Standing for Alberta – The Fight for a Fair Deal Within Canada

A new organization called Fairness Alberta has recently joined the ongoing national conversation discussing Alberta’s role in the Canadian landscape as a major contributor to the wealth and general prosperity of the country. Arguments surrounding the value of Alberta, which position it as Canada’s neglected province, have long been a contentious topic at the regional and national levels.

In 2016, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel famously made waves at parliament when she accused the federal government of treating Alberta like a “fart in the room, that no one wants to acknowledge or talk about” (1).
In October 2019, the results of the Canadian Federal Election saw the outrage of many across western Canada, giving rise to the popular Western Exit, better known as WEXIT, movement. Based on fundamental principles of economic liberty and social stability, WEXIT advocates for Western Canadian sovereignty through the secession of the western provinces from the rest of the country.
In January 2020, Alberta Proud hosted The Value of Alberta: A One-Day Conference on Alberta’s Future, featuring keynote topics such as “The Economic Value of Alberta”, “Is there a Canadian Manifesto without Alberta?” and “Reasons Alberta Struggles to fit and Where we go Next”.

On Monday, May 25, Fairness Alberta joined the ranks of Albertans dissatisfied with the federal government’s treatment of Alberta, seeking to take a stand against biased policies and regulations. This Proudly Canadian, Fiercely Albertan organization operates on non-partisan, factual fundamentals, seeking not to deepen the divide between Alberta and the rest of the country, but to bridge the gap through education, discussion and understanding.

Bill Bewick, Executive Director Fairness Alberta, brings extensive experience to the organization with a PhD in Political Science from Michigan State University and years spent working as a political consultant, as well as within the Alberta legislature. “It is entirely outside of our mandate to speculate about separatism,” says Bewick of the WEXIT movement, “our goal is to get a better deal for Alberta, within Canada.”

At the core of their organization, Fairness Alberta believes Canadians should recognize how a prosperous Alberta benefits Canada as a whole. According to Bewick, FA founders and members share a fundamental frustration regarding “how little people and politicians seem to understand about the amount of money leaving Alberta every year.” The Alberta Transfer Meter, operated by Fairness Alberta, features a running total of Alberta’s net contributions to other provinces in the form of federal taxes and EI premiums over the last two decades. According to the Meter, Albertans have seen an estimated total of $324 billion of their tax dollars spent in other Canadian provinces from the year 2000 to 2019.

Dedicated to informing the rest of the country about “the importance of Alberta’s contributions to Canada, and about the unfair nature of various federal policies, actions, and decisions from Ottawa”, Fairness Alberta hopes to help level the Canadian playing field in regards to fiscal, trade, energy, procurement and infrastructure issues.

“Alberta’s contributions are taken for granted,” says Bewick, “We want to encourage investment in a place that has shown high levels of productivity in the past and has a lot of potential for the future.” In achieving this goal, Bewick adds, “we really think education and open discussion are critical in reaching a common ground and having any significant change take place.”

Since their official launch, Fairness Alberta has experienced positive pick-up and feedback from the Alberta public, and is committed to continued growth and expansion throughout the rest of Canada. Dialogue based and donation driven, Bewick encourages the public to reach out, share feedback and join the conversation surrounding Alberta’s future.

For more information on Fairness Alberta and how to get involved, visit https://www.fairnessalberta.ca.

For more stories, visit Todayville Calgary.

Up Next

Alberta’s COVID-19 breakthrough – Highest number of tests and lowest number of new cases in one day

Don't Miss

Every Albertan is now eligible to be tested for COVID-19 – Here’s how it works!

Meghanne Uptigrove

Follow Author

Getting the Next Generation of Alberta Youth Excited about Renewable Energy with Eavor Technologies Inc.

Alberta / 4 years ago

Community & Sustainability with Alberta Original Alley Kat Brewing

Alberta / 4 years ago

“The Planet is not an Ashtray” – It’s Time to Stop Throwing Cigarette Butts on the Ground

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.