Alberta
Massive funding boosts kick off Alberta’s transition to fully comprehensive care
Dr. Paul Parks, president, Alberta Medical Association
Canada signs more than $1 billion bilateral agreement with Alberta to improve health care over three years
From: Health Canada
This investment will increase access to a primary health provider, reduce wait times for mental health services, and provide greater access to health data.
Canadians want and deserve a health care system that provides timely access to health services whenever and wherever they are needed. That is why the Government of Canada is investing over $200 billion over 10 years, which includes $25 billion for tailored bilateral agreements with provinces and territories, to support the Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians plan.
Today, the Honourable Mark Holland, Canada’s Minister of Health, and the Honourable Adriana LaGrange, Alberta Minister of Health, announced a bilateral agreement to invest $1.06 billion over the next three years, marking a crucial step in a 10-year plan for collaboration. This includes $285 million per year in new funding by the Government of Canada and continuing $70 million per year in previously-announced mental health and substance use funding, which will help accelerate efforts already underway in Alberta to improve health care access and services.
Through this federal funding, Alberta has a three year action plan to deliver improvements to its health care system by 2026, including:
- Increasing access to primary care providers for Albertans and reducing emergency department visits that could have been addressed by a family medicine office. This will be achieved by expanding team-based care and enhancing virtual care, and increasing the number of appointments available to patients.
- Funding community providers to increase diagnostic imaging capacity in the province, reducing wait times for CT scans and MRIs.
- Improving patient care by enhancing Albertans’ ability to access digital health services and their own health information by implementing e-referral services and accelerating the secure exchange of data across the health system.
- Expanding integrated services for youth mental health services in the province through school-based and community day programs, and offering more supports for youth with complex needs as they transition into adult services.
- Reducing median wait times for community mental health and substance use services by establishing new and improving existing treatment spaces, along with prioritizing culturally appropriate Indigenous community supports.
- Ensuring that First Nations and Métis people have access to high-quality, culturally safe care that meets their unique health needs. This will be achieved through dedicated funding for initiatives to enhance access to primary care in Indigenous communities, and funding for communities to develop health workforce capacity and infrastructure to improve the collection and use of health information and data.
- Improving access to health care for underserved Albertans, including through expanded community pilots that bring testing services to rural, remote and Indigenous communities, advancing French-language health services, and greater clinical care for women.
Progress on these initiatives and broader commitments will be measured against targets which Alberta will publicly report on annually.
Through this new agreement, Alberta will improve how health information is collected, shared, used and reported to Canadians; streamline foreign credential recognition for internationally educated health professionals; facilitate the mobility of key health professionals within Canada; and fulfill shared responsibilities to uphold the Canada Health Act to protect Canadians’ access to health care that is based on need, not the ability to pay.
Recognizing the significant disparities in Indigenous health outcomes, the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta also commit to meaningfully engage and work together with Indigenous partners to support improved access to quality and culturally appropriate health care services. Alberta’s action plan is informed by continued engagement with its Indigenous partners and recent discussions involving the federal government. All orders of government will approach health decisions in their respective jurisdictions through a lens that promotes respect and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
Alberta and the federal government will continue working together to improve access to health services and deliver tangible results to all residents across the province, including responding to the needs of Indigenous and other underserved and disadvantaged populations.
Quotes
“Our government is working together with provinces and territories to get Canadians the healthcare they need. This agreement is an important step in our collaboration with Alberta to take measurable actions to transform our health care system. The funding will help improve access to primary care and create better mental health services in Alberta. Together, we will continue working to achieve better health outcomes for all Canadians.”
The Honourable Mark Holland
Minister of Health of Canada
“Mental health is health, and through this agreement, we will be working with Alberta to integrate mental health and substance use care as a full and equal part of our universal health care system. This agreement will strengthen the capacity of family health providers, reduce substance use harms, and expand virtual care for youth to improve access to quality and timely mental health care and substance use supports. Together, we must ensure that all Canadians have access to supports and services for their mental health and well-being – when they need them, wherever they need them.”
The Honourable Ya’ara Saks
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health of Canada
“Alberta’s government is taking a serious look at the way health care is being delivered in our province. This is why we are refocusing our health care system to ensure Albertans have access to timely care, when and where they need it. This initial funding from the federal government is a good start and will support our shared health priorities of expanding access to primary care across the province and especially in our Indigenous communities, supporting our health care workers, improving access to quality mental health, and modernizing our health systems.”
