Premier Danielle Smith fires Alberta Health Services board, appoints administrator
CBC
Premier Danielle Smith has fired 11 members of the Alberta Health Services board and replaced them with an administrator.
Dr. John Cowell will now oversee the $15-billion organization — and not for the first time.
"He can accelerate the changes that we all need to see," Smith said at a news conference Thursday.
Smith has tasked Cowell with reducing ambulance wait times, reducing emergency room wait times, and lowering surgical wait times in the province.
The government also wants him to consult health-care workers to devise longer-term system reforms.
Cowell will report to Health Minister Jason Copping, who said the government needs to move more quickly to address the challenges in the health system.
Unlike board members, who serve in the roles part time, Cowell will be a full-time government employee.
Cowell said he understands the public has heard these promises before and may feel skeptical.
"I really do hope that I'll be able to make an effective contribution to making health care stronger and a better experience for the patient," he said.
"If we're failing, it's on me," he later added.
In 2013, Cowell served a one-year term as AHS administrator after the then Progressive Conservative government fired the board. He has also been CEO of the Health Quality Council of Alberta.
Replacing the AHS board was one of Smith's UCP leadership campaign promises. Last month, she said a new governance structure for the provincial health authority would be in place within 90 days.
Knowing Smith's plans for the board, one member tendered her resignation last month as soon as Smith was elected as party leader.
Smith has said AHS failed to ensure there were enough health-care workers on the job during the COVID-19 pandemic when it required all employees to be vaccinated against the disease.
Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Gary Anandasangaree has formally apologized to Inuit in Nunavik for the federal government's role in the mass killing of sled dogs in the region in the 1950s and 1960s.
High winds and rain caused power outages to hundreds of homes and businesses in Prince County on Saturday.
Northerners will soon see RCMP officers with cameras on their person, as training for the body-worn cameras roll out for Mounties across the country.
Dozens of Indigenous women with a desire to learn how to hunt and to use traditional methods to prepare the animal will meet this weekend for the first-ever all-female deer hunt on Oneida Nation of the Thames territory.
A disgraced real-estate lawyer who this week admitted to pilfering millions in client money to support her and her family's lavish lifestyle was handcuffed in a Toronto courtroom Friday afternoon and marched out by a constable to serve a 20-day sentence for contempt of court, as her husband and mother watched.
A provincial child-care advocacy group says governments need to commit to pushing $10-a-day child care forward in Canada, but a conservative think tank says data shows it isn't working as intended in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Diane Sims has already written her own obituary.
Thirty years after her murder in 1994, Halifax police are still looking for Kimber Leanne Lucas's killer.
When Kevin Campbell took a 1991 Chevy truck in trade at his dealership on Moncton's Salisbury Road in early November, he didn't have it for long.
Quebec mayor says 'one-size-fits-all' language law isn't right for his town where French is thriving
English is not Daniel Côté's first language but he says it's integral to the town he calls home.
As their role in health care continues to grow, nurse practitioners across Canada are looking to Alberta, where nurse practitioners recently formed their own union — but on P.E.I., the nurses' union that represents them says it's doing its job.