Privatization will not fix the health care crisis

By Lethbridge Herald on November 29, 2025.

Rob Miyashiro
Lethbridge West MLA

Over the past month, I’ve spent many hours in the Alberta Legislature debating bills that will profoundly impact our province. You’ve likely seen headlines about the UCP government’s controversial legislation and use of the notwithstanding clause to strip many people of their Charter rights. Those bills passed because the government rammed them through and used their slim majority in the Legislature to pass every bill with minimal debate. While those laws deserve attention, another bill before the Legislature demands urgent scrutiny: Bill 11, which paves the way for increased privatization of health care.

I will start by saying that there is a crisis in health care right now. I’ve heard from Albertans in agony waiting years for hip or knee replacements, cancer patients facing eight-month delays for life-saving surgery, and families devastated when loved ones died waiting for emergency procedures. Nurses and doctors describe patients languishing for days after falls, waiting for hip surgery. These tragedies are unacceptable, and the problems in the system are not limited to surgical wait times.

According to the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), one in five Albertans lacks a family doctor, delaying routine screening and forcing patients in need of primary care into overcrowded emergency departments. Wait times in emergency units are often so long that 18 percent of patients leave without ever seeing a physician, according to that same AMA report. Our system is struggling, but privatization will make things worse.

The UCP’s record on privatization is alarming. Earlier this month, Alberta’s Auditor General released a critical report on the failed DynaLIFE lab outsourcing experiment, a nine-month fiasco that cost taxpayers $125 million. The report found “evidence demonstrated that the Minister and the Department of Health expected AHS to proceed with community laboratory services outsourcing even as concerns about cost savings, COVID-19 pressures, and only having one proponent were raised by AHS.”

In response to that report the UCP refused accountability, and the Health Minister deflected blame. This is not leadership.

DynaLIFE labs isn’t the only failure of this government. Remember the Turkish Tylenol purchase that cost millions to buy and store but could not be used? Or the many investigations into corruption in the government’s private surgical suite contracting? Time and time again, this government has shown it cannot manage privatization without wasting millions and compromising our care.

Bill 11 will not train and hire more doctors or nurses. It will not shorten wait times or improve access. It will not streamline processes to ensure the sickest patients get seen first.

What Bill 11 does is introduce a two-tier, American-style system in which wealth determines access. One analogy I heard makes the problem clear: imagine a coffee shop with one cashier and a long line. If the shop opens a second line for people willing to pay $20 but still uses the same cashier, everyone waits longer. That’s Bill 11 in a nutshell: diverting resources without fixing the root problem.

Albertans value public Medicare because we believe care should be based on your medical need, not the size of your bank account. Yet the UCP has spent years undermining the system by underfunding, understaffing, and eroding Albertans’ trust in the system. They did this in the hopes that patient frustration will drive us to consider private options. It is deliberate. But privatization is not a fix. The UCP’s privatization schemes that they have already attempted have cost our province millions and compromised patient care.

If the UCP were serious about reducing wait times, they would invest in public health care: recruit and retain health professionals, expand surgical capacity in public hospitals, and strengthen primary care and public health care initiatives like wider access to vaccinations. Another key to improving the health care system is to invest in the things we know work in other countries and provinces: pharmacare, dental care, and long-term care, since so many of the pressures on the health care system come because of one of those three. These are areas that the provincial government could invest and improve health outcomes for all Albertans. Instead, Bill 11 doubles down on their failed ideology and failed approach.

I will vote against Bill 11 and continue fighting for real solutions because there is a better way!

If you’ve struggled to access care, please share your story. I will table your letters in the Legislature during debate.

You can reach my office at 403-329-4644 or email lethbridge.west@assembly.ab.ca.