5 Questions about Health Care in Alberta

1. Since when has top-down control of a large government system worked? Central planning led to the demise of the Soviet Union, so why would we adopt more of that model here? Local decision making and consumer choices bring greater efficiencies and user satisfaction. The horror stories from the current system are well documented.

2. Why shouldn't there be more private delivery in the publicly paid health care system? Competition weeds out those who can't figure out how to compete (including public institutions by the way), sustaining the best providers as chosen by their customers - the patients who sought treatment there.

3. Why do I wait months to see a specialist, then several more weeks to get an MRI, then months more after that to finally get my knee operated on? Meanwhile, the side effects of my wonky knee lowers my quality of life and leaves me with a less fit body - both detrimental to my psychological and physical well being.

4. Why is it that Alberta spends the most per capita on health care, yet we have the youngest population of any province? Alberta is an attractive place to live and raise a family, given our lowest tax rates in Canada, moderate cost of living, friendly people and ready access to natural beauty. We should pay our front-line health care workers market wages to treat patients while eliminating unnecessary layers of bureaucratic red tape that waste our money, hinder system effectiveness and hurt front-line worker morale.

5. Why is it that wait times for medical procedures in the so-called "have-not" provinces are often lower than in wealthy Alberta? In the meantime, billions of dollars of Alberta taxpayers money is being redistributed across the country, leaving less to spend here on key infrastructure projects and social programs that would improve our daily lives. Proud Quebecer Maxime Bernier believes that the federal government should get out of the jurisdictions that it doesn't constitutionally belong. I couldn't agree more!

The Wildrose Alliance has offered a comprehensive list of recommendations to immediately improve our health care system and start us on the road to health care sustainability in this province.

Why Aren't Schools Where the Kids Are?

As I was door knocking in New Brighton a few days ago, I was overwhelmed with how many young kids there are in this community. Many of the houses are what I'd call "starter homes", built on quieter crescents and cul-de-sacs off the main drive, so that the kids are not continually dodging vehicles. The idea is that working parents will raise their kids in a family friendly environment, until the point that they outgrow their current home or they downsize once their kids have left the nest. Presumably, a new family will move in and keep the cycle going.

The problem is that families are not nearly as happy as they could be. There are no schools in New Brighton. Spaces do open up at St. Albert the Great school in McKenzie Towne for kids who have a parent with a Catholic baptismal certificate. But for public school kids, they must get on a bus at 7:30AM for a one hour bus ride (each way) to an underutilized school in Acadia. This makes no sense to me.

Once the number of kids in a community has reached a critical mass, a school should be built. New Brighton and Copperfield are at this level - and Auburn Bay is very close, if not there, as well. The problem is one of too much central planning and not enough local empowerment. For example, the CBE and CSSD are large top-down organizations. Funding is centralized based on the number of kids in the system (from municipal taxes and provincial grants), and distributed based on whatever criteria the elected trustees and unelected managers deem appropriate or are directed by the Minister of Education. Often, it seems, they are reacting to tight budgets and decisions are therefore short term in nature - e.g. in any given year, funding for busing 500 students 10+ km each way is cheaper than building a new school within walking distance to those same students.

But what is really happening here? Governments and school boards are merely downloading the cost and pain onto the kids and their parents, while postponing something that they will inevitably have to do anyway - that is build the school where the kids are. For many of these students, however, they will already be in high school by the time their elementary school is built - and they and their families will have paid with lost time and a diminished quality of life. Not all is lost however, as some MLA will get a nice photo-op with a shovel of dirt at hand, and then a few months later cut the ribbon and take credit for building the fine new school in New Brighton.

The Wildrose Party policy is to de-politicize and localize this process. A provincial stipend, raised from municipal taxes and provincial subsidies, should be assigned to each student each year. The parents can then direct this money to the school of their choice. If a school doesn't exist, and there is a critical mass of kids to populate a school in a certain area, then the school will be built and the funding will go to pay down the mortgage, plus pay the other expenses of running the school. This could be a public, a separate, a charter or a private school. Each new school may have to augment their income by charging extra fees to parents, and perhaps raise start up funds from motivated parents; developers and philanthropists - depending on what the costs are of their particular programs and facilities.

The P3 model for schools could also work quite well here - where the private developer of the school will raise the financing and build the school in return for an extended (e.g. 30 year) contract that will allow them to recover their investment over an attractive payback period, and also have a yearly profit from a long-term maintenance contract to keep the school in working order.

We live in the richest city, in the richest province in one of the richest countries in the world. We spend more per student then almost anywhere else in Canada and yet many of our communities are not being well served when it comes to the education of our children.

Build the South East LRT Now!

On October 19, the day after Naheed Nenshi was elected Mayor of Calgary, he restated that building the South East leg of the LRT was one of his top 4 priorities. Well according to a news report today, he has already changed his tune.

It seems part of the problem might be that the Stelmach government prefers that funding from the $2 billion Alberta Green Trip program be used for "improving regional access" into Calgary! Say what? Has the priority to build the S.E. LRT been bumped yet again, this time in favour of  increasing access to the Calgary Transit system for those who pay municipal taxes in Airdrie, Okotoks and MD Rockyview? Has Premier Stelmach already written off Calgary and is hunting for votes in the surrounding areas instead?

There are at least a quarter of a million Calgarians who work or live in the South East quadrant, and who don't have convenient access to an LRT line. Besides a rapidly growing residential base, the S.E. also has plenty of industrial parks, shopping malls and office towers (e.g. Quarry Park), not to mention a big brand new hospital which will be staffed around the clock. Because of this, an LRT would be extensively used in both directions during the peak times, and no doubt have a steady stream of riders outside of those hours.

Mayor Nenshi muses about an expanded BRT line using HOV lanes - but the Deerfoot is choked for hours per day at the poorly designed Anderson and Glenmore interchanges - imagine removing one of those lanes from the already weary car commuters? Sure the Deerfoot has to be widened and the interchanges fixed, but it will never be wide enough until there is a viable alternative that takes a large chunk of the automobiles off the road.

The S.E. BRT (Route 302), as it is currently designed, is severely underutilized, and thus is run at a high cost per rider. This doesn't surprise me as these awkward, accordion-style buses are trying to maneuver over the same clogged secondary roads that all the other Deerfoot avoiders are using. The LRT is a far superior solution because it has the right-of-way on dedicated rail lines and is not normally affected by adverse weather or random accidents.

I am a strong believer in urban rail systems. Cities that make extensive use of trains to get their people around the city, and to and from the nearby suburbs are truly world class cities that respect the productivity and happiness of their citizens. All levels of government need to work with citizen and commercial stakeholders to find creative solutions to get building this vital piece of transportation infrastructure that Calgary's South East badly needs.