Along with scrapping the redesign of the Alberta licence plate last week, newly appointed Premier Jim Prentice also discussed the mandate he has given different ministers in his new cabinet.
One of the biggest portfolios is health care and he said loud and clear that local decision making regarding health care will be incorporated into changes being made.
Alberta currently has regional health advisory councils, established by Alberta Health Services several years after regional health boards were scrapped.
Prentice said those councils, including the Prairie Mountain council the Bow Valley is located in, will report to the new minister of health rather than AHS. He said the change will inject into governance the consideration of local and regional input when designing frontline services.
“I was particularly concerned over the summer about a sense of disenfranchisement amongst Albertans in rural Alberta relative to their health care system,” Prentice said. “A feeling across rural Alberta, really everywhere outside Calgary and Edmonton, is that people do not have their viewpoints reflected in AHS because they are too distant from decision making.
“Health is a portfolio of obvious importance. Health expenditures are essentially 45 per cent of the provincial budget. At this point, AHS has become a large institution; it is the largest employer in Alberta – I’m told the sixth largest deliverer of health care services on the planet – and so I felt it warranted a minister with a skill set and the courage Stephen Mandel has shown throughout his life.”
The mandate letter for Mandel clearly sets out developing a governance system for AHS that allows for outcome-based regional decision making. What that looks like, however, is yet to be determined.
Banff-Cochrane MLA Ron Casey said having more local input into health care is important for the Bow Valley.
“What we have been lacking all along is any kind of input at the local level and it was just totally a disconnect,” Casey said. “Health advisory boards were reporting to AHS and in many cases it felt like it was just going into a black hole.
“By empowering health advisory boards and having them report directly to the minister, you know, number one, someone is hearing your local concerns and the minister has the ability to direct AHS to deal with it.”
Casey noted Prentice has not been afraid to address issues right away and “that is the advantage of someone who doesn’t have any ownership of those issues.”
Another change that affects the Bow Valley in cabinet is the dismantling of Tourism Parks and Recreation. Tourism will be under the new department of Tourism and Culture under minister Diana McQueen, while parks has moved to Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.
“I like the idea of tourism and culture sitting independently because I am not sure where tourism ranked when it came to parks and recreation,” Casey said. “I am actually quite excited tourism has its own minister and hopefully we can focus more on that.”
As for work on tourism community needs being spearheaded by Canmore, Banff and Jasper to address infrastructure deficits in communities that service millions of visitors a year, a new minister of municipal affairs will need to be briefed again.
Regardless, Casey said the new direction of the premier and the actions taken so far is like a “breath of fresh air.
“I think the premier has been very clear in his expectations of government and of MLAs and of ministers and I think it is very clear to everyone that is there, myself included, that didn’t really know him very well, is we have an extremely strong leader.”
