Alberta
Alberta Conservatives pass slew of anti-woke, pro-medical freedom policies at annual meeting
From LifeSiteNews
UCP members voted to ‘protect an individual’s right to informed consent decisions regarding their own body.’
Over 3,800 grassroots members of Alberta’s ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) voted to pass a slew of pro-family, medical freedom, and anti-woke policies at its annual general meeting over the weekend, including one calling for a bill to support “comprehensive parental rights” in education.
In total, UCP members debated some 51 resolutions, with 30 of them pertaining to official party policy, on November 3 and 4 at the AGM, which took place in Calgary. The resolutions are non-binding.
Most important, UCP members voted to “protect an individual’s right to informed consent decisions regarding their own body.”
“No government, business, corporation, entity, non-profit, or any other organization, institution or society has the right to mandate, force, or coerce an individual into a medical intervention or procedure, regardless of the societal benefit or otherwise,” resolution four reads.
This resolution pertains to how COVID jabs were pushed on the population without proper consent taking place in many instances, such as when workplace jab mandates were enacted.
The many pro-medical freedom resolutions came about after former leader of the party and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney backtracked and enacted COVID vaccine passports in the province for a time, as well as allow health officials to enact jabs mandates for staff. This resulted in him eventually being turfed as party leader, with Danielle Smith taking his place.
Other votes in favor of medical freedom included UCP party members voting to “Protect an individual’s right to free expression” and as well as “Protect a medical practitioner’s right to research, speak, and write; and protect Medical Doctors and all healthcare professionals from having their licenses to practice threatened for publicly expressing professional medical opinions in any public setting.”
Resolution 16, which calls for the party to “enshrine the doctor-patient relationship” by “protecting Alberta physicians from undue third-party interference,” was also passed by members.
Smith, who now leads the UCP and is Alberta’s Premier, told reporters that her government is not bound to follow the UCP’s decision should the motion be passed but noted she does support the party’s grassroots process.
Party members vote to mandate parental consent for parents concerning pro-noun use
In a speech to delegates to start the AGM, Smith made it clear she stands with parental rights, saying to delegates, “I want every parent listening today to hear me loud and clear: parents are the primary caregivers and educators of their children.”
Later in the day, UCP members voted in favor of a resolution mandating parental consent for children to “change” their pronouns at school.
Resolution 8, which passed, read that the UCP should “require teachers, schools, and school boards to obtain the written consent of the parent/guardian of a student under the age of 16 prior to changing the name and/or pronouns used by the student.”
The rationale behind the passing of this resolution reads, “Conservative governments of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick recently implemented the requirements for parental consent for schools to use an alternate name or pronoun for a student.”
“Parents, not schools, are the legal guardians of their children. As was noted by Saskatchewan Education Minister Dustin Duncan, schools require a signed permission slip to take children on a field trip so it’s unclear why schools should not require parental consent for identification changes. Schools should not be in the business of going behind parents’ backs.”
UCP members also passed resolution 17, which calls for the party to support a comprehensive Bill of “Parental Rights which ensures that all legislation will recognize and support parents’ rights to be informed of and in charge of all decisions to do with all services paid for by the province, including education and health care.”
Party members also passed resolution 20, which calls for the party to ban pornographic materials from being allowed to be used by teachers.
“The United Conservative Party believes that the Government of Alberta should … h) Ensure that teachers, schools, school boards, and third parties providing services to kindergarten to Grade 12 schools do not provide access to materials of a sexual, racist, or abusive nature, including, but not limited to: books, handouts, online materials, and live events that are not part of the Alberta Program of Studies,” the resolution reads.
In September, Smith refused to expel a caucus member who attended the Million Person March against LGBT indoctrination, adding that she is “sympathetic to parents” who do not want their kids taught explicit sexual content in school.
UCP members call for party to ‘oppose’ expansion of euthanasia
At its AGM, UCP members also passed a resolution calling for the party to stop the expansion of legal euthanasia.
Members voted for the party to “Oppose the federal expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) qualifying criteria to include those suffering solely from mental illness and oppose the future legalization of MAiD as a care option for minor children.”
The resolution also calls for the party to “establish protocols for provincial implementation of the federally legalized MAiD program,” wherein healthcare workers in “any facility” shall not be allowed to “present or promote MAiD to a patient as a care option.”
“The procedure must be considered a tragic last resort and only be discussed with a patient of legal age upon request by said patient or their proxy,” the resolution reads.
“Individual healthcare workers and private hospice facilities must have their rights to freedom of conscience honored when deciding to participate in administering MAiD.”
On March 9, 2024, euthanasia in Canada, or MAiD as it is known, will expand to include those suffering solely from mental illness. Pro-life advocates and Conservative MPs have called for this expansion to be stopped.
When it came to issues of free speech, UCP members voted to “ban post-secondary institutions from using race as a factor in any admissions program or procedure,” along with voting to “protect an individual’s right to free expression.”
Also passed was a resolution calling to ensure the post-secondary institutions be “places of free thought and learning of employable skills by eliminating all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices at all public universities, colleges, technical institutes, and trades schools and all adult education institutions.”
“They are not places for indoctrination of identity politics, reverse racism, or radicalization. Any postsecondary institution that maintains a DEI office, policy, or equivalent shall lose government financial support,” the resolution reads.
Additionally, the party also passed resolutions calling for it to support the use of “cash” as a payment method to be protected and to “oppose” the promotion of “digital currency.”
UCP members also voted to protect Alberta’s autonomy from federal government overreach by passing resolution 1, which calls for the party to “defend Alberta’s economy and autonomy by opposing all attempts by the Federal government to impose net zero by 2035.”
Alberta has repeatedly promised to place the interests of their people above Prime Minister Justin Trudeau government’s “unconstitutional” demands while consistently reminding the federal government that their infrastructures and economies depend upon oil, gas, and coal.
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.
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.
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