15

Closure orders were rescinded for Classrooms 3 and 4 at Vik Academy on the afternoon of Sept. 18 following negative test results for E. coli.

Additionally, while MTC Daycare site is not being closed, affected children and staff in Prominade and McKenzie classrooms are being notified that they are excluded from attending all child-care facilities until they test negative for E. coli and remain symptom-free.

All closure orders are posted on the Calgary Zone Alberta Health Services website.

Initial results suggest these cases affecting additional daycare facilities are predominantly cases of secondary transmission. Either these new cases were in contact with children from the original daycare or children from the original daycares were in contact with the facility.

Parents and staff from all the daycare facilities involved are being provided with information about what to do if they experience symptoms, test positive or have concerns about the health and safety of their child.

Investigations

The public health investigation into this outbreak continues, and work continues to identify the source of the outbreak. Additionally, the ministries of Health and Children and Family Services are conducting a review of all shared kitchens serving child-care facilities across Alberta.

The food histories of more than 1,150 children and 250 daycare staff are being reviewed by public health officials. This includes those who became ill and those who did not, all of whom were at the 11 affected daycares between Aug. 15 and Aug. 31.

Guidance to parents

If children develop symptoms, including bloody diarrhea, families are encouraged to visit an emergency department. If a child is not symptomatic, do not take them to hospital. Families with concerns or questions can call Health Link at 8-1-1 or contact their family physician for advice and support.

In addition, Alberta’s government is providing families with a one-time payment of $2,000 per child enrolled in the original facilities that were closed due to the outbreak.

Alberta’s government is committed to working with parents and operators through this challenging time and encourage them to reach out to Child Care Connect at 1-844-644-5165 with questions or concerns.

Related links

Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Is Canada’s Federation Fair?

Published on April 6, 2025

By

The Audit David Clinton

Contrasting the principle of equalization with the execution

Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light.

You’ll need to search long and hard to find a Canadian unwilling to help those less fortunate. And, so long as we identify as members of one nation¹, that feeling stretches from coast to coast.

So the basic principle of Canada’s equalization payments – where poorer provinces receive billions of dollars in special federal payments – is easy to understand. But as you can imagine, it’s not easy to apply the principle in a way that’s fair, and the current methodology has arguably lead to a very strange set of incentives.

According to Department of Finance Canada, eligibility for payments is determined based on your province’s fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity is a measure of the taxes (income, business, property, and consumption) that a province could raise (based on national average rates) along with revenues from natural resources. The idea, I suppose, is that you’re creating a realistic proxy for a province’s higher personal earnings and consumption and, with greater natural resources revenues, a reduced need to increase income tax rates.

But the devil is in the details, and I think there are some questions worth asking:

  • Whichever way you measure fiscal capacity there’ll be both winners and losers, so who gets to decide?
  • Should a province that effectively funds more than its “share” get proportionately greater representation for national policy² – or at least not see its policy preferences consistently overruled by its beneficiary provinces?

The problem, of course, is that the decisions that defined equalization were – because of long-standing political conditions – dominated by the region that ended up receiving the most. Had the formula been the best one possible, there would have been little room to complain. But was it?

For example, attaching so much weight to natural resource revenues is just one of many possible approaches – and far from the most obvious. Consider how the profits from natural resources already mostly show up in higher income and corporate tax revenues (including income tax paid by provincial government workers employed by energy-related ministries)?

And who said that such calculations had to be population-based, which clearly benefits Quebec (nine million residents vs around $5 billion in resource income) over Newfoundland (545,000 people vs $1.6 billion) or Alberta (4.2 million people vs $19 billion). While Alberta’s average market income is 20 percent or so higher than Quebec’s, Quebec’s is quite a bit higher than Newfoundland’s. So why should Newfoundland receive only minimal equalization payments?

To illustrate all that, here’s the most recent payment breakdown when measured per-capita:
Equalization 2025-26 – Government of Canada

For clarification, the latest per-capita payments to poorer provinces ranged from $3,936 to PEI, $1,553 to Quebec, and $36 to Ontario. Only Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC received nothing.

And here’s how the total equalization payments (in millions of dollars) have played out over the past decade:

Is energy wealth the right differentiating factor because it’s there through simple dumb luck, morally compelling the fortunate provinces to share their fortune? That would be a really difficult argument to make. For one thing because Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light. Perhaps that stand is correct or perhaps it isn’t. But it’s a stand they probably couldn’t have afforded to take had the equalization calculation been different.

Of course, no formula could possibly please everyone, but punishing the losers with ongoing attacks on the very source of their contributions is guaranteed to inspire resentment. And that could lead to very dark places.

Note: I know this post sounds like it came from a grumpy Albertan. But I assure you that I’ve never even visited the province, instead spending most of my life in Ontario.

1

Which has admittedly been challenging since the former primer minister infamously described us as a post-national state without an identity.

2

This isn’t nearly as crazy as it sounds. After all, there are already formal mechanisms through which Indigenous communities get more than a one-person-one-vote voice.

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Alberta

Big win for Alberta and Canada: Statement from Premier Smith

Published on April 2, 2025

By

Premier Danielle Smith issued the following statement on the April 2, 2025 U.S. tariff announcement:

“Today was an important win for Canada and Alberta, as it appears the United States has decided to uphold the majority of the free trade agreement (CUSMA) between our two nations. It also appears this will continue to be the case until after the Canadian federal election has concluded and the newly elected Canadian government is able to renegotiate CUSMA with the U.S. administration.

“This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. administration for months.

“It means that the majority of goods sold into the United States from Canada will have no tariffs applied to them, including zero per cent tariffs on energy, minerals, agricultural products, uranium, seafood, potash and host of other Canadian goods.

“There is still work to be done, of course. Unfortunately, tariffs previously announced by the United States on Canadian automobiles, steel and aluminum have not been removed. The efforts of premiers and the federal government should therefore shift towards removing or significantly reducing these remaining tariffs as we go forward and ensuring affected workers across Canada are generously supported until the situation is resolved.

“I again call on all involved in our national advocacy efforts to focus on diplomacy and persuasion while avoiding unnecessary escalation. Clearly, this strategy has been the most effective to this point.

“As it appears the worst of this tariff dispute is behind us (though there is still work to be done), it is my sincere hope that we, as Canadians, can abandon the disastrous policies that have made Canada vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States, fast-track national resource corridors, get out of the way of provincial resource development and turn our country into an independent economic juggernaut and energy superpower.”

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