“i’d like to know why alberta health services defied the premier,” smith said. “he gave them direct instructions to increase icu beds by (up to 1,081) … i thought they were working on that. and instead they decreased the number of icu beds.”
and then smith let fly with a rhetorical bomb blast at ahs: “i don’t know if that’s incompetence or if they were deliberately sabotaging the government, but it’s unacceptable.”
the lack of icu beds also pushed kenney to bring in vaccine passports, a measure smith said she would never have introduced. “i’m pro-choice and i’m pro-choice in all things, which also means medical choice.”
of course some will return fire on smith for her implicit suggestion it would have been reasonable to have far more covid patients in icu. it’s crucial to remember that the pandemic presented a balancing act between two evils. numerous health experts, such as edmonton physician
ari joffe,
have pointed out the brutal cost to human health and well-being caused by lockdown isolation, family breakdown, learning loss and inflationary spending.
lockdown harms must now be carefully measured so we better know how to deal with future pandemics, smith said.
as for her promise to bring in an alberta sovereignty act as her first act as premier, smith said there’s precedent for this in canada, with indigenous people, quebec and other provinces pushing to be nations within a nation. “we have that kind of flexibility in confederation and we just have to assert it,” smith said of alberta.