Alberta government names five new members to Preston Manning-led COVID review panel
CTV
The Alberta government has named five members to a COVID-19 review panel led by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, one of whom was recently fired along with the rest of the governing board of Alberta Health Services.
The Alberta government has named five members to a COVID-19 review panel led by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, one of whom was recently fired along with the rest of the governing board of Alberta Health Services.
Jack Mintz joins Dr. Martha Fulford, Michel Kelly-Gagnon, Dr. Rob Tanguay and Jack Major on the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review panel.
“Albertans can have confidence Alberta’s pandemic response will be reviewed by these medical, policy, legal and economic experts so our province can better respond to the next public health emergency,” Smith said in a statement Friday.
Mintz is the president’s fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and advises and writes on tax, business and health policy.
He and the board were fired by Smith in November. She said they failed Albertans during the pandemic by failing to scale up hospital capacity as promised, forcing the government to impose what Smith has termed freedom-busting health restrictions.
The board members were replaced by an administrator. In an opinion piece published in the Financial Post in November, Mintz wrote that he was OK with the firing because the changes represent a necessary jump-start to achieve true reform in health-care delivery.
Major is a former Supreme Court judge and Kelly-Gagnon is president of the Montreal Economic Institute.
