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Member Batten: Mr. Speaker, when a parent leaves their child in the hands of a care provider, they expect that they will be safe and they will be protected. While that is mostly the case in this province, multiple serious instances of child abuse events this past year have left parents feeling helpless. What’s worse is these shocking events have raised concerns about gaps in the Early Learning and Child Care Act, which this government has failed to do anything about. When can we expect the Minister of Education and Childcare to step up and do something about it?

Mr. Shepherd: He’s spreading chaos and conflict in our hospitals and clinics. He’s chasing doctors out of Alberta, laying off 11,000 front-line hospital workers and more than 600 nurses. Why is the current Health minister waging a war on public health care in the middle of a public health crisis?

Ms Gray: Albertans deserve a comprehensive paid sick leave program. Alberta’s NDP drafted legislation to bring paid sick leave here, not just a briefing note, a full bill. Will the minister commit to working with me to bring this bill into the House for debate? No more stalling. Albertans need paid sick leave.

Mr. Shandro: The complex at High Prairie is an important facility. I just visited it just a couple of weeks ago. There are no plans to reduce the health care services in High Prairie, and I want to reiterate that this is a temporary measure and not taken lightly by AHS.

Mr. Shepherd: Now, given that this Health minister indeed chose to wage his war on doctors in the midst of a global pandemic and given that he demonstrated his lack of respect for physicians by calling them at home at night or berating them in their driveways and given that rather than own up to what is, frankly, childish behaviour, he attempted to gaslight Albertans by claiming that no fight with doctors had happened – you know, it’s clear that the minister engaged in a deliberate attempt to rewrite history – can the Premier explain to every doctor in the province why he still stands behind him after the disrespect and disregard he’s shown to physicians?

Mr. Shandro: We are proceeding with a balanced portion of the recommendations of AHS to implement those recommendations from the AHS performance review because it’s the right thing for us to do to be able to continue to allow our front-line clinical staff and folks in AHS to focus on what they do best: taking care of patients, providing them with the best acute care, the best surgeries that they can throughout the pandemic but also after as well so that we can have more – and this is the thing, Madam Chair, that unlike the NDP, who answer to an interest group, we are here to represent patients. The focus for us is to find more efficiencies . . .

Mr. Shepherd: A question at this point. We are short on time, and I would appreciate the opportunity to continue with some further questions.

The Chair: Member Shepherd, please wait until you are recognized by the chair to speak. Thank you. I will let the minister continue with his final sentence.