Hehe, here's some of the transcript of the interview. Guess where Alberta is heading?
$1:
Q: You say that Alberta "has a spending problem, not a revenue problem." What do you mean by that?
A: If Alberta spent per capita what the other large provinces spend, it would spend $10.4 billion less, and it wouldn't have a deficit. Alberta spends more across the board everywhere we looked.
But the results aren't better. In some cases, the results are actually worse. For example, wait times for health procedures in Alberta are worse.
So what you have to do is get your spending in line not just by cutting, but by transforming the way you deliver services to do what other provinces are doing to get better results at a lower cost.
$1:
Q: Let's start with your proposal then for health care. What are you recommending?
A: What we're recommending — and this is actually better health care, too. It's better for the patient. Don't focus as much on hospitals, the most expensive place to treat people. Use more community-based services. Saskatchewan uses private clinics for some procedure — 26 per cent cheaper. More convenient for people. They don't have to go to the hospital, they just go to another location.
Use the full range of health care professionals, not just doctors — the most expensive people to use — but nurse practitioners.
And also, we have to change the way that we pay doctors. We're behind the curve. Other provinces have moved away from fee for service to other payment schemes that are not as expensive and more suitable to the the health system we have today, where maybe you don't have to see a doctor; you should be seeing a physiotherapist or whatever.
$1:
Q: [Former premier] Ralph Klein came up with a public-private health care idea called The Third Way, and it never got off the ground. What makes this time different, do you think?
A: One of our main recommendations is with the union contracts, which restrict what you can do and make it more costly to perform procedures. But this is beyond health, too. More services to be delivered by not-for-profits or by private clinics. But the caveat is, if you do it, you have to do it carefully.
And you need a really good public service to see that you have the right contract with the right conditions, and it can work. But if you don't — and Alberta has had experience where they haven't had the right contracts and conditions — then there's problems.
$1:
Q: Your plan promises to balance the budget in four years. What's the rush?
A: I think four years is a reasonable time frame. First of all, look at salary restraint. We're saying that. We don't say rollbacks; we say salary restraint. You can do that for a period of time because it's an unusual time. You're trying to balance the budget.
But you can't drag restraint out over a longer period of time. Four years is a good time frame though, because some of the changes, like the ones I talked about in health, can't be implemented in one year or even probably two.
So four years allows you enough time to transition to a new kind of service delivery, but it's short enough that the province knows that there's an end date. And after you balance the budget, then you have money to reduce taxes or invest in programs.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ ... -1.5269885Zombie Ralph Klein rises!
CKA Uber 
CKA Moderator 
The chaos of losing all that knowledge along with the people who actually keep the lights on will be beautiful. It is already beautiful, as people who manage things like Unclaimed Property or the app companies use to submit taxes online are gone. So are the people who run the Student Finance website, at the perfect time of the year - when Students need it most!
