Premier to UNA members: Erratic funding of health care in wake of volatile resource prices amounts to 'fiscal malpractice'

Premier Rachel Notley is the first Alberta Premier to address an annual general meeting of United Nurses of Alberta.Olav Rockne

In the first such address by an Alberta premier in the 39-year history of the United Nurses of Alberta, Rachel Notley told the the union’s Annual General Meeting this morning of her respect for nurses, the health care services they provide and their union.

“To those of you … who have for years, been leading the fight to protect and improve health care, thank you for your courage, integrity and dedication to the cause,” Premier Notley told the final day of the AGM.

“I’m very happy that our government is implementing many of the things UNA has fought for,” she said, explaining that throughout Alberta’s recent history, moments like the current oil price bust have been marked by a predictable government response: “Cuts.”

The request to health care workers, predictable for the same reason, has been to do more with less, Premier Notley told the more than 900 UNA members, observers, staff and others in the room at the EXPO Centre in Edmonton.

“This request has always come in an environment of erratic and volatile funding levels,” Notley observed. “That’s a recipe for failure.”

“Never mind that people always need public services. Never mind that playing catch-up later wastes money and leaves working families to face the consequences. It just doesn’t make sense,” Notley told the Registered Nurses, Registered Psychiatric Nurses and others in the crowd, mostly wearing their white nursing scrubs. “Forcing public spending into the same volatile pattern as oil prices is fiscal malpractice.”

As a consequence, Notley said, her government is determined to handle the current economic slowdown caused by low world oil prices, which has cut close to 15 per cent from the province’s revenue stream, in a thoughtful way that doesn’t do additional harm to the provincial and national economies.

“It begins with not making a bad situation worse,” she explained. “Instead of throwing frontline staff, like nurses, out of work, we are protecting public services and the people who use them. We are keeping funding stable so that health care and education can function.”

However, Notley warned, achieving this goal in current circumstances is an enormous challenge. “Our government is protecting vital public services,” she explained, “but that means we have very little room for new spending until the economy recovers.”

So while the government is working with public sector partners like Alberta’s nurses to manage cost pressures within existing funding levels, she said, “In return, we offer stability and certainty in overall commitments from government.”

She cited the government’s recent deal with the Alberta Medical Association, representing the province’s physicians and endorsed last week by 74 per cent of the association’s members, as an example of how this can work.

“We asked our doctors to help us protect the health care system by getting those increases under control, and they answered the call,” she said. “The re-negotiated AMA agreement is designed to hold spending increases to about 2 per cent through 2018.”

In other words, the premier said, public employees, especially health care workers, and the government have a tricky job to do together.

“All of us who share a passionate dedication to public health care. Delivering the best possible care in a safe, reasonable work an environment must be our top concern. This isn't about slash and burn.”

“We do need to work together so that public Medicare is strong, financially sustainable, and here to stay.”

There’s no doubt tough times like those now being confronted by Albertans require difficult decisions, Notley said as she neared the end of her remarks. “The kind of difficult decisions nurses make each day as they treat patients.”

But if there’s anything she learned during the years she worked as a UNA Labour Relations Officer, the premier noted, “it’s that how you make those decisions matters.

“Facing difficult times with integrity, diligence and compassion typically gets the best results over the long term,” she concluded. “By working together, we can improve not only Alberta’s health care system but its future as a whole for the benefit of all Albertans.”

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