November 27 2025

Normally when a policy has been shown to fail, governments back off or at the very least try to claim they have learned lessons from past mistakes. But that’s not what’s happening with heath care privatization in Alberta.

But the day before the Alberta Auditor General released a damning report on the failed attempt of the United Conservative Party (UCP) to privatize community lab services—when they would already have known what was coming—the UCP announced yet another health care privatization scheme.

Alberta Auditor General puts cost of latest lab privatization at $109 million

In a report released last week Alberta’s Auditor General found that the latest attempt to privatize community lab services cost Albertans $109 million. This attempt began when the UCP government signed a contract with DynaLIFE in 2022 to take over community lab services 2022 and ended in August 2023 when serious problems with service quality, led to the service being renationalized.

According to the Auditor General, Albertans paid $77 million for the outsourcing of community lab services and $32 million to take over DynaLIFE after the company collapsed. The auditor general also reported that his office did not receive all relevant information and that documents were often heavily redacted—sadly, this level of secrecy is an all-too-common problem with privatization.

Making it easier for doctors to work privately will mean longer waits for most Albertans

The announcement by the UCP government that doctors will be allowed to work in both the public and private health care systems will mean longer waiting times for health care for most Albertans. In Canada, doctors in the public system have not been allowed to also work in the private health care system.

This is because research in Canada and around the world has shown that when doctors are able to work both publicly and privately, patients in the public system suffer. As the Canadian Medical Association put it, this will mean “more people will wait longer, with many paying twice for health care, once through taxes and a second time with their credit card.”

Where’s the federal government?

The Canada Health Act gives the federal government the ability to take action to protect public health care. With the actions of the UCP government, the federal government should respond. But after a federal budget that, as NUPGE pointed out, virtually ignores the public health care crisis, there is good reason to worry about the commitment of the federal Liberals to our public health care system.