Manitoba bill eyes new rules for sale of machetes, swords and other items

SASKATOON – Saskatchewan’s two main party leaders were on the campaign trail Wednesday addressing health care, with Carla Beck’s NDP promising to get emergency rooms back on track while Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party proposed expanding coverage for diabetics.

Beck told reporters in Saskatoon she would hire more full-time staff, extend the hours of Saskatoon City Hospital and modernize legislation to get paramedics out of waiting rooms if she’s elected on Oct. 28.

She has also promised an online dashboard to inform the public when there are unplanned emergency room closures.

“Things are even worse than they have ever been, and we’re simply at a breaking point,” said Beck, whose plan is pegged to cost $1 billion over four years.

“We have people in this province dying for care, people being left on beds in hallways because there is simply no room for them in our overcrowded emergency rooms, and frontline workers burning out and leaving the province or leaving the profession altogether.”

Beck pointed to a memo that says the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon broke occupational health and safety rules last week, where the emergency room was over capacity with no protocols in place to control the situation.

The memo says there were beds and chairs in hallways and around nursing stations. Patients were also doubled up in small rooms, which blocked entryways for staff to move freely.

It also says the lack of space made it difficult for workers to administer care, causing them to compromise their posture.

“In the nursing desk areas, patients are lined up all around the desk minimizing workers abilities to safely position themselves in non-compromised postures, such as hip flexion while twisting, shoulder abduction and flexion, to name a few that were observed,” it says.

Beck said Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party has refused to admit there’s a problem.

“We simply have to change this. We have to get Saskatchewan out of last place. And I commit to you, we will,” Beck said.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said in an email it’s working to address pressures.

It said hospitals in Saskatoon have seen on average 400 presentations per day, with an average of 116 patients each day requiring admission into acute care.

Last year, Regina’s two hospitals broke the fire code due to patients crowding hallways.

Moe told reporters in Saskatoon if re-elected he would expand a health-care plan he announced two years ago to hire more workers.

He said the plan has already hired about 1,400 nurses over the last 18 months.

“And we need to make that plan even more ambitious than it is today to ensure that we are decreasing any of the disruptions that we are seeing wherever they might be,” Moe said.

He took aim at the NDP for not being forthright with how much their plan would cost the province.

Also Wednesday, Moe promised to extend coverage for insulin pumps and diabetes supplies to seniors and young adults.

It would see young adults up to the age of 25 and seniors aged 65 and older receive continuous and flash glucose monitors at no cost.

Children and youth under age 18 currently receive such coverage for free in the province.

Moe said glucose monitoring can help improve quality of life. He added about 9,000 seniors and 700 young adults are expected to benefit from the proposed extension.

Also at that announcement, Saskatchewan Party candidate David Buckingham repeated his apology for saying a racial slur a year ago in the government caucus office.

Buckingham stood near Moe, telling reporters it was a “very dumb mistake.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

EDMONTON – A politician banned over a year ago from sitting in Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party caucus for comparing transgender youth to feces is now allowed to join and says she has grown from the experience.

Jennifer Johnson, in a short video posted to social media Wednesday, said, “Prior to being elected, I used an inappropriate analogy while discussing education policy surrounding trans youth. And for that I sincerely apologize.”

She added, “I want all children working through gender identity issues to know that you are cared for, valued and respected.”

Johnson, who represents Lacombe-Ponoka, was told during the during the spring 2023 election that she would not be allowed to sit in caucus after comments surfaced from a 2022 meeting in which Johnson compared transgender youth to a batch of cookies laced with “a little bit of poop.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said at the time Johnson could come back if she worked to educate herself.

Johnson, in the video, recounted that she has met with many LGBTQ+ advocates from her constituency, the province and the country in the last year and a half.

“While not every conversation was easy, I listened and heard from diverse perspectives,” she said Wednesday. “I am grateful for the chance I’ve had to grow from this experience and meet some really beautiful people along the way.”

Johnson said she met with the UCP caucus earlier Wednesday and they voted to allow her in.

In a news release, the caucus said her status as a UCP legislature member takes immediate effect. It said she has “engaged on topics of importance” with LGBTQ+ advocates and is “committed to continuing that work.”

