Lethbridge doesn’t deserve ‘bargain-basement service’ when it comes to medical emergencies

By Lethbridge Herald on March 28, 2026.

AT THE LEGISLATURE- Lethbridge West MLA Rob Miyashiro

If you own a home in Lethbridge, you’ve recently received your property assessment, an estimate of your home’s value that the City uses to calculate your property taxes for the year. The actual amount you’ll pay has not yet been determined because City Council must first pass a budget. Unlike other orders of government, municipalities are not allowed to run deficits. They must collect enough revenue, largely through property taxes, to fund the services residents rely on every day.

About one-third of the City’s entire budget goes to two essential services: the Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) and Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services (LFES). This investment makes sense. We depend on police, fire, and ambulance services, and few of us would want to go even a day without them. The Police Service was established in 1902, and a decade later the integrated Ambulance and Fire Service followed. For more than a century, LFES has provided exceptional service to our community – a service that is now suddenly under threat.

On March 13, the MLA for Lethbridge East and I received an email from Emergency Health Services Alberta informing us that the provincial government had given the City notice regarding its ambulance service contract. The message stated: “The current funding associated with the ambulance services agreement in Lethbridge exceeds the cost of comparable EHS-Alberta services… If the municipality agrees to cover costs above the EHSAlberta equivalent costs, EHSAlberta will enter negotiations for a new long-term agreement. If the municipality does not agree to cover additional costs, EHSAlberta will need to identify an alternate service provider.”

The City was given just days to respond. The province set an April 1 deadline. These tight timelines and unknown costs create budget chaos for the City and increase the risk of higher property taxes, all while the City works to maintain reliable services for residents.

What does this mean? In short, the province wants to renegotiate Lethbridge’s ambulance contract with barely two weeks’ notice. If the City does not agree to take on a larger portion of the LFES budget than we already cover, the province will negotiate a contract for Lethbridge’s ambulance service with a private contractor.

Similar letters were sent to all Alberta municipalities that use a dual-role model, where firefighters are also trained paramedics. This integrated model is a major strength in communities like ours. It ensures that when you call 911, highly trained paramedics arrive- no matter which vehicle responds.

In communities without integrated emergency services, ambulances are often in short supply, leading to “red alerts,” where no ambulances are available at all. Red alerts are common elsewhere, but our integrated model means that even when every ambulance is deployed, paramedics still attend with fire vehicles. This seamless system saves the lives of our community members and loved ones.

Yet the provincial government appears to believe that cheaper is better, and that a private contractor could provide ambulance service at a lower cost. But a private contractor cannot replicate the coordination, training, or integration Lethbridge has built over 114 years. No one calls 911 expecting longer wait times or more red alerts. No one calls 911 for a bargain basement service!

When I speak with our firefighter-paramedics, and with the countless residents whose lives they have saved, there is unanimous agreement: we cannot afford to weaken this service.

LFES is recognized across North America for its excellence and innovation, including its Cardiac Survivability Program, widely considered the gold standard in Canada. Its results have been studied nationally because they have dramatically improved cardiac survival rates.

Despite this, the provincial government under Premier Danielle Smith seems to approach emergency medical care as a cost-cutting exercise. But saving lives is not a discount-bin decision. While we may shop from a clearance aisle for everyday items, emergency medical care should never be treated as a bargain-basement service. Lethbridge has benefited from exceptional integrated care for more than a century. We deserve that for another century.

The UCP government has placed our City Council in an extremely difficult position by demanding a decision on the LFES contract without providing complete information and with an unreasonable deadline. This pressure is unnecessary and unfair.

I was glad to see our City Council immediately request more time and begin engaging with both the community and LFES. But ultimately, this situation was created by the provincial government- and they are the ones who need to hear directly from Lethbridge residents. I have already received powerful emails and calls from people who are alive today because of LFES’s exceptional care. Absolutely no one has asked for the discount-bin version of that care!

Here is how you can help ensure Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services can continue to deliver the exceptional emergency medical care that they have been providing: email the Minister (pphs.minister@gov.ab.ca) and CC me and the other Lethbridge MLA at lethbridge.west@assembly.ab.ca and lethbridge.east@assembly.ab.ca Make it clear that you want the provincial government to negotiate with the City of Lethbridge in good faith, with full information, and with sensible deadlines. Make it clear you expect excellence in your emergency medical care and reject this attempt to bring in private ambulance contractors.

I will continue reaching out to each of the municipalities facing this and call on the UCP government to do better when they engage with municipalities over emergency medical care. Our lives are worth more than two weeks’ notice!

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