Alberta
Over 100 stolen vehicles, plus trailers, farm equipment and machinery seized by police in East Central Alberta
From ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team)
Extensive stolen property recovered in Camrose
More than 100 stolen vehicles, trailers, farming equipment, and other machinery, has been seized following an extensive ALERT investigation in Camrose.
On Monday, November 21, 2022, ALERT’s Auto Crimes unit conducted search warrants at 17 locations, predominantly in Camrose, but also in Camrose County, Ponoka County, and the Rural Municipality of Hillsdale, Sask. The search warrants were part of a lengthy investigation into organized crime.
Due to the volume of items recovered, ALERT is still in the process of cataloguing and processing seized evidence.
“ALERT appreciates the public interest and support of this investigation, but we ask for patience as the evidence is being processed. Once all the items are documented, investigators will work toward identifying and contacting the rightful owners,” said Acting Staff Sergeant Michael Fehr, ALERT Edmonton.
An update will be provided once the evidence processing is completed.
Several suspects have been identified but no charges have yet been laid.
Upwards of 170 police officers were involved in the search warrant executions, including Camrose Police, Edmonton Police, Calgary Police, and RCMP detachments St. Paul, Wetaskiwin, Ponoka, Rimbey, Strathcona County, St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, Killam, and several in F-Division.
Members of the public who suspect drug or gang activity in their community can call local police, or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Crime Stoppers is always anonymous.
ALERT was established and is funded by the Alberta Government and is a compilation of the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources committed to tackling serious and organized crime.
From the Fraser Institute
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To understand the significance of this change, you must understand the consequences of the current (and outdated) approach.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
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.
Poilievre To Create ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor
Mainstream Media Election Coverage: If the Election Was a NHL Game, the Ice Would be Constantly Tilted Up and to the Left
The book the carbon taxers don’t want you to read
FREE MARINE LE PEN!’: Trump defends French populist against ‘lawfare’ charges
Jury verdict against oil industry worries critics, could drive up energy costs
Poilievre to invest in recovery, cut off federal funding for opioids and defund drug dens
Dark Web Tesla Doxxers Used Widely-Popular Parking App Data To Find Targets, Analysis Shows
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoRCMP memo warns of Chinese interference on Canadian university campuses to affect election
-
2025 Federal Election1 day agoResearchers Link China’s Intelligence and Elite Influence Arms to B.C. Government, Liberal Party, and Trudeau-Appointed Senator
-
COVID-191 day agoFauci, top COVID officials have criminal referral requests filed against them in 7 states
-
2025 Federal Election1 day agoMark Carney vows to provide sterilizing puberty blockers to children ‘without exception’
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoThe status quo in Canadian politics isn’t sustainable for national unity
-
Censorship Industrial Complex21 hours agoFormer residential school student refutes ‘genocide’ claims, recalls positive experience
-
COVID-1914 hours agoCDC Vaccine Safety Director May Have Destroyed Records, Says Sen. Ron Johnson
-
Bjorn Lomborg1 day agoThe stupidity of Net Zero | Bjorn Lomborg on how climate alarmism leads to economic crisis