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News by Maureen McNamee Liberal MLA hopes province won’t get off hook for Bill 11 Calgary’s only Liberal MLA says now is not the time for Albertans concerned about health care to forget about Bill 11 – even if they feel efforts to stop it are futile. "I think government is counting on people moving on, putting Bill 11 behind them," says Gary Dickson of Calgary Buffalo, adding that the Tories people to forget about it before the next election. "I hope Albertans won’t let them off the hook." The provincial government released its draft regulations for private hospitals this week, and is allowing just three weeks for response. Although there is no formal opportunity for direct public input, Dickson plans to make copies available through his office and suggests that Calgarians contact one of the 20 Tory MLAs and demand a copy of the regulations for themselves. Once people have seen them, he adds, they should follow up on their questions and concerns with their MLA, then forward a copy to his office as well so he can present it in the legislature. "It’s certainly an opportunity for Calgarians to register their concerns," Dickson says. Based on the feedback he’s received, the only Liberal MLA in Calgary says a lot of people in the city oppose Bill 11 – and recently released documents show the province was prepared for that. The results of secret focus group research conducted by the government prior to the public debate on Bill 11 questioned the reasoning behind diverting funding to private hospitals and indicated a lack of trust of the government, and stated there would be very strong and high-profile opposition to efforts to allow private hospitals in Alberta. "It would require an extensive and expensive ongoing communications effort from government that ultimately would not guarantee overall public acceptance," the research states. Dickson says the province obviously chose to ignore the concerns of the focus group and instead pay attention to the part about the expensive communications effort – it spent more than $2 million dollars on a massive public relations campaign. "They took the... cues and suggestion in terms of how to repackage something that was odious to Albertans." For example, although the province consistently refused the use the term "private hospitals" and kept calling them "accredited surgical facilities" during debate on Bill 11, Dickson points out that in its own policy documents, where more than a 12-hour stay is required, the facility is referred to as a private hospital. However, he adds that the fact the government has not listened to the public so far is no reason to stop trying. "There is always hope right up until the thing is proclaimed." And even if Bill 11 opponents are not successful, he believes it has still raised the bigger issues of trust and whether the current government is responsive to what people want – the Tories may pay for that in the next election, which would be a boost for the Liberals. Dickson has announced that he will not seek re-election to the provincial legislature, but is excited by the news that lawyer Brian Edy, a director with the Alberta and Canadian civil liberties associations, will seek the nomination. "I’m quite optimistic about the future, not just in Calgary Buffalo but in Calgary overall," he says.

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