“After having a very thoughtful discussion with our caucus team, our MLAs voted to acknowledge her hard work, recognize her efforts, and welcome her into the government caucus,” UCP member and government whip Shane Getson said in the statement.

Johnson’s outreach to LGBTQ+ groups took place in September. A subsequent statement from five of those groups said Johnson failed to rebuild trust with their community, particularly given she would not acknowledge transgender women are women.

Victoria Bucholtz, a transgender Albertan and member of the group Queer Citizens United, said she wasn’t surprised by the caucus’s move, calling it a sign of the “increasingly tone-deaf reaction that this government has towards the voices of the trans community.”

“They are in a radical right-wing echo chamber,” Bucholtz said in an interview.

“(Danielle Smith) is not listening to doctors, lawyers, trans parents, parents of trans kids, trans kids themselves. She is moving along, trying to throw red meat to … an extremely transphobic part of the UCP membership.”

Smith, in a statement, said the decision acknowledges Johnson’s commitment to learning and growing from what happened.

“Our UCP caucus remains committed to supporting LGBTQ+ Albertans and ensuring that everyone feels welcome and safe in our province,” Smith said.

Bucholtz said advocates will oppose Johnson’s return to caucus on top of Smith’s slate of promised gender policies requiring parental consent and notification for pronoun changes in schools and banning transgender athletes from female sports in non-recreational leagues.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

EDMONTON – Alberta’s government has reached a new tentative four-year pay deal with resident physicians as the province grapples with overcrowding in hospitals and a potential health-care labour disruption.

The resident agreement includes wage increases of three per cent in each of the first two years, and two per cent in each of the last two years – amounting to about 10.4 per cent over four years.

“It also includes market adjustments that put Alberta on par with other western Canadian medical schools,” said Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in Calgary on Wednesday.

Resident physicians are those who have graduated medical school but are completing post-graduate training in a residency program to obtain their licence to practise.

Dr. Pauwlina Cyca, president of the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta, said at a government news conference the agreement will help the province continue to recruit and retain doctors. “We know that resident physicians who train in Alberta, 70 to 80 per cent of them remain in the province to practise. Our barrier, previous to this agreement, was our compensation, and now that’s been rectified,” she said.

The association represents more than 1,660 resident physicians in the province.

The announcement comes as contract negotiations with the United Nurses of Alberta may reach an impasse that could lead to a strike in a matter of weeks.

The United Nurses of Alberta, which represents more than 30,000 nurses, is seeking 30 per cent pay raises spread over two years while the Alberta government’s standing offer is 7.5 per cent over four years.

Meanwhile, family doctors are waiting for a new compensation deal, which is now delayed, that they say is needed to keep their clinics afloat.

Dr. Shelley Duggan, president of the Alberta Medical Association, told The Canadian Press that Wednesday’s announcement of a resident doctor deal is a positive and necessary step.

However, she said it won’t solve immediate challenges, including that an estimated 800,000 Albertans don’t have a primary care provider and might be forced to access care through hospital emergency rooms.

Duggan said if resident physicians are seeing that their teachers and mentors are not planning to stay in Alberta because family medicine isn’t valued and supported, it’s going to be hard to convince them to stay.

Inside Edmonton hospitals, she said, family medicine wards have been at 155 per cent capacity, and general internal medicine at 135 per cent in recent days.

“We’re already in the storm and we haven’t got to respiratory virus season yet,” Duggan said.

She added that the province needs a robust and vocal vaccination campaign and to make shots available across health-care providers, including doctors’ offices.

LaGrange said vaccinations will be available at more than 2,000 locations starting next week, but clinics represent only five per cent of overall immunizations.

To deal with capacity issues, LaGrange said Alberta Health Services is working to open surge beds, is able to move physicians from other areas of the province, and could increase hours for part-time nurses and hire private agency nurses.

In a statement, NDP Opposition health critic Sarah Hoffman agreed the resident agreement is good news for doctors, but said the government needs to do more to keep them long term.

“Unless this UCP government stops stalling and signs the agreement they have already reached with (family) physicians, many will go to other provinces as soon as they complete their residency,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.