Royal Tyrrell Museum opens new stomping grounds

From The Province of Alberta:

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology’s 1,300-square-metre expansion offers visitors enriched experiences and services.

Come and get up close and personal with the Albertosaurus in the new Learning Lounge – an interactive exhibit and discovery area. The Learning Lounge features a life-sized bronze Albertosaurus skeleton and hands-on activities about Canada’s first known carnivorous dinosaur. The addition also includes improved spaces for education programs, meetings and conferences, and visitor amenities.

“When you drive into Drumheller, you enter an entirely different world. It sparks your imagination, and it is a magical place for children to experience. The Royal Tyrrell Museum is one of Canada’s most visited museums and I’m so proud that the Government of Alberta has invested in its future.”Leela Sharon Aheer, Minister of Alberta Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women

“Our government is proud to support the Royal Tyrrell Museum, as it provides opportunities for curious minds to learn about paleontological history and Alberta’s rich fossil heritage. I am thrilled that this investment has allowed the museum to expand its facility, reaffirming its leadership in paleontology and creating greater opportunities for all Canadians to learn about our prehistoric past.”Pablo Rodriguez, federal Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism

“The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology expansion project is an important example of government’s investment in key infrastructure that supports Albertans’ quest for information and brings our history to life. Infrastructure projects like the museum addition are crucial for supporting Alberta’s job creators and helping to grow our economy so we can build a prosperous future for all Albertans.”Prasad Panda, Minister of Alberta Infrastructure

“The Royal Tyrrell Museum provides a unique and valuable experience to all people lucky enough to visit. We are proud to be the home of such a wonderful cultural gem, and this new expansion will pay dividends to all people fortunate enough to visit for decades to come.”Nate Horner, MLA Drumheller-Stettler

The $9.3-million museum expansion was funded by the Government of Alberta ($5.7 million) and the Government of Canada ($3.6 million from the Department of Canadian Heritage).

Quick facts

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology welcomes over 430,000 visitors per year from across the province, nation and around the world.
Since opening its doors in 1985, the museum has welcomed more than 13 million visitors.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum houses one of the world’s largest displays of dinosaurs and is Canada’s only museum dedicated exclusively to the science of paleontology.
Joseph Burr Tyrrell discovered Albertosaurus on Aug. 12, 1884 while mapping coal deposits in the Drumheller area.
Albertosaurus sarcophagus was the apex predator in Alberta 72.5 to 68 million years ago.
Although it lived earlier in time, Albertosaurus is closely related to T. rex.

Related Topics:Albertasaurus Drumheller feature Royal Tyrrell Museum

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Alberta

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

Published on April 9, 2025

Todayville Content Team

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

Alberta

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

Published on April 9, 2025

Todayville

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.