Last weekend’s announcement the UCP government has agreed to go back to the bargaining table with the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) is confirmation it has finally realized there’s one issue that does unite Albertans, no matter what side of the political spectrum anyone is on.
Albertans walk together with conviction that the integrity, spirit and accessibility of universal health care in this province must always be maintained and nourished, and never degraded.
Former premier Ralph Klein learned this well 15 years ago when his Progressive Conservative government attempted the Third Way initiative, a health-care plan to expand private delivery services. A year later public opposition forced his government to back off.
And now 15 years later we have the UCP ramping up its already controversial austerity measures by cutting into provincial health-care services with a plan to go after front-line workers, specifically by introducing troubling changes to the way doctors are being paid.
But doctors are proving to be a tough adversary. They are holding town hall meetings and telling concerned citizens of all political leanings that the government’s proposals will lead to a degrading of service delivery, especially in rural communities such as Innisfail. Physicians are even saying many will be forced to leave the province.
In the meantime, the never-ending bad press for the UCP is being fuelled by non-stop AMA allegations the government has not been bargaining in good faith, despite a significant cost savings offer by the AMA to push negotiations forward and a proposal to move to arbitration.
But last month, the UCP government ended its master agreement with Alberta doctors before the contract was even concluded, and said it was moving forward with 11 new consultation proposals it had put on the table last year.
The AMA was predictably outraged. The relationship between them and the government has since been toxic.
The UCP now has the chance to shed its bully image and get serious with negotiations.
It’s best they leave the mean tone of their cost cutting mantra at the door.
Johnnie Bachusky is the editor of the Innisfail Province.
