Alberta opposition question UCP government’s pandemic response in first day of fall sitting

Alberta politicians have returned for the fall sitting, and it is shaping up to be a fight to control the political narrative.

The Opposition NDP says it wants answers on what went wrong in the summer, leading to a surge of COVID-19 cases that resulted in hundreds of deaths and pushed hospital capacity to a breaking point.

“On our last day here in the spring, the premier accused the official opposition of ‘inventing a fourth wave where it doesn’t exist,’ he then called us ‘chicken little’s’. Since then, we have lost another 827 Albertans lives, 93,000 more have been infected, 8,500 surgeries were cancelled and Alberta has experienced the most dangerous fourth wave in Canada by far,” said Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley.

“Will the premier today apologize and, more importantly, admit that he was dead wrong?”

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Premier Jason Kenney says there will be a review of the pandemic eventually, but his government says the focus of the legislature sitting will be on the economy.

“What we will not do, is to take the senior leadership of our health department in AHS off the frontline at a critical time to be a part of a political circus run by the NDP,” Kenney said.

Kenney’s government promises up to 20 bills, most of them focused on adding jobs and diversifying the economy, in the next six weeks.

He has introduced the first bill to streamline how professional requirements are processed for those from out of province.

The bill would affect more than 100 regulated professions, including nurses, accountants, real estate agents, firefighters, paramedics and engineers.