Canada

The campaign by Alberta’s United Conservative Party to remake the province’s health-care system has created chaos with patients dying in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms.

But there has also been a steep financial cost to the overhaul. A Tyee analysis of Alberta Health financial data found at least $30 million has been paid out in severance between 2019 and June 2025.

The data shows the government paid out about $29.45 million between 2019 and June 2025 to 150 former employees. But that figure doesn’t account for payouts made in the second half of 2025, nor does it capture the payouts for executives and others who opted out of the public reporting of their severance.

A third of that amount — nearly $10 million — was paid out in 2023 to 33 people as Smith made good on an election campaign promise to eliminate what she characterized as a bloated bureaucracy and ineffective executive managers.

Smith had made no secret of her animus toward officials at Alberta Health Services, or AHS, whom she accused of underperforming and of mismanaging the COVID pandemic by too stringently applying mandates.