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By Medicine Hat News Opinion on April 25, 2020.

If you asked me to name 44 rural communities in Alberta, it would probably be a struggle. So, when I heard that was the number with doctors threatening to or outright resigning from essential hospital services due to cuts implemented by the provincial government, let’s just say it sounded like a lot.

When Premier Jason Kenney announced a personal protective equipment giveaway — then replaced it all with dollar-store wannabes — in what could only be described as a political stunt aimed at getting certain provinces to back Alberta’s oil and gas interests, let’s just say it wasn’t a big surprise.

And when oil prices dropped into the realm of “Hey, man, I’ll give you a dollar if you buy this barrel of crude from me,” mere days after the province committed billions to a pipeline through Montana that Montana might not actually allow to be built, let’s just say it seemed all too typical for the UCP.

Despite most of the province doing as little as possible these days, a whole lot has transpired since I last wrote, when, if you recall, I suggested we should get a new health minister because our current one has the self control of a drunk teenager.

I still think Tyler Shandro is an embarrassment to the position he holds — I can say that with added cockiness since I don’t think he knows where my driveway is — and as long as he’s allowed to make decisions that affect the safety of people I care about, I’m going to be here to remind everyone that he once sauntered down the street to sob-scream at a doctor over an internet meme, and he did it in a pandemic.

We can talk all damn day about beating a dead horse, but the minister of health is inarguably unqualified to lead 4.4 million people through this and I’ll wallop that mortal equine until COVID-19 becomes part of our bitumen-based curriculum.

Obviously there are problems coming out of the Ministry of Health bigger than Shandro’s behavioural issues, such as the above-mentioned pending crisis in rural communities that is directly due to actions of the government, but for whatever reason the fact that he can’t even carry calm demeanour while he oversees the gutting of our public health system is almost more bothersome.

Maybe it’s because I’m a city boy who won’t yet have to give up the privilege of hospital access. At least rural communities had nothing to do with the UCP’s election, so I’m sure they won’t have to worry about too many lost votes.

Anyhoo…

As is becoming a theme since the start of the pandemic, our illustrious health minister was in front of the cameras Friday to announce a partial rollback of these fee changes, in what he predictably presented as an additional $81 million to keep dissenting rural physicians (from 44 communities, I’ll remind) from retracting services.

But let us never forget that, in reality, Shandro’s government gave itself the power to tear up binding contracts, then tore up a binding contract with doctors, then forced them into unreasonable fee structures, then pushed those through while a global pandemic arrived, then rolled back some of those forced changes when public backlash reached a point where the UCP felt its political capital waning. And while the health minister announced it, he made sure to repeatedly accuse the Alberta Medical Association of deceit.

You’ll have to excuse Alberta’s physicians and their patients if they don’t organize a drive-by pandemic parade to thank the government for this gesture.

And, on the off chance the entirety of Alberta’s populace just got back from the moon this week, Shandro actually looked a reporter in the face Friday while suggesting certain April 1 fee changes were being rolled back because the policy had unintended consequences.

“… this policy forces physicians and hospitals to make choices that reduce access. This was never our intention.”

Um, what?

Are we supposed to pretend that doctors and hospital officials hadn’t been making themselves crazy trying to warn Albertans and the UCP for weeks that these changes would have these exact consequences? Does this government honestly believe Albertans are dumb enough to see that $81 million and view it as generous? View it as some sort of added funding? View it as something Shandro won’t immediately undo when COVID-19 passes?

Sorry, but even UCP supporters couldn’t defend this with a straight face. Good governing is not doing something stupid, getting hammered for it, then undoing parts of that stupid thing and shouting, “Ta-da.”

Opposition health critic David Shepherd had the quote of the week in a perfect description of what Friday’s announcement was.

“Tyler Shandro knifed rural Albertans and our rural doctors in the back, and now he’s offering a Band-Aid.”

Precisely. And his other hand hasn’t even let go of the knife yet.

Unless temper tantrums turn out to be the cure for COVID-19, maybe we shouldn’t trust our health minister anymore than our doctors do.

Scott Schmidt is the layout editor for the Medicine Hat News. Contact him by email at sschmidt@medicinehatnews.com, or follow him on Twitter at @shmitzysays. Scott’s opinions are his own.