Danielle Smith – Speaking Notes – November 3, 2010 – CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Thank you for coming everybody.

I am extremely proud to be presenting the Wildrose Caucus health care policy today. We have spent
more than a year travelling around the province, listening to patients, doctors, nurses and other health
care professionals talk about the state of health care in this province.

Before I begin, I’d like acknowledge and thank the many health care workers who have come forward to
speak to us, despite the fear of retaliation.

What we have heard – and what’s been confirmed during this last week with the emergency room crisis
– is that health care is at a critical crossroads in Alberta.

Massive and unchecked annual increases to health care spending have not only strained our provincial
budget, but have given way to a highly centralized system that chews through billions faster than almost
any other health bureaucracy in Canada.

Health care spending eats up 40% of the entire provincial budget and is on the fast track to surpassing
the 50% barrier. Where does it stop? Nobody knows, but we’re told there is nothing we can do about it.

And what do we have to show for this ongoing spending spree?

Wait lists to see specialists are at an all time high. Hospital wards are bursting at the seams with patients
in the wrong beds. Seniors are languishing in cold and lonely hospital rooms. Emergency rooms have
become the only entry point into the system. And finding a family doctor is nearly impossible.

It’s really quite shocking to see this happening in a place as wealthy as Alberta. These are conditions you
expect to see in developing nations. Something is seriously wrong when our per capita spending is
among the highest of any jurisdiction in the world but our results are embarrassing. Navigating this
dysfunctional system has become a painful burden for thousands that has sometimes resulted in deaths.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

Fixing these problems isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to take courage and it’s going to take leadership.
It’s going to take a Wildrose government.

Just look at what we’ve got after a generation of PC-Liberal-NDP politics – a centralized bureaucracy of
socialized medicine bogged down to the point of paralysis.

Better, more efficient and less-costly care has been sacrificed on the altar of public delivery time and
time again.

Any time the government has given even the slightest indication that it wants to change the way health
care is delivered, the opposition parties torque up their misleading, fear mongering rhetoric and the
government shrinks away, shelves its plans and settles back into the comfortable status quo of pouring
billions into a broken system, while more and more Albertans call for real change.

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 Danielle Smith – Speaking Notes – November 3, 2010 – CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

We will break the paradigm that the only way to improve health care is to spend more money. We
believe better health care is achievable through only modest increases to account for inflation plus
population growth.

How do we do that? Look at Europe. They have done it.

A public monopoly on health care delivery has always been dear to the PC-Liberal-NDP establishment.
It’s not, however, the model used in the social democracies of Europe: all of which deliver better care
for less money. That’s because a government monopoly doesn’t work.

In fact, if you look around the world, you only find this model in two places – Cuba and North Korea.
That gives you a very good sense of how misguided the ideology is that our delivery model is based on.

The PCs, Liberals and NDP strongly support this status quo even though it’s clear the status quo is failing.

The Wildrose knows the breaking point is fast approaching when Alberta political culture must throw
away discredited ideology and do what is needed. We believe that Albertans are looking for courageous
leadership on health care reform.

Unfortunately, the government’s track record of having the guts or the vigour to do what is needed is
paper thin. Albertans now realize that if there are tough decisions to be made, the tired and brittle PCs
can’t be trusted to make them.

Albertans need and deserve a better option – a party that isn’t afraid of the politics of change. A party
that seeks reforms for the right reasons. A party that knows that if Albertans get the treatment they
need, when they need it, they don’t care whether it is delivered in a public or private facility.

That is the essence of the Wildrose health plan for Alberta.

Right now, we are far too consumed with upholding the public delivery model at any cost, whether it be
billions of dollars or human lives, and therein lies the fundamental flaw in our system.

Choice and competition in health care is not only discouraged, it’s considered almost blasphemous.

This, despite the fact, that the Canada Health Act entirely allows it.

A Wildrose Government will uphold the principles of the Canada Health Act. We will ensure health
insurance is publicly administered, comprehensive, universal, portable and accessible. That means you
won’t have to use your credit card to get medically necessary treatment.

But we will give patients the choice to get the treatment they need wherever they can find it, including
outside the province if necessary.

