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Hoffman told reporters the NDP government has an obligation to look at all the work that has been done on where to build the new facility, which is intended to replace the overcrowded Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

“When you’re actually the minister, you have a little bit more information than you’re given as a member of the opposition, to be frank,” she said at an Alberta Health Services event at the South Health Campus.

“We need to take all the information that we have now — including the needs and the financial implications and what’s going to be best in terms of patient care — and assess all of that data in a collaborative way and make a decision together as a team. We’re not in a position to be definitive on where our plan is with that.”

Asked about whether the cancer centre would be included in the September budget, Hoffman said the province’s finances are “not as rosy a picture as maybe had been painted for us.”

The Tory government under then premier Ralph Klein initially promised a new cancer for the city in 2005, but there have been repeated delays and setbacks to the idea.

Liberal Leader Dr. David Swann, the MLA for Calgary-Mountain View, noted there has already been extensive planning done around the cancer centre. There is no issue with the NDP reviewing the various plans, but the project needs to be in the fall provincial budget, he said.

“This is a priority. It’s been reviewed and reviewed,” Swann said. “There’s no question we should have a decision in the next six months.”