EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is eager to show that her government can finally put the pieces of a dismantled provincial health-care system back together again in the new year.
In a recent year-end interview, Smith said work that began in 2023 to create four new organizations in place of one health authority is almost complete, but there’s still more to do.
“Next year, I think, will be the real proof of the new model,” she said.
Critics have said the restructuring would separate decision-making into silos, make the system more difficult for patients and workers to navigate, add layers of bureaucracy and fail to address the shortage of health-care workers and hospital beds.
Some of the biggest pieces to come together include getting everyone access to a family doctor and getting surgical wait times down to medically recommended time frames.
For Smith, it has been about identifying big problems and starting to fix them.
“That, to me, has been really rewarding,” she said, pointing to the introduction of a new pay model for nurse practitioners, expanding the role of pharmacists and boosting the number of surgeries in private facilities.
Smith’s United Conservative Party government was kept busy on a number of other fronts in 2024.
Smith highlighted “major progress” in tweaking electricity market rules to try to calm volatile prices and lower power bills, including by introducing a new default rate starting in January.
She also said Alberta had to contend with more than 1,200 wildfires, including one that devastated the mountain town of Jasper in July.
In the spring, Smith’s government laid the groundwork for a new provincial police service and has committed an increasing amount of money toward sheriff-led projects, including beefing up security at Alberta’s southern border with Montana.
The UCP also followed through with new regulatory hurdles to renewable wind and solar energy development.
And a provincial law unfurled partisan banners at the local level. In upcoming municipal elections in October, municipalities will be forced to hand count ballots, among other changes recasting the political landscape.
Smith has the unwavering support of the UCP. She garnered a resounding 91.5 per cent approval rating from party members in November, shortly after introducing a new Alberta Bill of Rights, which promises to protect the right to refuse vaccinations.
She continues to be buoyed by her near-constant legal and symbolic pushback against the federal Liberal government, perennially unpopular in Alberta, and her willingness to turn socially conservative proposals into government policy.
