Opposition pressures UCP leadership candidates to state position on Bill 21

By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on August 23, 2022.

David Shepherd, NDP critic for Health, held a press conference on Monday calling for the repeal of the UCP’s Bill 21 which targeted doctors’ contracts in Alberta.

Passed in November 2019, the bill gave the Health Minister, at the time Tyler Shandro, the power to tear up the province’s agreement with doctors along with any future agreements.

Shandro would go on to rescind the April 2020 contract during the COVID-19 pandemic before being replaced by Jason Copping in late 2021.

With the UCP leadership race electing a new leader on Oct. 6, Shepherd says the future for Alberta’s health care is problematic.

“We have no idea who the Premier or the health minister will be two months from now. But several of the front runners appear to be even more hostile to the frontline health care workers than the current government and that previous minister,” said Shepherd. “I call on all UCP leadership candidates to say clearly what their position is on Bill 21, including Travis Toews, who introduced the bill.”

Shepherd added any agreement between doctors and the UCP government is worthless while Bill 21 is still in force.

Currently 30 hospitals in the province are partially closed due to staffing shortages, with urban emergency rooms overwhelmed, and Albertans waiting longer than ever for ambulances to arrive.

“A significant portion of this crisis is due to the UCP’s attacks on doctors both in hospitals and in primary care. Hundreds of thousands of Albertans have no access to a family doctor. That means medical problems that could be handled in a doctor’s office are going untreated until there’s nowhere to go but the emergency room,” said Shepherd.

Shepherd says the NDP would instead strive to rebuild relationships to stop the issues in our health care system from piling up.

“I’m committing that an NDP government will negotiate a new agreement with Alberta’s doctors, as we have successfully done in the past. We respect frontline health care workers and the extraordinary work they do for Albertans. And what’s more, we will repeal the elements of Bill 21 that allow a health minister to simply tear up any agreement with Alberta’s doctors. Because within an NDP government, a deal is a deal. This is a critical step in repairing the damage that the UCP has done to the health care system that Alberta families rely on,” said Shepherd.

Comments are closed.