Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips has provided her reaction to the 2024 Alberta provincial budget. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Alberta budget

‘Healthcare is doomed’: Shannon Phillips reacts to Alberta budget

Mar 1, 2024 | 5:14 PM

The MLA for Lethbridge-West does not have a lot of positive things to say about the new provincial budget, particularly when it comes to healthcare.

Shannon Phillips said the overall problem with it is her belief that Premier Danielle Smith is “the only person in this province that does not understand inflation.”

“This budget does not keep up with inflation for our healthcare or education systems and it does not address the affordability crisis that Albertans have been facing,” said Phillips.

Even before this week’s budget from the governing United Conservative Party, Phillips said hospital and clinic wait times had increased and emergency departments, particularly in communities such as Milk River and Pincher Creek, had experienced periodic closures.

“There is a one per cent increase projected for our hospitals’ budget, when our government’s own figures that we know are conservative, our inflation and population is 6.2 [per cent],” explained Phillips. “If you think that everything’s fine in the hospitals now, just wait for it to get worse.”

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Phillips, who also serves as the Finance Critic for the Alberta NDP, added that the budget does not include anything meaningful to attract and retain doctors in Alberta.

While Phillips said it was certainly welcome news that millions of dollars are being allocated to the creation of a Rural Medical Teaching School at the University of Lethbridge, she stated that this only happened because the Alberta NDP had advocated strongly for it for many years.

She also claimed that the UCP lied in April 2023 when it announced $2 million expand cardiac care services at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge.

“I asked [Thursday] to the officials where that money is. They could not tell me. It is not clear to me that that planning work was ever done,” said Phillips. “But more to the point, there is nothing in this budget for any kind of expansion of cardiac services at [Chinook Regional Hospital], meaning that the UCP lied in order to get elected.”

Although Phillips focused much of her budget reaction media scrum on healthcare, it was not the only thing she wanted to bring attention to.

The provincial government announced that it would be spending $2.1 billion over three years to build 28 new schools, replace 10 old schools, and conduct five school modernization projects. However, as Phillips noted, none of the school initiatives were in communities south of Okotoks.

She said children deserve the opportunity to attend high-quality, modern schools, but claims that some in Lethbridge are not afforded that opportunity.

“We know that we don’t have that at Galbraith [Elementary School], which is one of the oldest schools in the province. We know we don’t have that at St. Francis [Junior High School] here in the downtown in our Catholic system, which I toured last spring, which is an ancient building in a dire need of modernization,” said Phillips.

Phillips said that if she were in charge of putting together Alberta’s provincial budgets, she would first ensure that she has accurate data on oil and gas revenues, something she claims the current administration does not have. Another top priority for her would be to ensure stable and predictable funding for healthcare and education.