Alberta
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland drops in on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney
From The Province of Alberta
Premier continues to work for fair deal in meeting with Deputy Prime Minister
Premier Kenney and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland met in person for the third time since her appointment as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs last November, and continued productive work on Alberta’s urgent priorities, including:
- building the TransMountain pipeline expansion project
- an “equalization rebate” from retroactively lifting the per capita cap on the Fiscal Stabilization Program
- addressing the continuing problems with Bill C-69
- support for jobs in the resource and resource-related sector, such as support for decommissioning wells and clean technology
- approval of the Teck Frontier project, which is a test of the federal government’s commitment to evidence-based approval of new energy projects
- equivalency recognition for Alberta’s methane reduction regulations
“I appreciate that Deputy Prime Minister Freeland has taken the time to travel to Alberta and have these important discussions and to see for herself how serious the economic challenges are for Albertans. I reiterated to her Alberta’s urgent priorities – actions that can be taken now by the federal government to show it is committed to addressing our jobs crisis. We’ve offered clear, practical options to the federal government to support our province even as we continue to contribute about $20 billion net each year to the rest of the country. But we need action from Ottawa now.”
Alberta has contributed $630 billion net to the rest of Canada since 1961. In the last 11 years alone the net transfer from Albertans to the rest of the country was $240 billion.
“Given the massive and disproportionate contributions Alberta has made to the country over the years, and continues to make, it is not too much to ask that the rest of the country now show its commitment to helping us in our time of need – first and foremost by removing barriers to getting our products to market. We are simply asking for fair treatment.”
Alberta
Pharmacist-led clinics improve access to health care: Lessons from Alberta
News release from the Montreal Economic Institute
In Canada, 35 per cent of avoidable emergency room visits could be handled by pharmacists.
Emulating Alberta’s pharmacist-led clinic model could enhance access to primary care and help avoid unnecessary emergency room visits, according to a new study from the Montreal Economic Institute.
“Pharmacists know medication better than anyone else in our health systems,” explains Krystle Wittevrongel, senior public policy analyst and Alberta project lead at the MEI. “By unlocking their full potential in prescribing and substituting medications, Alberta’s pharmacist-led clinics have helped avoid tens of thousands of unnecessary emergency room visits.”
Pharmacists in Alberta have the largest prescribing authority in the country, including the ability to prescribe schedule one drugs with special training.
Unlike in Ontario and Manitoba, Alberta pharmacists are authorized to substitute prescribed medications, which can help address issues such as adverse reactions caused by interaction with other treatments.
The study explains that this can help reduce pressure on hospitals, as prescription-related issues account for more than 10 per cent of emergency room visits.
Alberta’s first pharmacist-led clinic, in Lethbridge, sees between 14,600 and 21,900 patients per year since opening in 2022.
It is expected that there will be 103 such clinics active in the province by the end of 2024.
The researcher also links the success of the pharmacist-led clinic model in Alberta to pharmacists’ expanded scope of practice in the province.
Among other things, Alberta pharmacists are able to order and interpret lab tests, unlike their counterparts in British Columbia, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
A 2019 peer-reviewed study found that pharmacists could handle 35 per cent of avoidable emergency room visits in Canada.
“By enabling pharmacists to play a larger role in its health system, Alberta is redirecting minor cases from emergency rooms to more appropriate facilities,” said Wittevrongel. “Just imagine how much faster things could be if pharmacists could take care of 35 per cent of the unnecessary load placed on Canada’s emergency rooms.”
The MEI study is available here.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policy-makers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
Alberta
Fortis et Liber: Alberta’s Future in the Canadian Federation
From the C2C Journal
By Barry Cooper, professor of political science, University of Calgary
Canada’s western lands, wrote one prominent academic, became provinces “in the Roman sense” – acquired possessions that, once vanquished, were there to be exploited. Laurentian Canada regarded the hinterlands as existing primarily to serve the interests of the heartland. And the current holders of office in Ottawa often behave as if the Constitution’s federal-provincial distribution of powers is at best advisory, if it needs to be acknowledged at all. Reviewing this history, Barry Cooper places Alberta’s widely criticized Sovereignty Act in the context of the Prairie provinces’ long struggle for due constitutional recognition and the political equality of their citizens. Canada is a federation, notes Cooper. Provinces do have rights. Constitutions do mean something. And when they are no longer working, they can be changed.
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