The Honourable Adriana LaGrange
Minister of Health of Alberta
“Alberta’s government is supporting Albertans to improve their mental health and recover from the deadly disease of addiction as we build out the Alberta Recovery Model and refocus our provincial healthcare system. We are doing this by increasing access to CASA Mental Health Classrooms across the province, building more bed based mental health treatment capacity for youth, and improving access to mental health and addiction treatment services in communities. This initial funding from the federal government will offer some support to these made in Alberta initiatives as we build a better system of mental health and addiction care for Albertans.”
The Honourable Dan Williams
Minister of Mental Health and Addiction of Alberta
Quick facts
- The Working Together investment includes $25 billion for tailored bilateral agreements with provinces and territories, a guaranteed 5% Canada Health Transfer (CHT) increase for the next five years—amounting to $17.5 billion—and a one time CHT $2 billion top-up to address urgent needs of emergency rooms and paediatric hospitals delivered in June 2023. Combined, these investments provide provinces and territories the flexibility to address the unique needs of their populations and geography, and accelerate health care system improvements.
- Budget 2023 outlined the Government of Canada’s plan to invest over $200 billion over 10 years, including $46.2 billion in new funding for provinces and territories, to improve health care for Canadians. Within this funding, $25 billion is allocated through tailored bilateral agreements to address the unique needs of their populations and geography in four shared health priorities:
- expanding access to family health services, including in rural and remote areas;
- supporting health workers and reducing backlogs;
- increasing mental health and substance use support; and
- modernizing health care systems with health data and digital tools.
- All provinces and territories are already making considerable investments to advance progress in all four of these priority areas, and the new federal funding is complementing and expanding those efforts.
- As part of these bilateral agreements, provinces and territories are developing action plans that outline how funds will be spent and how progress will be measured to demonstrate to Canadians that improvements are occurring in Canada’s health care system. Alberta’s initial 3-year Action Plan can be found here.
- Budget 2017 committed $11 billion over 10 years in federal funding to provinces and territories to improve access to home and community care, and mental health and addictions services for Canadians. Bilateral agreements were signed with provinces and territories to access the first six years of funding. The final four years of funding for mental health and addictions are included in the new Working Together bilateral agreements.
- The Government is also working with provinces and territories to implement a second bilateral agreement focused on helping Canadians age with dignity close to home, with access to home care or care in a safe long-term care facility. This agreement will include the remaining $2.4 billion over four years to improve access to home and community care from Budget 2017; and the $3 billion over five years for long-term care from Budget 2021 to apply standards of care in long-term care facilities and help support workforce stability.
———-
From the Province of Alberta
This funding will be an essential transitional step to ensure doctors can continue to provide this care as we rapidly transition to a funding model that supports fully comprehensive care.”
Dr. Paul Parks, president, Alberta Medical Association
New funding to stabilize primary health careStabilization funding is coming soon as Alberta’s government continues working to improve primary health care across the province. The government is pulling out all the stops to stabilize, strengthen and improve Alberta’s primary health care system. Additional funding of $200 million over two years will improve access to family physicians and help ensure primary health care is available for every Albertan when and where they need it. This funding is enabled through the new Canada-Alberta Health Funding Agreement with the federal government. The agreement represents a total of approximately $1.1 billion in additional health care funding over three years for shared priorities.
Stabilization funding is an important transitional measure identified through work under the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the minister of health and the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), signed earlier this fall. The AMA has been advocating for family physicians and rural generalists through its work under the MOU. Alberta’s government will continue to engage with the AMA as it works to develop a new, sustainable physician comprehensive care model, which will also dictate how this additional funding will be distributed. In addition to work between the government and the AMA, the Comprehensive Care Task Force will, in the new year, provide a first draft of recommendations that will include additional short-term stabilization actions to help family doctors continue to practise comprehensive care and bridge the gap until a new physician comprehensive care model is developed. These short-term actions will:
Alberta’s government is committed to finalizing a sustainable physician comprehensive care model that will address the concerns of family physicians and rural generalists and ensure Albertans can access the care they need.
Other recently announced supports for primary health care include:
Related information |
Alberta
Alberta health ministry to ‘consider’ report calling for end to COVID shots for healthy kids
From LifeSiteNews
The report recommended halting “the use of COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks” as well as outright ending their use “for healthy children and teenagers as other jurisdictions have done,” mentioning countries like “Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the U.K.”
Alberta’s health minister says she will “consider” the findings of a report published last week which recommends the immediate halt of the COVID shots for healthy children and teenagers.
