The fight against Bill 11 was launched in January by the Friends of Medicare and labour organizations such as the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the United Nurses of Alberta and the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.

These groups helped pay for province-wide radio and TV ads, information booklets, a website and a series of information forums – all aimed at revealing the dangers posed by the Klein government’s private health care scheme.

But while the campaign to stop Bill 11 was started by organized opposition groups, it quickly became a true grassroots movement.

Thousands of ordinary Albertans with little or no past history of activism joined the campaign -- which reached its high point in mid-April with two major rallies in Edmonton and Calgary. Naysayers predicted that the events would be flops – even many of the organizers worried about filling the halls.

But 3,000 people packed into the Stampede Centre in conservative Calgary and nearly 7,000 filled the AgriCom in Edmonton to overflowing.

The rallies also acted as a catalyst for two-and-half weeks of protests at the Legislature. Night after night, thousands of people kept coming back to demonstrate their opposition to Bill 11 by singing, chanting and banging pots and pans.

Significantly, protests were not restricted to Edmonton and Calgary. There were also vocal demonstrations in smaller communities like Fort McMurray, Lethbridge and Red Deer.

The scope and energy of the opposition surprised almost everyone – even government spokespeople publicly admitted they had "lost the communications war."

As a result of the campaign against Bill 11, the government was forced to make a number of important concessions.

For example they promised to open more public MRIs; they announced $180 million in new spending; and they extended Medicare coverage to include soft lens for cataract surgeries.

But despite these victories, the Medicare activists were unable to achieve their main goal – stopping Bill 11.

Early this month, the Bill was given royal assent by the Lieutenant Governor, Lois Hole.

The ball is now in the court of the College of Physicians and Surgeons which has been given the responsibility for deciding which surgical procedures will be restricted to public hospitals and which procedures can be contracted out to private facilities.

The government plans to be ready to start contracting out medical services by the fall.