At a campaign style stop Wednesday morning at the St. Albert Seniors Association, Premier Danielle Smith addressed a crowd of about 200 for a scheduled Q and A event. Though Smith said she was ready for 'hard questions', the supportive crowd largely lobbed softballs, allowing for the UCP leader to elaborate on her successes since taking office last fall.
Health care was front and centre, with Smith saying her government's priorities include ensuring everyone has a family doctor and that the backlog of surgeries (mostly for hip and knee replacements) be eliminated.
"We've made major progress in reducing surgical wait times--down from 39,200 last November, to 32,300 Albertans waiting for surgery today," Smith said, adding the government's other goal is to have 55 now-unused operating rooms in urban and rural areas up and running. "We're spending $300 million to bring ORs up to capacity; to do as many surgeries as possible close to home."
In the 2023 budget, the Smith government allocated $80 million to pay for 20,000 more surgeries in 2023-24.
In a more pointed exchange with a local senior who asked that Smith herself say, "No one will ever pay to visit a family doctor," the Premier complied, though she admitted since the Kenney-era debacle of ripping up the contract with the Alberta Medical Association, family doctors tell her they feel unvalued and demoralized and so it remains a challenge to entice more family physicians to the province.
"We're creating more channels to bring health professionals into the system. The model we're looking at is a team practice where some needs can be met by nurse practitioners, LPNs or nutritionists," she said, pointing to the government's announcement earlier in the week of a new 76,000 square foot team medical practice in Sherwood Park.
Glenn Walmsley, 75, said he hoped he'd hear more about longterm care from the Premier at the event.
"I've heard it said the problems with longterm care revealed during the pandemic are like a cruise ship in drydock," said Walmsley. "I want to hear a commitment to address that, and I didn't hear it today."
Smith did say affordable housing for seniors is a matter the government will have to 'look at doing more' about when subsidies run out and after the election. "We don't have the answers, but our direction and focus is shifting, as boomers age. We'll have to take another look at that. There may be a few more things we need to do."
Though Smith scored points with the expected jabs at Ottawa, the carbon tax and jurisdiction over the province's energy industry, a final question on trust in leadership led to the Premier's most candid response of the morning.
"I did my part to erode trust in the electorate," Smith said, harkening back to crossing the floor with the Wildrose Party to the Conservative Party under Jim Prentice in late 2014. "I spent seven years in the wilderness for that. I've had gaffs, I've changed my opinions on things, but I come to the table with good intentions."
"I also had to keep my election promises," she added, referring to the UCP base that voted her in, and resulted in the creation of the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, a look at replacing the RCMP in the province, and scrutiny around pandemic-related cases before the courts. That has led to the current investigation by the ethics commissioner over whether Smith overstepped her bounds around the criminal case of Artur Pawlowski and the Coutts border blockade.
"But above all, I knew my job coming in was to fix health care and earn some of the trust back for this government."
The Alberta general election is scheduled by law to be held on Monday May 29, 2023.
