Alberta Premier Danielle Smith defends breaking up health minister role into four portfolios

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After a cabinet overhaul on Friday which included creating four new health-care ministers in lieu of one, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith defended the decision, saying Albertans will see major improvements in the responsiveness of the system.

On her Saturday radio show, Your Province Your Premier, Smith responded to questions regarding her cabinet shuffle on Friday which included a major restructuring, adding three new ministers and creating or renaming seven ministries. One of the key changes included breaking up the health ministry role into four new portfolios. They reflect the four government health agencies.

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“We’ve actually turned our hospitals into multi-purpose facilities and taken them away from their core job, which is to deal with emergencies and to efficiently make sure that people can get surgery and also do the convalescence there,” Smith said.

“We’ve tried it that way, all integrated. I think we need to try it a different way, because it clearly wasn’t working.”

Former health minister Adriana LaGrange will take on the role of minister of primary and preventative health services, but will continue to oversee the province’s efforts to restructure the health-care system.

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said Smith gave LaGrange a “big demotion” in a Friday press release.

“It’s obvious as to why, because the bloated contracts at the heart of the CorruptCare scandal were on her watch. Her demotion also means no one minister is solely in charge of health care because now there are four of them,” Nenshi said.

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Responding to a question regarding LaGrange’s alleged demotion, Smith gave LaGrange only praise and said “she’s got the vast bulk of the decision making now ahead of her.”

“I have such confidence that Minister LaGrange with all the work that she’s done, she’s going to dig into it, and we’re going to make incredible process improvements there, and the proof will be in a couple of years time, in seeing the experience that patients have,” Smith said.

“She’s done an incredible job of getting us to a point where a new minister can take over there.”

Three other ministers have been shuffled into health roles, including Rick Wilson, who takes over as minister of mental health and addiction, and Jason Nixon adds to his title as minister of assisted living and social services while also dropping the “seniors” title from his prior role.

Matt Jones becomes minister of hospital and surgical health services.

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Smith’s cabinet reshuffling comes nearly halfway through the government’s four year mandate. She said the government has accomplished 95 per cent of the items she’s put towards ministers to accomplish in their mandate letters.

A new throne speech is expected in the fall with new mandates to come, Smith said.

— With files from Matthew Black

ctran@postmedia.com

X: @kccindytran

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