Rob Breakenridge: Sanctimonious Liberals have no business butting into Alberta health care

There have been some high-profile disagreements between Alberta and Ottawa in recent years over where provincial jurisdiction ends and federal jurisdiction begins.

The feds prevailed in the battle over the consumer carbon tax, while Alberta scored a major victory against parts of the Impact Assessment Act. The dispute over the Clean Electricity Regulations was rendered moot after the Carney government agreed to put that scheme on hold as part of the Alberta-Ottawa MOU.

And indeed that MOU seemed indicative of a new era of improved relations between Alberta and Ottawa that’s been building over the last eighteen months.

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However, there is now a new battle brewing in a realm that is unambiguously provincial jurisdiction: health care.

The Alberta government is moving ahead with plans to allow certain physicians to practice in both the public and private health care systems. To participate, physicians would be required to work a minimum number of hours within the public system.

None of this will involve life-saving treatments, such as cancer surgeries. Nor does it involve family doctors. For now, the allowed procedures cover those already available at non-hospital surgical centres, such as cataract surgery, hip and knee replacements, and hernia repair.

This is all set to launch next month, although the specifics are still being hammered out around the number of hours doctors will be required to spend in the public system. The province says it will likely vary, based on region and specialty.

The jury is obviously still out on whether or to what extent this will improve health care delivery or outcomes in Alberta, and on whether Albertans are on board with this change. Premier Danielle Smith has been ambitious in her reforms and overhaul of health care, but Albertans don’t yet seem convinced that things are on the right track.

But ultimately it is Alberta voters that will judge all of this. Yes, it’s audacious, bold, controversial, unprecedented, or any number of other possible adjectives. One thing it’s not, however, is any of Ottawa’s business.