Alberta’s public healthcare system is being pushed towards collapse. Hospitals are consistently over 100% capacity. Patients being put in the hallway and crammed 3 to a room, once a temporary measure during the Covid pandemic, has now become normal operating procedure on every unit. Emergency department wait times have continued to rise. Staffing shortages plague every hospital due to increased workload, stress and burnout. Almost half of Albertans don’t have timely access to a doctor, 1/5 of Albertans don’t have a family doctor at all. Access to family doctors is even lower among youth. Many Albertans, especially youth, avoid interacting with the healthcare system as it is difficult to access the professionals and resources they need. A survey conducted by the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) which represents 30 000 healthcare workers including lab techs, paramedics, physiotherapists, and social workers, showed that 35% of these allied healthcare workers often think about quitting their job. Much the same story exists for nursing and doctors in Alberta. These aren’t abstract failures of healthcare policy, but a matter of life and death to many who live in this province. Multiple deaths and many ‘near misses’ have occurred in the ER’s in Alberta due to overworked, understaffed and crammed full hospitals. These deaths are entirely predictable and will continue to happen until healthcare is given the adequate funding and resources. Working class youth are aging into a healthcare system that can’t provide adequate care for them and the government is only worsening the situation. In Alberta, inflation adjusted per capita healthcare spending decreased by 4% between 2014-2023 (most recent data available). Instead of spending money to fix public healthcare, the 2026 budget promises to spend 525 million dollars of tax payer dollars on delivering surgeries through private chartered surgical clinics. Increasingly, privatization is being pushed as the solution to the crisis facing healthcare. In December 2025, Bill 11 was passed. This bill allows physicians to practice in both the private and public sector, including charging patients out of pocket for medically necessary procedures. This bill creates a two-tiered healthcare system drawing resources out of the public sector and allowing the wealthy few that can afford to pay to jump the queue, whilst the rest of us are forced to wait even longer. Bill 11 has created the first private insurance market for medically necessary care in Canada allowing American insurance monopolies to begin bringing US style healthcare to Alberta. If healthcare in Alberta was being inched off the cliff of privatization before, Bill 11 is healthcare getting hit by the 18-wheeler of capitalist profit seeking into the meat grinder of American insurance monopolies. The Carney government has thus far failed to enforce the Canada Health Act, which should block Bill 11 and prevent the creation of a two-tiered healthcare system. This failure to enforce the Canada Health Act isn’t incidental. The Liberal majority government has continued to slash federal spending and gut social services in their drive towards militarism. Mark Carney and Danielle Smith, whilst divided by party, are united by class interests.
The encroachment of American insurance and pharmaceutical monopolies into Canada represent an existential threat to our public healthcare system. As the Albertan government and corporate media ramp up attacks against public healthcare, we must continue building the Friends of Medicare, bringing unions into the struggle and mobilizing to demand public healthcare funding and the blocking of Bill 11. Healthcare workers in HSAA, UNA, AUPE and CUPE forming a united front against privatization is particularly important to this struggle as the organized workers running the hospitals, clinics and surgery suites which face privatization. The Alberta Federation of Labour’s Fightback Now campaign represents a starting place for this united front. The organizing has just begun, as Young Communists we must continue to build the unity of the working class and resolutely defend public ownership and universally accessible healthcare.