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Alberta

Province freezes funds for doctors and launches process to work out a new funding formula

Published

6 years ago

5 minute read

New physician funding framework announce

Alberta will maintain physician funding at $5.4 billion, the highest level ever, and implement its final offer to the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) to avoid $2 billion in cost overruns.

Existing terms will remain in place until March 31, 2020. A new funding framework will then be introduced, in a multi-year process that will require consultation with the AMA at all stages. The new framework will make changes proposed during negotiations to prevent cost overruns, align benefit programs and administrative fees with those of comparable provinces, and improve services for patients.

The eleven consultation proposals will also be implemented on March 31. This includes phasing in changes to complex modifiers, reducing the rate physicians can charge for this billing code to $9 from $18, for a period of one year before the code is removed in 2021-22. In summer 2020, at the direction of the Minister of Health, the Government of Alberta will also introduce a new alternative relationship plan (ARP) with built-in transition benefits to encourage physicians to move from fee-for-service to a three-year contract.

“Our province is facing cost overruns of $2 billion in the next three years due solely to physician compensation. If left unaddressed, these costs would impede efforts to reduce surgical wait times, improve mental health and addiction services, and expand the number of continuing care beds. Despite repeated efforts, the AMA failed to put forward alternatives that would hold the line on physician compensation. The new framework announced today will prevent cost overruns, allow our province to improve services for patients, and still ensure that Alberta’s doctors are amongst the highest paid physicians in all of Canada.”

Tyler Shandro, Minister of Health

Background

  • The new funding framework will maintain government’s current level of spending on physicians at $5.4 billion.
  • The new funding framework avoids anticipated cost overruns of $2 billion over the next three years.
  • Alberta has been spending more on physician salaries than other provinces, yet most of its health outcomes are below national averages.
  • A doctor in Alberta earns approximately $90,000 more than a doctor in Ontario and physicians’ fees have almost tripled since 2002.

Elements of the new funding framework

  • Changes to Alberta’s complex modifier billing system. The rate physicians are able to charge for complex modifiers will be reduced to $9 from $18 for a period of one year before this billing code is removed in 2021-22. Once the new framework is fully phased in, physicians will be able to bill an additional fee after spending 25 minutes with a complex patient case. Alberta remains the only province in Canada that allows for a top-up payment for complex visits.
  • Removal of the comprehensive annual care plan from the list of insured services. Currently, physicians can also bill for a similar consultation called a comprehensive annual visit. No other province in Canada compensates physicians twice for annual care consultation.
  • Implementation of a new daily cap, modelled after a cap in place in British Columbia, of 65 patients per day. Large patient loads can contribute to physician burnout and may compromise patient safety and quality of care.
  • Removing physician overhead subsidies from all hospital-based services. Physicians who work in AHS facilities should not be billing for overhead costs that their community physician colleagues face, such as leases, hiring staff and purchasing equipment.
  • Ending of clinical payments, or stipends, by AHS to physicians. This change ends duplication of payments to contracted physicians.

Timeline

  • In September 2019, government provided notice to the AMA that it intended to begin negotiations on the AMA Agreement. The notification provided time for the AMA to prepare its proposals.
  • In November 2019, negotiations began with the AMA to reach a new agreement; government began consultations on 11 proposed changes to the schedule of medical benefits (SOMB, or “insured services”).
  • In January 2020, negotiations and consultations proceeded with no agreement reached. Mediation, on both the negotiation and consultation proposals, began January 31 and continued into February.
  • The parties were not able to reach an agreement during mediation.
  • Government will implement its final offer from the negotiating table, including the 11 consultation proposals, on March 31.
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Alberta

Danielle Smith slams Skate Canada for stopping events in Alberta over ban on men in women’s sports

Published on December 17, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta premier has denounced Skate Canada as ‘disgraceful’ for refusing to host events in the province because of a ban on ‘transgender’ men in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has demanded an apology after Skate Canada refused to continue holding events in Alberta.

In a December 16 post on X, Smith denounced Skate Canada’s recent decision to stop holding competitions in Alberta due to a provincial law keeping gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports.

“Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females,” Smith declared. “This view is held by a vast majority of Albertans and Canadians. It is also common sense and common decency.”

“Skate Canada‘s refusal to hold events in Alberta because we choose to protect women and girls in sport is disgraceful,” she declared.

“We expect they will apologize and adjust their policies once they realize they are not only compromising the fairness and safety of their athletes, but are also offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta,” Smith continued.

Earlier this week, Skate Canada announced their decision in a statement to CBC News, saying, “Following a careful assessment of Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport.”

Under Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, passed last December, biological men who claim to be women are prevented from competing in women’s sports.

Notably, Skate Canada’s statement failed to address safety and fairness concerns for women who are forced to compete against stronger, and sometimes violent, male competitors who claim to be women.

While Skate Canada maintains that gender-confused men should compete against women, the International Olympic Committee is reportedly moving to ban gender-confused men from women’s Olympic sports.

The move comes after studies have repeatedly revealed what almost everyone already knew was true, namely that males have a considerable innate advantage over women in athletics.

Indeed, a recent study published in Sports Medicine found that a year of “transgender” hormone drugs results in “very modest changes” in the inherent strength advantages of men.

Additionally, male athletes competing in women’s sports are known to be violent, especially toward female athletes who oppose their dominance in women’s sports.

Last August, Albertan male powerlifter “Anne” Andres was suspended for six months after a slew of death threats and harassments against his female competitors.

In February, Andres ranted about why men should be able to compete in women’s competitions, calling for “the Ontario lifter” who opposes this, apparently referring to powerlifter April Hutchinson, to “die painfully.”

Interestingly, while Andres was suspended for six months for issuing death threats, Hutchinson was suspended for two years after publicly condemning him for stealing victories from women and then mocking his female competitors on social media. Her suspension was later reduced to a year.

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Alberta

Alberta’s huge oil sands reserves dwarf U.S. shale

Published on December 16, 2025

By

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

Oil sands could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years

Investor interest in Canadian oil producers, primarily in the Alberta oil sands, has picked up, and not only because of expanded export capacity from the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Enverus Intelligence Research says the real draw — and a major factor behind oil sands equities outperforming U.S. peers by about 40 per cent since January 2024 — is the resource Trans Mountain helps unlock.

Alberta’s oil sands contain 167 billion barrels of reserves, nearly four times the volume in the United States.

Today’s oil sands operators hold more than twice the available high-quality resources compared to U.S. shale producers, Enverus reports.

“It’s a huge number — 167 billion barrels — when Alberta only produces about three million barrels a day right now,” said Mike Verney, executive vice-president at McDaniel & Associates, which earlier this year updated the province’s oil and gas reserves on behalf of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Already fourth in the world, the assessment found Alberta’s oil reserves increased by seven billion barrels.

Verney said the rise in reserves despite record production is in part a result of improved processes and technology.

“Oil sands companies can produce for decades at the same economic threshold as they do today. That’s a great place to be,” said Michael Berger, a senior analyst with Enverus.

BMO Capital Markets estimates that Alberta’s oil sands reserves could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years.

The long-term picture looks different south of the border.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that American production will peak before 2030 and enter a long period of decline.

Having a lasting stable source of supply is important as world oil demand is expected to remain strong for decades to come.

This is particularly true in Asia, the target market for oil exports off Canada’s West Coast.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects oil demand in the Asia-Pacific region will go from 35 million barrels per day in 2024 to 41 million barrels per day in 2050.

The growing appeal of Alberta oil in Asian markets shows up not only in expanded Trans Mountain shipments, but also in Canadian crude being “re-exported” from U.S. Gulf Coast terminals.

According to RBN Energy, Asian buyers – primarily in China – are now the main non-U.S. buyers from Trans Mountain, while India dominates  purchases of re-exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast. .

BMO said the oil sands offers advantages both in steady supply and lower overall environmental impacts.

“Not only is the resulting stability ideally suited to backfill anticipated declines in world oil supply, but the long-term physical footprint may also be meaningfully lower given large-scale concentrated emissions, high water recycling rates and low well declines,” BMO analysts said.

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