FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 24, 1998

EDMONTON – If Premier Klein and Health Minister Halvar Jonson think that Albertans will be satisfied with the appointment of a "blue-ribbon" panel on Bill 37, then they’ve got another thing coming, says Audrey Cormack, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

"The government has done the right thing by pulling Bill 37," says Cormack who has played a leading roll in the province-wide campaign against the bill. "But, a small group of experts hand-picked by the government is not going to make this problem go away. Albertans want and deserve a say on the future of private health care in this province." Cormack says the government still seems to be operating on the assumption that Albertans simply don’t understand Bill 37. But she says it’s the government itself that doesn’t really understand what’s going on.

"What they don’t seem to understand is that Albertans are opposed to the expansion of private, for-profit health care and they are opposed to the continuing erosion of the public system," says Cormack.

"Appointing a panel of experts to tinker with the language of Bill 37 is not going to change the way Albertans feel on these issues." Cormack says what the government really needs to do is scrap Bill 37 entirely and start over again – and this time the process should start with province-wide public consultations.

"People like Ralph Klein and Halvar Jonson have been spending too much time talking to the supporters of private, for-profit health care, like the partners in the Health Resources Group in Calgary," says Cormack. "What they should be doing instead is talking to ordinary Albertans. If they did that, maybe they would finally get the message that Albertans oppose the establishment of private, for-profit hospitals in the province."