Sometimes, patients will be able to get what they need at a public hospital. Other times, it might be at a
private or non-profit facility. We saw this recently in Calgary, where the Health Resources Centre was
delivering better surgeries, faster, better and at less cost than at AHS-run hospitals without anybody
having to pay out of pocket to get treatment.

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 Danielle Smith – Speaking Notes – November 3, 2010 – CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

A Wildrose government would encourage more of these facilities to contribute to the system, because
we believe that as long as procedures are publicly paid for and safe, patients should be able to choose
whichever works best for them.

We would also dismantle the health care superboard and gradually return the delivery of health care to
local decision-makers.

Alberta Health Services was ushered in to replace health regions two and a half years ago with promises
of streamlined delivery, less administration and lower costs.

The exact opposite has occurred.

The health budget is out of control, wait times for cancer treatments and ER care have grown to
unacceptable levels, hospitals are being built without enough staff to open them, and a stacked
bureaucracy has made responding to emerging front-line care issues almost impossible.

Centralizing delivery of essential goods and services doesn’t work. It never has and it never will. We
don’t allow the state to dispense food or clothing for the precise reasons we see in our in hospitals
today: long lines, high prices and shortages of supply.

But for reasons that escape that logic, the PC government has allowed Alberta Health Services to
become essentially the sole provider, the sole purchaser and the sole evaluator of health care in this
province.

We would end the health care monopoly in Alberta by decentralizing decision-making and entrenching
patient-choice as the cornerstone of our health care system.

Our aging population also demands a better seniors’ care strategy, another area where the PCs have
failed Albertans.

A Wildrose government would redirect more of the health budget to expand home care services, make
it easier to build and operate assisted living and long-term care facilities, and introduce a kinship
palliative care program that would compensate family members for giving end-of-life care to loved ones
in their own homes.

A stronger seniors’ care policy would ease the bed crunch that is one of the biggest contributors to the
emergency room crisis and our plan would hopefully undo a lot of the harm current government policies
have inflicted on our seniors.

To ensure greater accountability and find long-term administrative savings, we would give Albertans full
access to their medical records through a vastly improved electronic health record system and make
available to each Albertan an annual statement outlining the cost of their health care during the
previous year.

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 Danielle Smith – Speaking Notes – November 3, 2010 – CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

We would track and publicly disclose waiting lists and costs for all procedures, as well as the treatment
outcomes for all health facilities. Empowering patients with this information will allow them to make a
better choice.

We would get more family doctors in Alberta by giving incentives to stay in Alberta through student loan
forgiveness and by increasing medical school and residency spaces with a post-secondary education
funding model that sees funding follow the student and not the school.

We would give Albertans the opportunity to set up tax-free Medical Savings Accounts to purchase
preventative and alternative health services that aren’t fully covered by their insurance plans.

We will continually seek innovative ways like this to empower patients to seek and receive the care they
need.

The Wildrose is different. We know that our plan is going to be criticized with the same tired attacks
Albertans have become accustomed to hearing every time health reform is proposed.

But I can make this promise: Unlike those other times – when the government that proposed reform
quickly retreated because of those predictable attacks – our party won’t relent because of them.

We know that our proposals are right for Alberta and we are ready to defend and promote them right
across this province.

Some will say our plan is risky, and others will try to convince Albertans it is scary.

To this I say take a good, hard look at the state of our health care system.

Look at our emergency rooms, where people are dying waiting hours for care.

Look at our hospital wards, where critically ill patients compete for bed spaces with seniors who aren’t
getting proper care.

Look at our surgical wait times, which are forcing Albertans to suffer needlessly and pushing cancer
patients to the brink.

Look at our empty hospital wings, our bloated bureaucracy, our hyperinflated budget, our doctorless
families.

Look at all of that, and ask yourself –

Can things really get any scarier than they already are?

Isn’t the status quo the real risk?

Casting aside the way we’ve done health care for the last generation and offering something new is not
risky. It’s being done in every advanced democracy in Europe and it is working.

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 Danielle Smith – Speaking Notes – November 3, 2010 – CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

What’s really scary is clinging to what is responsible for this mess. That’s precisely what the PC-Liberal-
NDP establishment has done – and will continue doing unless there’s an alternative.

The Wildrose is that alternative.

Thank you, and I will take questions.