Healthcare Innovation Isn’t ‘Scary.’ Canada’s Broken System Is

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

“Our healthcare system is a monopoly installed at every level with the culture inherent to monopolies, whether public or private. The culture is based on regulation and budgetary controls, closed to the outside world, impermeable to real change, adaptation and innovation. It is a culture that favours inefficiency.”

Why is the Globe and Mail afraid of healthcare reform that works?

The Globe and Mail editorial board seems to find healthcare innovation “scary.”

On Sept. 3, it published an editorial called “Danielle Smith has a scary fix for healthcare,” criticizing the Alberta Premier’s idea to introduce competition in the province’s health system. Premier Smith’s plan involves third-party leasing of underperforming hospitals while the government retains ownership and continues funding.

Let’s be clear: the real problem isn’t Smith’s proposal – it’s the current state of healthcare across Alberta and Canada. Sticking with the status quo of underperformance is what should truly alarm us. Rather than attacking those trying to fix a broken system, we should focus on much-needed reforms.

So, what exactly is Smith proposing? Contrary to what you may have heard, she isn’t dismantling Alberta’s universal healthcare or introducing an American style system. Yet the public sector unions – and certain media outlets – seem to jump into hysterics any time innovation is proposed, particularly when it involves private-sector competition.

Predictably, groups like Friends of Medicare, with their union ties, are quick to raise the alarm. Yet media coverage often fails to disclose this affiliation, leaving readers with the impression that their views are impartial. Take Global News’ recent coverage, for example:

In late August, Global News reporter Jasmine King presented a story on potential changes to Alberta’s healthcare system. She featured a spokesperson from Friends of Medicare, who predicted that the changes would be detrimental to the province. However, the report failed to mention that Friends of Medicare is affiliated with public sector unions and has a history of opposing any private sector involvement in healthcare. The news segment also included a statement from the dean of a medical faculty, who was critical of the proposed changes. Missing from the report were any voices in favour of healthcare innovation.

Here’s the real issue: Canada is an outlier in its resistance to competition in healthcare. Many European countries, which also have universal healthcare systems, allow private and non-profit organizations to operate hospitals. These systems function effectively without the kind of fear-mongering that dominates the Canadian debate.

Instead of fear-based comparisons to the U.S., let’s acknowledge the success stories of countries that have embraced a mixed system of healthcare delivery. But lazy, fear-driven reporting means we keep hearing the same tired arguments against change, with little context or consideration of alternatives that are working elsewhere.

It’s ironic that The Globe and Mail editorial aims to generate fear about a health care policy proposal that could, contrary to the alarmist reaction, potentially improve efficiency and care in Alberta. The only thing we truly have to fear in healthcare is the stagnation and inefficiency of the current system.

Claude Castonguay, the architect of Quebec’s Medicare system, released a report in 2008 on that province’s health system, calling for increased competition and choice in healthcare.

“In almost every other public and private areas, monopolies are simply not accepted,” he wrote. “Our healthcare system is a monopoly installed at every level with the culture inherent to monopolies, whether public or private. The culture is based on regulation and budgetary controls, closed to the outside world, impermeable to real change, adaptation and innovation. It is a culture that favours inefficiency.”

The fear of competition is misguided, and Canadians are increasingly open to the idea of paying for private treatment when the public system falls short.

Let’s stop demonizing those who propose solutions and start addressing the real issue: a system that is no longer delivering the care Canadians need. The future of healthcare depends on embracing innovation, not clinging to outdated models and misplaced fears.

Joseph Quesnel is a Senior Research Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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‘Weird and wonderful’ wells are boosting oil production in Alberta and Saskatchewan

Published on November 20, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

Multilateral designs lift more energy with a smaller environmental footprint

A “weird and wonderful” drilling innovation in Alberta is helping producers tap more oil and gas at lower cost and with less environmental impact.

With names like fishbone, fan, comb-over and stingray, “multilateral” wells turn a single wellbore from the surface into multiple horizontal legs underground.

“They do look spectacular, and they are making quite a bit of money for small companies, so there’s a lot of interest from investors,” said Calin Dragoie, vice-president of geoscience with Calgary-based Chinook Consulting Services.

Dragoie, who has extensively studied the use of multilateral wells, said the technology takes horizontal drilling — which itself revolutionized oil and gas production — to the next level.

“It’s something that was not invented in Canada, but was perfected here. And it’s something that I think in the next few years will be exported as a technology to other parts of the world,” he said.

