Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky get ready to fight the latest outbreak of political prairie fire. Actual Alberta politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Stephen Duckett.The forest fire burning north of Fort McMurray isn’t the only blaze that’s out of control in Alberta right now.
The political conflagration ignited May 5 by former Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett is completely out of control too, and with Premier Ed Stelmach and Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky in charge of the fire brigade it may burn through a lot of Tory timber before things start to cool down.
Dr. Duckett, fired by the government last November and now working as a health administration professor at the University of Alberta, told a medical conference in Toronto that back in the day Conservative MLAs made it a practice to help their friends and patrons jump the queue for medical treatment. Word of this bombshell, via a video posted on-line by the conference organizers, leaked to the Alberta media a month later.
Since then, all hell’s been breaking loose, and things show no sign of settling down.
Yesterday, Conservative leadership contender and former justice minister Alison Redford joined Opposition calls for an independent judicial inquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses, while New Democrat Leader Brian Mason set up a political version of the Crime Stoppers tip line and literally called the cops.
Candidate Doug Griffiths has also called for an inquiry, revealing a significant fissure in Conservative ranks between Griffiths and Redford on one side and the other leadership candidates on the other.
It’s hard to say what Ms. Redford’s ballsy decision to side with the Opposition does to her prospects of winning the leadership – it certainly didn’t win her any friends in the current cabinet, which for some reason is desperately trying to squelch an inquiry on a whole range of alleged power abuses in the province’s health care system.
A testy Premier Stelmach told reporters yesterday that “you’d have to ask why she took the position,” adding, “some of the leadership candidates are going to try to differentiate themselves and this is one way of doing it.”
The premier crankily compared Ms. Redford to health care gadfly, Emergency Room physician and Independent MLA Raj Sherman, the former Parliamentary Assistant for Health that Mr. Stelmach fired from cabinet and the Tory caucus in Nov. 2010 for speaking publicly about intimidation of doctors by senior health bureaucrats. He also compared her to the NDP leader. Neither comparison is considered a compliment in Alberta Conservative circles.
As for Mr. Mason and the New Democrats, that party was not unique in calling for an inquiry. All the Opposition parties have done that. But seeing as the government was denying anything could happen as outrageous as a Tory MLA lobbying to get someone moved up on a medical waiting list, he had his party set up its own Medical Crime Stoppers line. So far, Mr. Mason told the Edmonton Journal, seven tips have been left, two of which he described “cases of significance.”
Mr. Mason quickly penned a letter to the RCMP’s Northern Alberta division calling for a criminal investigation, arguing that meddling in the health care system by elected officials would be a breach of trust, a criminal offense.
The Edmonton Journal swiftly trotted out a U of A law professor to suggest any investigation into that would be expensive and difficult to prove – always a good reason not to investigate a crime, eh? In reality, one imagines, this case would be relatively easy to crack as criminal investigations go.
Could Dr. Duckett assist with this? He was, after all, in a position to discover where at least some of the bodies were buried during his short tenure at the head of Alberta Health Services before he was fired, technically for gesturing rudely with a cookie but in reality for becoming a political liability to Mr. Stelmach’s government.
He now has a grievance with the Stelmach government and seems determined to stick around and salvage his reputation. As we all may learn, hell has no fury like an Australian health care economist scorned!
Someone – it remains to be determined whom – this week gave the Journal a memorandum that proves Dr. Duckett was worrying about this issue way back in June 2009.
As has been reported frequently, the terms of Dr. Duckett’s departure are not known, beyond the fact that he received a severance payment not unadjacent to $700,000. However, it has been speculated upon that the deal must have included some kind of non-disclosure agreement.
If so, the latest brouhaha must be playing out pretty much as Dr. Duckett imagined when he dropped the bomb in his Toronto speech. As he will no doubt soon be advised, he would not be breaking any non-disclosure agreement if compelled to name names by an inquiry, or even if asked nicely by the police.
As things so often go in such investigations, once one suspect is identified, it won’t take long for other names to be revealed.
Even if no criminal charges resulted, given the mood of the Alberta electorate, any MLAs identified as helping their friends get “expedited care” could expect to kiss their political careers goodbye.
This post also appears on rabble.ca.
6 comments:
Wouldn't it just be easier for the Alberta Tories to clear the air with a thorough investigation? It looks more and more as though that is the only way they will be able to save themselves, unless, of course, they have things to hide. Hmmm. Thanks for this.
This reminded me of the Flaming row after hockey players jumped the queue to get H1N1 flu vaccinations.
From November 3, 2009:
Calgary Flames skip flu vaccine lineups
The province is investigating how some Calgary Flames players and their families received the swine flu vaccine last week at a special clinic with the help of Alberta Health Services.
This was just before the province announced and shortage of the vaccine and cancelled or postponed some clinics. The preferential treatment was league and sport defined, though.
The Calgary Hitmen, who play in the Western Hockey League, and the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL did not receive any special arrangements to receive the H1N1 vaccine.
Hmmmm...
Oh the life of an opposition MLA. You can make any claims that further your political agenda - and the burden is on the Government to prove otherwise.
That no one has come forward with any evidence, should raise concerns for this most reason example of "throw mud and see what stick"
If the government were to call an investigation and nothing was proven, nobody would believe the results anyways. Furthermore, I imagine headlines along the lines of "Tories use Public Money to Defend their Reputation"
I really feel bad for today's leaders. They can do no right. Everybody with a computer is so much smarter than them.
AHS provided the Journal with Dr. Duckett's memo - as well as the Herald, CBC, CTV and any other media that asked. No mystery.
Dave, the best person to lead the province is MLA DR. Raj Sherman, an intelligent man and a good leader. This regime has many skeleton's to hide, and they don't care a rat' s axx about healthcare worker's reputations as they claim a public inquiry would damage, its their own reputations. The HQCA is just window dressing damage control. Its time all past and current Tory supporters woke up and supported Alison Redford, the only Tory candidate with moral fibre.
Our fine Premier compared Redford to David Eggen, Director of Friends of Medicare, as it were!
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