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Braid: Stephen Mandel joins AHS board bent on reform

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The surprise new member of Alberta’s most important public authority is — Stephen Mandel.

He joins the governing board of Alberta Health Services, the same one that reported to him when he was health minister in the Jim Prentice PC government.

Mandel’s appointment was approved by the Kenney cabinet and announced Thursday. Also appointed Thursday was Heidi Overguard, a rural businesswoman and community leader.

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Mandel, of course, is a former three-term Edmonton mayor. Later he was provincial health minister until the PCs were defeated in 2015.

Then he led the Alberta Party through this year’s provincial election. His moderate conservative crew was shut out.

Mandel was critical of the UCP in that election campaign, although his rhetoric fell fall short of NDP excoriation.

He recently had a long talk with Health Minister Tyler Shandro. With the approval of Premier Jason Kenney (obviously) Mandel was invited to stand and then appointed.

The UCP hopes this will be seen as a symbol of cross-party co-operation during the health-care upheaval to come. Maybe it even mutes allegations that all of Kenney’s appointments are partisan.

The fact is that the premier, while he certainly likes political friends, seeks out genuine experts for these key appointments. Mandel’s experience certainly puts him in that category.

It’s interesting, too, that in the great August unveiling of replacements at universities and other boards, not a soul was dropped from the AHS board.

There may be some changes as terms expire. Obviously, the government wants board members in tune with its agenda.

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But the UCP didn’t actually fire anybody. Former AHS chair Linda Hughes, who was appointed by the NDP, was invited to stay as a regular member, and agreed.

She’s replaced as chair by David Weyant, QC, who was a senior vice-president and legal adviser in AHS and the earlier health system.

Weyant’s list of health and governance credentials goes on for half a page. He looks like the ideal Kenney appointee — an expert who knows the system in fine detail, and may even know how to change it.

The deputy chair is still Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarm, a nephrology specialist with a doctorate in related fields.

Richard Dicerni also stays on. A former deputy minister of executive council for both the PCs and NDP, he has a long record in the upper layers of civil service in Ottawa, Ontario and Alberta.

Besides Weyant, Mandel and Overguard, the other recent addition is Capital Power chair Brian Vaasjo.

Overall, the membership grows from eight to 12 – six women and six men.

This is quite a distinguished board. And it’s going to be challenged, starting after Oct. 24, budget day.

The UCP is determined to prove that the health-care system can produce much better results for little or no more money.

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The MacKinnon report, which focused on the high cost of Alberta health care relative to other provinces — and the often inferior results — provided the rationale the UCP needed.

In UCP ranks, the fervour for this task is quite remarkable. When politicians and aides talk about the need for reform, they sound zealous and determined.

Mandel will be onside with the key goals. As health minister, he wanted to shift part of the new Calgary cancer hospital from the planned Foothills site to the new South Health Campus.

Sineage on the exterior surrrounding construction at the Calgary Cancer Centre is shown near the Foothills hospital in northwest Calgary on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Jim Wells/Postmedia
Sineage on the exterior surrrounding construction at the Calgary Cancer Centre is shown near the Foothills hospital in northwest Calgary on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Jim Wells/Postmedia

The medical community went into rebellion. Doctors were appalled at the thought of losing the link with U of C and the Foothills.

But Mandel’s plan would have been cheaper. He proposed a split-site arrangement shortly before the 2015 election. The NDP won, and quickly restored the original Foothills project.

The obvious question now (and hospital advocates started asking it immediately) is whether Mandel’s appointment means a return to the earlier plan, or any shift if the current project.

“The answer is no,” says Steve Buick, media aide to Health Minister Shandro. “This appointment has nothing do do with the cancer hospital. The project goes ahead as planned.”

Now, Mandel gets a second chance to do what he and the late Jim Prentice wanted — to reform and improve service delivery while holding the line on spending.

It has been tried, endlessly, through docile boards and noisy ones that fought publicly with the government. The costs and the wait times just keep growing.

Can this government and this board really do better? We’re about to find out.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com

Twitter: @DonBraid

Facebook: Don Braid Politics

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