Albertans can now pay out of pocket or through private insurance for preventative diagnostic testing and do so without a doctor’s referral. It’s part of evolving health system changes that include legislation allowing doctors to work in both the public system and private for-profit clinics. Edmonton-Strathcona MP Heather McPherson joined Alberta Primetime’s Michael Higgins to discuss this from a federal standpoint. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: You’ve taken to social media calling the actions of the Smith government “the biggest attack on public health care in Canadian history.” What makes it so? Heather McPherson: I think we all know Canadians cherish our health-care system, our public health-care system. The whole point of our health-care system is that it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter where you live in this country, you should be able to access good, high-quality health care. That’s something that Canadians believe and that’s something we cherish. It’s part of our identity and what Danielle Smith is doing with Bill 11 is making it so that if you have more money, you can jump the queue. If you have the ability to pay, you can get yourself ahead of others that are waiting in line. So what it does is it makes a two-tiered American-style health-care system and that’s against the law. That’s against the Canada Health Act. MH: Is this not the premier answering to what some Albertans are asking for? They want to avoid the long waits. HM: Listen, I understand. I have friends who have needed hip replacements or who have cancer treatments. I’m a cancer survivor myself and I understand why people want to be able to access that health care. You need to fix the health-care system, you don’t make a two-tiered system. Because we have limited doctors, we have limited nurses, we have limited machines that can do the diagnostic tests. If you’re jumping the queue, if you’re going through the private systems, that means you’re taking a doctor off the public queue. You’re taking a machine off the public queue. You’re making it harder for people to be able to access that health care. So it becomes: if you can pay, you can get health care. If you can’t pay, you wait. So the single mom working at Tim Hortons or the senior in our community that desperately needs to be able to get access to health care, can’t access it. It becomes harder and harder to do that. MH: You’re a long-serving member of Parliament. You’re well tapped into political dynamics in our province. How do you read the premier’s motivations for taking health care in the direction that she appears to be taking it? HM: There’s a lot of money to be made in health care and I have no doubt in my mind that Danielle Smith is not worried about the health care of Albertans. Danielle Smith knows that there’s money to be made by her friends and I have no doubt that it’s driving the decisions that she’s making to purposely destroy the public health-care system. So that folks can make a tonne of money on health-care insurance and health care provisions. MH: If this is as big of an attack on public health care as you are suggesting, why aren’t alarm bells ringing at the federal level where the Canada Health Act is concerned? HM: I would certainly like to ask Mr. Carney that. I have brought that up in the House of Commons multiple times. What this bill does that allows for this two-tiered American-style health care is against the law and that’s the federal jurisdiction. The Canada Health Act is a federal law. The prime minister has an obligation to protect it. Canadians expect our prime minister to protect the law. MH: Why wouldn’t he then? HM: I don’t know if he thinks appeasing Danielle Smith at this moment is going to stop the separatist sentiment. I honestly believe that it won’t help at all. In fact, the best way that we show how Alberta works well in Canada is by making sure those institutions that support Canadians, including Albertans, are strong. Like our health-care system and our pension plan. If this is an appeasement plan, I don’t think it’ll work. The bigger worry for me is, does Mark Carney think he can use health care as a bargaining chip on the CUSMA negotiations? Are we at risk of having American health-care providers and American health care insurance companies entering our health-care system? Because if that happens, it’s pretty much over. Then we are an American system and I don’t think any Canadians, whether they vote New Democrat or Conservative, want a system like the American system. MH: What would warrant putting health care into that mindset or that framing around negotiations on CUSMA? Why would health care fit into that? HM: If we’re looking at all of the tariffs that are in place, if we’re looking at things that we are willing to trade, I certainly hope health care is not on there. But we have seen the prime minister appease Donald Trump on other things. We’ve seen the digital sales tax, we’ve seen the Gordie Howe International Bridge Agreement. There have been circumstances where the prime minister has not shown himself to be elbows up and I would urge the prime minister and his health minister to be very cautious with health care. I think this is something that, regardless of where you live in this country, having a strong public universal healthcare system is probably one of the things that most Canadians cherish most. MH: If you’re in government, be that federal or provincial, is that not part of your mandate to maintain public health care? HM: It’s actually the law. The Canada Health Act is a federal law. It is the obligation, the responsibility of the prime minister and his government. It is a federal jurisdiction. His obligation is to protect federal laws. MH: What’s to be made of this all-evolving at a time when Albertans are preparing to vote in a referendum that includes a question on separation? What do you make of how all of those paths maybe cross? HM: I think what we’re seeing is a purposeful destruction of our public health-care system. We know that this current Alberta government does not believe in the public system. They have undermined it at every step, but it’s one more thing. During the last provincial election, Danielle Smith said she would keep her hands off our health-care system. She has no mandate for this referendum. She has no mandate from the people of Alberta to hold this referendum on any of the nine questions of which I certainly hope every single Albertan says no, or the question on separation. She has no mandate to hurt our health-care system and all of these things are being done because Danielle Smith is using an ideology that is not what I believe is in line with most Albertans.