In a statement sent to the media, the office of Alberta’s Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said that the provincial government will “review and consider this report and its findings,” while at the same time noting that “no policy decisions have been made in relation to it at this time.”
The statement came in reference to the Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force’s “COVID Pandemic Response” 269-page final report, which was released last Friday. The report, which was commissioned by Premier Danielle Smith, recommended the halting of “the use of COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks” as well as outright ending their use “for healthy children and teenagers as other jurisdictions have done,” mentioning countries like “Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the U.K.”
LaGrange’s office noted that the report’s findings build on efforts it says the government has already made to “enhance Alberta’s ability to respond to future public emergencies.”
Among the recommendations of the task force was the call to “[f]urther research to establish the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines is necessary before widespread use in adults and children,” the establishment of “a website and/or call-in center for the vaccine injured in Alberta” as well as establishing a “mechanism for opting out of federal health policy until provincial due process has been satisfied.”
The report also noted that “[c]hildren and teenagers have a very low risk of serious illness from COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines were not designed to halt transmission and there is a lack of reliable data showing that the vaccines protect children from severe COVID-19.”
It is worth noting that Alberta Health Services (AHS) is still promoting the COVID shots for babies as young as six months old.
LifeSiteNews has published an extensive amount of research on the dangers of the experimental COVID mRNA jabs, which include heart damage and blood clots.
The mRNA shots have also been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children and all have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies.
Danielle Smith still silent on report
At the time of publication, Premier Danielle Smith has still not commented on the bombshell report.
Smith’s lack of commentary on the issue comes despite the fact that she was the one who commissioned the report last year, giving the task force a sweeping mandate to investigation her predecessor’s COVID-era mandates and policies.
After assuming her role as premier in late 2022, Smith promptly fired the province’s top doctor, Deena Hinshaw, and the entire AHS board of directors, all of whom oversaw the implementation of COVID mandates.
Under Smith’s predecessor Jason Kenney, thousands of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare and government workers lost their jobs for choosing to not get the jabs, leading Smith to say – only minutes after being sworn in – that over the past year the “unvaccinated” were the “most discriminated against” group of people in her lifetime.
Alberta
UCP Calgary-Lougheed riding calls for response to the Dr. Gary Davidson COVID 19 Task Force Review
From Sheldon Yakiwchuk
By Darrell Komick, President, UCP Calgary-Lougheed
The flood of questions regarding the UCP Calgary-Lougheed response to the Dr. Gary Davidson COVID 19 Task Force report is encouraging. To think that so many Canadians have risked so much speaking out about the COVID 19 mandates is astounding. Dr. Davidson’s report is the validation that Premier Smith needs to marshal support from cabinet. Our structure of government requires support from the Alberta Caucus and Cabinet.
It’s clear, Premier Smith has the knowledge, let’s support her will to lead with action.
Our community of curious minds and critical thinkers is working to educate and inform Albertans about the long term impacts of the COVID mandates. This is a war of persistence, attrition, and faith. Join us in supporting Premier Smith to call on the Alberta cabinet to activate the recommendations for the “healing of humanity”.
Here are four important talking points. Our friends in UCP Highwood CA led by Helen Holder, have created a quick to reference chart as to the major points and the associated recommendations. This chart is attached. I have also included the logo and details about An Injection of Truth: Healing Humanity.
Albertans need to thank the leadership of Premier Smith for calling commissioning the Dr. Gary Davidson Report, the findings and recommendations of the report are shocking. We call upon cabinet to follow the leadership of the Premier and immediately activate the Davidson recommendations starting with the halting of COVID mNRA vaccinations for children in Alberta.
Dr. Davidson’s report validates the data presented at the June 17 An Injection of Truth Town Hall by Canadian scientists like Dr. David Speicher, Dr. Jessica Rose, & Dr. Byram Bridle. These experts have been using government, industry and research data to sound a critical alarm to all Albertans hoping that cabinet will take leadership like has been done in the state of Florida.
Forward thinking Albertans have planned a second town hall on March 3, 2025 An Injection of Truth: Healing Humanity that calls upon experts to provide recommendations to heal individuals and society inflicted by the harms of the COVID mandates. (Get your tickets →HERE)
When do we acknowledge that there is a problem? How do we help Albertans understand the source of suffering? How can we provide emotional support for those living with the trauma of long COVID? How do we make society whole again? How long will it take the Alberta cabinet to act on the recommendations of the Davidson report?
Be Strong. Be Free. Be Bold.
Darrell Komick, President
UCP Calgary-Lougheed
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