Alberta Premier Ralph Klein cast his controversial health-care bill into unfamiliar political waters yesterday, selling the proposed legislation in British Columbia while accusing federal Health Minister Allan Rock of conducting a "drive-by smear" on the Premier's home turf of Calgary.
Mr. Klein, who plans to go fishing in Victoria today during a weekend visit, told a Chamber of Commerce lunch yesterday he is not budging from a proposed law to allow private clinics to perform overnight surgery in Alberta.
"Our government will not back down from this debate," Mr. Klein told about 200 business people who gave him a standing ovation while 40 demonstrators carrying placards protested against Bill 11 outside the Victoria hotel.
Critics across the country fear that the provincial bill would pave the way for a U.S.-style two-tiered health-care system.
"I have no reason to want to destroy medicare, as my critics accuse me," said Mr. Klein. "We want to make it stronger, not weaker. . . . We won't be defeated by our critics and protesters who think emotional slogans can replace sound ideas, or who want to appeal to people's fears rather than their sense of progress."
He attacked Mr. Rock, who denounced the proposed legislation in Calgary yesterday.
"Even Allan Rock, who I understand is in Calgary today sort of doing a drive-by smear, agrees that the status quo is not an option," Mr. Klein said. "But I have to wonder if he believes that, because every time a province suggests a true new idea, he pans it."
"For all Mr. Rock's talk about the need to do things differently in health care, I have yet to hear him offer one truly new idea," Mr. Klein said.
"Mr. Rock has been wracking his brain to find a way to stop us. But our proposal doesn't violate the fundamental principles, the principles we hold dear in the Canada Health Act.
"All he can say is, 'Why?' I hear him on the news a lot asking 'Why?' He doesn't ask me why or our Health Minister why. He never calls us. He rarely writes. Maybe he's been trying to e-mail me."
Alberta is the first province to move to private-sector operations, pioneering, for example, cataract surgeries in private clinics.
Mr. Klein says the Health Care Protection Act would contract other types of minor operations to private for-profit facilities to cut costs and reduce waiting lists. The bill would allow private clinics to keep patients overnight for more complex operations, such as hip replacements. The operations would be paid for with public-health dollars.
He said reform is needed so the system won't go "bankrupt" as aging baby boomers put increased pressure on health care.
"It's not privatization," Mr. Klein told reporters later. "Every time someone tries to do something, let's not slam it . . . let's have Mr. Rock say 'Interesting. Let's see how it works.' "
Mr. Klein described Mr. Rock's Alberta visit as an unexpected political ambush, saying he had no advance notice of the federal Health Minister's plans to wade into the debate in his backyard.
"I don't feel snubbed at all," he said. "I've come to expect it."
But Mr. Klein said he isn't ruling out amendments to the bill, which has been delayed for a second reading until next month.