Danielle Smith’s $30-Million AHS Firing Spree | The Tyee (thetyee.ca)

submitted 11 hours ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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The campaign by Alberta’s United Conservative Party to remake the province’s health-care system has created chaos with patients dying in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms.

But there has also been a steep financial cost to the overhaul. A Tyee analysis of Alberta Health financial data found at least $30 million has been paid out in severance between 2019 and June 2025.

The data shows the government paid out about $29.45 million between 2019 and June 2025 to 150 former employees. But that figure doesn’t account for payouts made in the second half of 2025, nor does it capture the payouts for executives and others who opted out of the public reporting of their severance.

A third of that amount — nearly $10 million — was paid out in 2023 to 33 people as Smith made good on an election campaign promise to eliminate what she characterized as a bloated bureaucracy and ineffective executive managers.

Smith had made no secret of her animus toward officials at Alberta Health Services, or AHS, whom she accused of underperforming and of mismanaging the COVID pandemic by too stringently applying mandates.

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[-] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

[-] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 28 points 10 hours ago

This woman is a traitor to Canada

[-] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 18 points 10 hours ago

Feels like this province is broken and we won't be able to fix it.

Every day it's just doom and gloom. It's pretty hard to take after awhile.

I hope she gets voted out but I don't know if we can even fix the damage Danielle Smith and the UCP have done.

[-] Binzy_Boi@piefed.ca 7 points 7 hours ago

If it helps, there are Conservatives that are getting sick of the shit the UCP has been pulling.

My grandmother has been a longtime Conservative since she has family that works in the oil sands, and she was telling me when I visited her last that "they need to get rid of Danielle Smith".

If she votes NDP I'd be coloured shocked. She's not the most political person, but she's very much not the "culture war" type of person as much as she is pro-oil.

[-] L_N@piefed.ca 15 points 10 hours ago

What is the problem with conservatives and healthcare?!

[-] sik0fewl@piefed.ca 6 points 5 hours ago

They need to destroy it so they can make a case for privatizing it.

[-] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 1 points 21 minutes ago

It's their gameplan for everything, defund it until it's a limping husk of what it should be and make a case for why it can't work.

[-] FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca 19 points 10 hours ago

They want the money that was to be spent on healthcare siphoned off to billionaires.

[-] L_N@piefed.ca 11 points 9 hours ago

The part of all this that puzzles me most is that ordinary citizens who support these parties seem to think they'll benefit from the Conservatives' cuts to public services.

Ultimately, these people, through their support, are causing people to lose services to the benefit of billionaires...for nothing?

[-] FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 hours ago

I think it resembles the mindset of cultists, where they will do and accept whatever their cult leaders demand of them. Even though the lie sits there spread-eagle for all to see, they turn their eyes to it. It's bizarre.

[-] grey_maniac@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 hours ago

I remember reading (relatively recently) research showing conservatives literally believe badvthingscdo not happen to good people. If they know someone personally who they know is good, and something bad happens to them, they either think it is a rare example of bad luck and they will help out, or they will decide that person must not have been a good person.

It allows them to justify the mental gymnastics of being anti-abortion but paying for their daughter's "procedure" at the same time. A "good" family member who gets cancer deserves help, but why should they fund cancer care for those morally bankrupt <fill in the "other"> people?

Apparently they have overactive amygdalas, among other issues, and a reduced ability to engage critical thinking towards their own beliefs.

So, yes, they kind of are cult members. But they can't be easily deprogrammed, and even if we purged this lot, we would still end up with some cropping up again.

[-] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 hours ago

Rampant, unfettered capitalism above all.

[-] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 hours ago

They think by cutting services, their taxes will go down. LOL

[-] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 hours ago

They have no understanding of how the world works and they’re very selfish so they’re easy to manipulate.

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 10 hours ago

Got your own little trump, eh. Sucks. They love tearing down stuff.

[-] IndridCold@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 hours ago

They love tearing down stuff.

Those who can't build, break.

[-] podian@piefed.social 7 points 9 hours ago

Ah yes, any friends of her enemy (the Alberta public) is her enemy too.

[-] piskertariot@lemmy.world -2 points 6 hours ago

2019 - 2025 is 7 years

150 people

30m/7/150=$28,000 each

Literal nothing burger if you can MATH.

[-] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 3 points 4 hours ago

Word problems can be tricky, but that reads as 150 people who were terminated over the span of 7 years. So that's $200k per person.

Remember, word problems involve comprehension and math.

[-] piskertariot@lemmy.world -1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

If you work a minumum wage ($15/hr) job for 7 years and put in 40/hrs/week, you'd make $210,000.

Time scales make numbers seem bigger than they are. Go after Danielle Smith for something realstic. This is just shitty outrage journalism.

[-] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 1 points 41 minutes ago

If you ignore the cost of living, sure. One simple trick to make a million dollars - work 34 years full time at $15/hour without spending any of it. Fact of the matter is, she already spent $30 million on employment payouts as part of dismantling AHS, with more coming, as well as increased costs and wait times outsourcing diagnostics to Dynalife. And don't worry, if they reach their goal, you'll see overall medical profits, or rather costs, to rival Americans. But keep on sucking up to her.

Your critical thinking skills seem to be on par with your reading comprehension skills.

[-] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

Doubling down isn't helping you at all.

[-] how_we_burned@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 hours ago

Even 200k is in the corporate space fairly beign.

One company I worked was paying out that sort of money for basic worker bees who had hit the 80 week max redundancy pay out point (20 years tenure).

Every restructure meeting was the strangest thing I've ever been to where people were just so depressed and upset at not being made redundant.

So yeah $200k wasn't unusual (when all your other benefits were paid out, including sick leave that fricken accrued in perpetuity)

I imagine these health care workers and managers had a good union.

[-] Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago

That only works if it was 150 people per year for each of those 7 years. I read it as 150 people total, making the time irrelevant. Unless you are talking about how much was paid out of a budget each year. Was your "each" per person or per year?