Canada

Allegations that the United Conservative Party government pressured Alberta Health Services to accept exorbitant contracts to operate chartered surgical facilities in Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge have dominated the news in Alberta since February.

Former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos’s allegation that she was fired for scrutinizing these contracts has created a scandal dubbed “CorruptCare” by the NDP Opposition.

Rather than being an isolated incident, the CorruptCare scandal represents the result of the contracting out and hollowing out of public health care in Alberta.

Whether it’s chartered surgical facilities, privatized laboratory services or contract nursing agencies, repeated instances of introducing the profit motive to the provision of public health-care services show that privatization tends to increase health-care costs.

And why wouldn’t it? Corporations exist to maximize profit, not to provide public services.

I mean, sure, it's not as population dense as the USA, or Mexico, but Canada is huge, your people are nice, you have some of the best entertainment companies on the planet (namely Cirque du Soleil and Pornhub), your natural resources and attractions are unbelievable and your actors are the best (especially the BSG/Chronicles of Riddick cast).

And yet, as an Italian with an international perspective (lived abroad for the last 16 years and visited the USA and South America repeatedly), I have been not "Canada-aware" for most of my life.

I get it that you are not boasting like your neighbors (and that alone makes you better than them imho), but how come that I was left to realize only today that the Manitoba flour I used to make pizza all my life takes its name from one of your provinces, while I know about all the shitty pizzas the US made up in a century.

Same thing goes for Latin American countries, even the ones I never visited, like Mexico or Argentina.

I shall visit soon and I hope you can take the chance to teach me more in the meanwhile.

C'mon guys this is such an easy win for us as a country. Justin went a little too far with his style of governing for a lot of you and now the liberals have voted this guy to be it's leader and new PM. This is who we want to lead us into the second half of the 20th century, this guy is so fucking smart. Pierre just sings slogans and simple pretty things that sound nice but in reality he's just going to sell us off to American interests and cut the things that help working people.

The site is https://www.hhs.gov/protect-kids/index.html

"I know why, and it's because my president is threatening to annex your country."

It's far more than that. The Trump administration is lawless, ignoring and defying the courts, and trampling on the constitution. My son's school just cancelled a long planned trip to New York City because of the very real risk that one of more of the children in the trip might be held, handcuffed, and thrown in ICE detention for days or weeks. Under the current authoritarian regime it is unsafe for anyone to travel to the US.

An MLA and former minister just removed from the United Conservative Party caucus alleges the health minister — and possibly the premier — withheld information from cabinet ministers deciding the fate of the Alberta Health Services board of directors.

Inside the legislative chamber on Wednesday, Guthrie tabled to the clerk a February 25, 2025, letter that he had sent to Premier Danielle Smith on the day he resigned from cabinet as infrastructure minister.

In the letter, he said ministers attending a health cabinet committee meeting on Jan. 30, 2025, were "deliberately misled," which led to the government firing AHS board members the next day. He said he could not abide those actions.

"If we can normalize such deception in government business practices, what other indiscretions may emerge?" Guthrie's letter says.