Recovery Alberta, the new mental health, addiction and correctional health agency created by the province’s United Conservative Party Government as it proceeds with its project of dismantling Alberta Health Services, officially commences operations today.
Not that anything will actually happen today, it being the Sunday of the Labour Day weekend, but as of now the 10,000 or so former AHS employees transferred to the new agency become Recovery Alberta employees – albeit working in the same facilities, doing the same jobs, covered by the same collective agreements.
A rambling news release published by the government Friday to mark the upcoming occasion tried hard to leave the impression that all is well, nothing good will change, and everything else will get better while not actually adding much information of substance about the new agency.
“There will continue to be no disruptions to service delivery,” the press release assured. “The review of mental health and addiction programs and services will continue throughout the transition and beyond to ensure they continue to be delivered effectively and are meeting the needs of Albertans.”
“Kerry Bales, Recovery Alberta’s chief executive officer, will continue working to establish a senior leadership team and ensure mental health, addiction and correctional health services continue to run smoothly with no gaps in the delivery of care,” the reassuring news release continued.
“We will continue to provide the important services Albertans rely on, and work to enhance care in every corner of the province,” said Bales in the statement’s obligatory canned quote.
Well, that’s a whole lot of continuing. So much that it’s almost continuous! But methinks the public affairs department doth protest too much.
Cheerfully describing the day as a “milestone for mental health and addiction services in Alberta,” Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams’ assigned quote contained no useful information whatsoever.
Janet Eremenko, mental health and addictions critic for the NDP Opposition, probably came closer to the real impact of the massive restructuring, which is clearly intended to make privatization easier and advance the UCP’s market-fundamentalist ideological project, not to mention Premier Danielle Smith’s continuing fury at AHS for its pandemic public health measures.
“The emergence of Recovery Alberta as the first organization to be carved away from Alberta Health Services has been a costly downward spiral into chaos and uncertainty,” the Calgary-Currie MLA said in a statement sent to media on Friday.
The Smith Government, she said, “clearly underestimated the complexity of this undertaking. … All signs indicate that the co-ordination between Recovery Alberta and, say, acute care, will worsen rather than improve. The need for patient advocacy and system navigation will become more difficult, not easier.”
Most troubling, Eremenko added, “the influence of private, sometimes for-profit, often out-of-province operators is greater than ever.
“Service delivery, operations, monitoring and evaluation, and now training of recovery coaches to be employed by Recovery Alberta, is taking place with little transparency, standardization or external oversight,” her statement concluded.
This is a reference to the creation of three “recovery communities” and plans to open at least eight more operated by private for-profit recovery industry contractors, many from B.C., and staffed by “coaches” trained in the principles of the controversial “Alberta Recovery Model” by a seemingly unaccredited institute operated by one of the contractors.
“I am saddened that in Alberta the UCP government has chosen to go back in time,” said Calgary-Varsity MLA Luanne Metz, the NDP’s health critic, in the same statement. “The UCP are moving us away from an integrated health model by treating mental health as a separate condition.
“People do not come with either mental health or physical health issues,” explained Dr. Metz, a physician. “They are completely interrelated. This will harm the ability of Albertans to get the health care they need.”
Eremenko made the same points in her statement in a social media thread on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
Ummm, something, something Alberta Day …
While we’re at it, September 1 is also Alberta Day, Jason Kenney’s bright idea for a sneaky way to rebrand the ideologically unsound Labour Day weekend.
Who is Jason Kenney, you ask? Why, he was Alberta’s first United Conservative Party premier, the man from the Harper Government in Ottawa who thought he could control the MAGA base he courted to create the unified right-wing provincial party.
He couldn’t. They turned on him. He’s gone away now.
Nevertheless, Alberta Day is still a thing just the same. Sort of.
Apparently Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally, the minister of Service Alberta, traditionally the least significant portfolio in the Alberta cabinet, was on hand at the Legislature grounds this morning to celebrate that factoid.
Nally, who is also the UCP’s minister of red tape reduction, seems to have nothing to say about the massive amount of red tape being created by the post-Kenney UCP Government led by Ms. Smith with her big plan to break up of AHS into multiple health agencies.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
