Ten years ago, Jim Prentice argued that Albertans weren’t paying enough in taxes to maintain quality health-care services and pitched a return of the wickedly unpopular health-care levy right before an election. Alberta had a health-care levy right up until 2009 and it was broadly hated; Jim’s reprise was a bit gentler and a hair more progressive than the old version, but that didn’t save him.

What happened next is common knowledge: Prentice got thoroughly cooked in the 2015 election, the Alberta NDP got their first taste of power, and the Progressive Conservatives rapidly degenerated into the UCP.

Well, here we are ten years later, and Danielle Smith has figured out how to get away with it.

Prentice's big mistake wasn’t raising taxes—it was raising taxes on people who vote for him. In a classic late Friday afternoon news dump last week, Smith announced a more targeted attack. 

When it’s time for your booster shots this fall, your COVID-19 booster is now coming out of your pocket, and it’s not going to be cheap. The estimated cost for a dose is $110. That’s 15% of a pensioner’s monthly benefit, economist Armine Yalnizyan pointed out on Bluesky on Monday.

And that’s if you can actually get one, because unless you’re a member of certain narrowly defined “highest-risk groups,” you might not be allowed to even get a COVID-19 vaccine here this fall. The UCP government is delaying vaccine distribution through four phases, the government says. If you’re under 65 and not in one of the UCP-defined high-risk groups, you won’t be allowed to book your booster until August 11, and won’t get it until mid-October, well into the everyone-is-sick season.

Opposition to vaccines correlates intensely with what you might call radical-right populism—the political movement that seems to hold all the levers of power in the UCP today. It also correlates with approval for Danielle Smith, which should come as no surprise given her work as an anti-vax podcaster before becoming Premier. And the geographic hotspots, rural communities that zealously support the UCP, are easy to spot because they’re presently churning out Alberta’s worst measles outbreak in fifty years.

Approval of vaccines, on the other hand, correlates intensely with partisan support for the NDP and the Liberals. It’s hard to see this move as anything but another spiteful attempt to own the libs.

The Health Sciences Association of Alberta, which represents 29,000 health-care professionals across the province, denounced Smith’s plan to make health-care workers pay for vaccines, arguing that putting barriers in front of vaccination will drastically increase risks for both workers and patients. United Nurses of Alberta president Heather Smith decried Smith’s new COVID plan as “wrong for health care workers and wrong for all Albertans.” Public health advocates Friend of Medicare are calling Smith’s announcement “the opposite of a health care strategy.”

Smith, who in her former role as a tobacco lobbyist once argued that cigarettes are good for you, pointed to American politician RFK Jr.’s new anti-vax policies as justification for Alberta’s. On her call-in show this past weekend, the premier also said cutting funding for the COVID vaccine made sense “because it doesn’t work particularly well, if you want the truth.”

Scientific studies continue to find that the COVID-19 vaccines are extremely safe and very effective.

From the Report

Just a couple of hits from us last week, as we were on the road for the Progressive Publics symposium in Calgary—but we have lots in the queue this week, so stay tuned.

• From Jeremy: Alberta teachers have voted 95% approval to strike. This is a follow-up to their last vote, which was to get approval to have this vote. They got there.
  
  
• Podcast: Fasting for Gaza: pro-Palestine activists in Edmonton who are taking part in a 40 day fast in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza joined us for a frank conversation about the challenge of contesting power from a disempowered position. I think you’ll find Joshua’s thesis interesting regardless of your thoughts on Israel and Palestine.

Sundries

• Foreign policy is a bit out of our wheelhouse, but we’d still be remiss not to mention that world leaders are in Alberta this year for the G7 summit. Donald Trump himself arrived in Air Force One on Sunday—and then wandered off by the end of day Monday to oversee the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The invitation of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is drawing heavy protest from Canadian Sikhs. We anticipate having some interesting stories to share with you from the various protests this week.
  
  
• Opposition to coal exploration in the Eastern Slopes continues to hold steady. Jeremy was one of the few people in the media who managed to get into a UCP town hall on the matter last week and tells the story in the National Observer. A coalition of rural, urban, and Indigenous groups continue to organize against this, and if you want to be part of that, the first step is to sign their petition.
  
  
• Vaccine-takers aren’t the only Albertans the UCP are looking to squeeze for health-care money: the Alberta government has announced that co-pay for prescriptions for seniors will be increased by $10 per prescription.
  
  
• Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former AHS CEO that was allegedly ousted for pushing back against the shady activities at the heart of the “CorruptCare” scandal, is asking that her day in court against the government be expedited.
  
  
• By-elections are underway in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. The Edmonton ridings promise to be a classic UCP vs. NDP race, but don’t be surprised if the separatist Republican Party of Alberta places a distant second in the rural riding. Whether you’re a first-timer or a long-timer, I heartily recommend getting involved with a campaign if you’d like to do a little electoral politics this month.
  
  
• Over the weekend, Jeremy and I had the pleasure of meeting many of our colleagues in other left-leaning media projects and a number of friendly academics and activists at the Progressive Publics symposium at MRU organized by professors Shama Rangwala and Roberta Lexier. The symposium received a lot of help from Unrigged and Harbinger, which are two networks that the Progress Report is part of—Unrigged runs a news website that collects all the best from left-leaning independent media in Canada, and Harbinger is a collection of dozens of political podcasts that you’ll enjoy if you like ours. Get these both in your bookmarks!

Before we wrap up, I’d like to add a quick note that the Progress Report is funded predominantly from small donations from readers like you. We do not ever run ads or paywall our content. But money is quite tight for us at the moment due, in part, to things not working out with the fundraiser we brought on to replace our comrade Duncan. 

If there’s any amount you would like to donate this month it would go a long way to helping us fund reporting from new contributors. Let me know by email if you’d like to donate but not through the website.

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