Public health care dollars are for people, not profits

 ALBERTA LabourNEWS today

As Canada’s premiers ramp up their Canada Health Transfer campaign,  the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), launches a letter-writing campaign to the Prime Minister, encouraging more federal health-care funding, but urging federal dollars must be tied to publicly-delivered services. Also: read AFL president, Gil McGowan's statement on the possibility that the UCP may now eliminate the REP program within days in order to appease the anti-vax protesters who are illegally blocking the border at Coutts.

Action

Public health care dollars are for people, not profits

Canada’s premiers are calling on the federal government to increase health care funding for provinces and Justin Trudeau says he’s listening.

But Jason Kenney can’t be trusted with a blank cheque. The UCP and their donors are pushing American-style private health care. Jason Kenney has already started giving more of our health care to profit-seeking companies and is using the pandemic as cover to cut Alberta’s investments in public health care.

Albertans urgently need more investment in our public health care, but the federal government can’t give the money to Kenney unconditionally — we need to make sure our public dollars aren’t handed over to corporate shareholders.

Tell Justin Trudeau not to give Jason Kenney a blank cheque to privatize our health care. Take action.

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News

Health funding must deliver public health services, not private profits
We must stop the UCP plan to turn our health care into an American-style for-profit system

EDMONTON – As Canada’s premiers ramp up their Canada Health Transfer campaign, Alberta’s largest worker advocacy organization, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), launches a letter-writing campaign to the Prime Minister, encouraging more federal health-care funding, but urging federal dollars must be tied to publicly-delivered services.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, AFL President, Gil McGowan says “our public health care system needs more capacity, and it is the job of our government to add that capacity, not erode it to satisfy investors in the private market.”

The AFL is responding to recent moves by the UCP government to privatize Alberta’s health services, including the switch to private delivery of lab services and laundry services. Read press release.

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Jason Kenney and the UCP cut health-care spending during the pandemic
Why? Because the UCP want a privatized American-style for-profit health care system

Jason Kenney and the UCP cut health-care spending, on a per-person basis, in 2021, during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Although Jason Kenney tries to justify these cuts with sham panels and false statistics, he isn’t fooling Albertans anymore. As further proof of their desire to dismantle public health care, the United Conservative Party revealed their true ideological plans at their AGMs.

According to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Alberta government spending per person on public health care dropped by 3.6 per cent in 2021, the largest decrease in Canada. These figures do not include federal government support for the provinces’ COVID-19 response, but do include normal federal health transfers, which have increased yearly.

In the 2019 election, Jason Kenney and the UCP promised to “maintain or increase health spending,” but clearly that promise has not been honoured, as health care funding has not kept pace with population growth, inflation, or the added pressure of the public-health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more.

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“We can’t let anti-vax extremists dictate public health policy during a pandemic”
Worker safety should not be used as a bargaining chip, says AFL president in statement

"We cannot let a gang of anti-vax extremists dictate public health policy in our province. That would be true at any time, but it’s especially true now.

We are currently recording the highest levels of infection so far in the pandemic. We have more people in hospital with COVID than ever before. The WCB just acknowledged that COVID has become the third largest cause of work-related illness and death in the province. To top things off, researchers have recently concluded that Alberta has, by far, the highest rate of excess death in the country — and they have linked that fact directly to the UCP’s lax COVID policies.

Given the circumstances, it was bad enough to hear Premier Kenney musing on Tuesday about the possibility of lifting some of our province’s relatively light pandemic safety measures by the end of the month. But it’s even worse – in fact, it’s outrageous – to learn that the UCP may now eliminate the REP program within days in order to appease the anti-vax protesters who are illegally blocking the border at Coutts.

It should go without saying that the health of Alberta citizens and the safety of Alberta workers should not be used as bargaining chips to deal with extremists. But that appears to be exactly what’s happening. And it needs to stop," says Gil McGowan, AFL president. Read statement.