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Alberta

‘It could have been deadly’: Truckers end blockade at Alberta border crossing

Published

3 years ago

7 minute read

COUTTS, Alta. — A blockade that paralyzed a United States border crossing for more than two weeks ended Tuesday as trucks and other vehicles with horns blaring rolled away from a southern Alberta community.

Protesters had been restricting access to the busy crossing near Coutts since Jan. 29 to rally against COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers and broader pandemic health restrictions.

Canada Border Services Agency said operations had resumed at the crossing and RCMP confirmed later Tuesday that traffic was moving smoothly.

The exodus of vehicles came one day after RCMP arrested 13 people and seized a cache of firearms and ammunition.

Charges laid include possession of weapons and mischief to property.

Four people also face a charge of conspiracy to murder RCMP members, said Chief Supt. Trevor Daroux. He said police worked closely with the Crown to ensure they had the necessary evidence to lay those charges.

Some of the accused were granted release in a Lethbridge, Alta., courtroom on Tuesday. A judge also ordered that they can’t contact one another or be within a 200-metre radius of any protest.

Mounties said an early-morning raid Monday uncovered 13 long guns, handguns, a machete, a large quantity of ammunition and body armour. Two additional weapons were seized later in the day.

RCMP also said a semi-truck and farm tractor had attempted to ram a police cruiser on Sunday.

“The dangerous criminal activity occurring away from the TV cameras and social media posts was real and organized,” said Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki on Tuesday evening.

“It could have been deadly for citizens, protesters and officers.”

Daroux said the RCMP became aware of the heavily armed group a few days after the protest began. He said investigations are ongoing into this group and other events that took place during the blockade.

“Alberta RCMP will remain in the area until we are confident that the situation is safe and stabilized for all who travel through here,” he said.

Protesters are dissociating themselves from the group of people facing serious charges. Organizer Marco Van Huigenbos said that is why the convoy decided to leave peacefully.

He said he has no regrets about participating in the blockade.

“I think we’ve started a movement where people are going to get more involved … at the municipal level, provincial possibly, but also more involvement in politics in general.”

Two tactical vests seized by the RCMP had badges on them, which the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said have links to troubling movements.

One vest had a “Diagolon” patch on it, a white diagonal line across a black rectangle, that is linked to an often conspiratorial and antisemitic group, said Peter Smith from the network. He said the group often talks about a soon-approaching civil war.

“(Their) rhetoric is very violent,” said Smith. “One of the, kind of, common phrases used within the community is ‘A gun or rope?'”

The other patch said “Infidel” in both English and Arabic in yellow. Smith said the patch doesn’t indicate membership to a specific network but is known among Islamophobic militias and biker-style hate groups.

He said the biggest worry is having niche extremist networks that could work to inflame supporters linked to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest.

There was celebrating when the protest started winding down late Monday. A video posted to social media showed RCMP members shaking hands with and hugging protesters. People holding hats or hands to their chests or with arms draped across each other’s shoulders sang O Canada.

Cpl. Gina Slaney confirmed the scene was from Monday night in Coutts.Zablocki said RCMP is aware of the video.

“I will say, we do encourage our members to engage with the public and develop respectful, professional relationships with all Albertans,” said Zablocki. “We will be looking further into this matter.”

Jim Willett, mayor of the village of 250 people, said it had been a while since he had seen anything but semi-trailers on Highway 4.

“I can see all the way to Regina,” he said with a laugh.

Willett said he doesn’t blame the blockade leaders for the cache of weapons.

“They were a well-behaved bunch of people,” he said. “I think the organizers were taken aback as much as we were by what the RCMP discovered.”

The number of protesters at a police checkpoint, north of Coutts, had also dwindled and work was underway to start clearing away a first-aid trailer, a sauna and electric generators.

“Last night, emotions were high … I think a lot of people felt that we were giving up, but we’re not giving up,” said John Vanreeuwyk, a feedlot operator from Coaldale, Alta., also a protest organizer.

“Is it a victory? No. A victory means we’re done,” he said.

The blockade was one of several demonstrations in Canadian cities and border points that stalled trade, stranded travellers and disrupted lives of area residents, particularly in Ottawa.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has said $48 million in trade was lost each day that the Coutts border was closed.

— With files from Alanna Smith in Calgary

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2022.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

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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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