Dragoie’s research found that in 2015 less than 10 per cent of metres drilled in Western Canada came from multilateral wells. By last year, that share had climbed to nearly 60 per cent.

Royalty incentives in Alberta have accelerated the trend, and Saskatchewan has introduced similar policy.

Multilaterals first emerged alongside horizontal drilling in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dragoie said. But today’s multilaterals are longer, more complex and more productive.

The main play is in Alberta’s Marten Hills region, where producers are using multilaterals to produce shallow heavy oil.

Today’s average multilateral has about 7.5 horizontal legs from a single surface location, up from four or six just a few years ago, Dragoie said.

One record-setting well in Alberta drilled by Tamarack Valley Energy in 2023 features 11 legs stretching two miles each, for a total subsurface reach of 33 kilometres — the longest well in Canada.

By accessing large volumes of oil and gas from a single surface pad, multilaterals reduce land impact by a factor of five to ten compared to conventional wells, he said.

The designs save money by skipping casing strings and cement in each leg, and production is amplified as a result of increased reservoir contact.

Here are examples of multilateral well design. Images courtesy Chinook Consulting Services.

Parallel

Fishbone

Fan

Waffle

Stingray

Frankenwells

Alberta

Alberta to protect three pro-family laws by invoking notwithstanding clause

Published on November 19, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Premier Danielle Smith said her government will use a constitutional tool to defend a ban on transgender surgery for minors and stopping men from competing in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her government will use a rare constitutional tool, the notwithstanding clause, to ensure three bills passed this year — a ban on transgender surgery for minors, stopping men from competing in women’s sports, and protecting kids from extreme aspects of the LGBT agenda — stand and remain law after legal attacks from extremist activists.

Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government stated that it will utilize a new law, Bill 9, to ensure that laws passed last year remain in effect.

“Children deserve the opportunity to grow into adulthood before making life-altering decisions about their gender and fertility,” Smith said in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews and other media outlets yesterday.

“By invoking the notwithstanding clause, we’re ensuring that laws safeguarding children’s health, education and safety cannot be undone – and that parents are fully involved in the major decisions affecting their children’s lives. That is what Albertans expect, and that is what this government will unapologetically defend.”

Alberta Justice Minister and Attorney General Mickey Amery said that the laws passed last year are what Albertans voted for in the last election.

“These laws reflect an overwhelming majority of Albertans, and it is our responsibility to ensure that they will not be overturned or further delayed by activists in the courts,” he noted.

“The notwithstanding clause reinforces democratic accountability by keeping decisions in the hands of those elected by Albertans. By invoking it, we are providing certainty that these protections will remain in place and that families can move forward with clarity and confidence.”

The Smith government said the notwithstanding clause will apply to the following pieces of legislation:

Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024, prohibits both gender reassignment surgery for children under 18 and the provision of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for the purpose of gender reassignment to children under 16.
Bill 27, the Education Amendment Act, 2024, requires schools to obtain parental consent when a student under 16 years of age wishes to change his or her name or pronouns for reasons related to the student’s gender identity, and requires parental opt-in consent to teaching on gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality.
Bill 29, the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, requires the governing bodies of amateur competitive sports in Alberta to implement policies that limit participation in women’s and girls’ sports to those who were born female.”

Bill 26 was passed in December of 2024, and it amends the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

Last year, Smith’s government also passed Bill 27, a law banning schools from hiding a child’s pronoun changes at school that will help protect kids from the extreme aspects of the LGBT agenda.

Bill 27 will also empower the education minister to, in effect, stop the spread of extreme forms of pro-LGBT ideology or anything else to be allowed to be taught in schools via third parties.

Bill 29, which became law last December, bans gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports, the first legislation of its kind in Canada.  The law applies to all school boards, universities, and provincial sports organizations. 

Alberta’s notwithstanding clause is like all other provinces’ clauses and was a condition Alberta agreed to before it signed onto the nation’s 1982 constitution.

It is meant as a check to balance power between the court system and the government elected by the people. Once it is used, as passed in the legislature, a court cannot rule that the “legislation which the notwithstanding clause applies to be struck down based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Alberta Bill of Rights, or the Alberta Human Rights Act,” the Alberta government noted.

While Smith has done well on some points, she has still been relatively soft on social issues of importance to conservatives , such as abortion, and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson earlier this year that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”