Notice Board

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) welcomes veteran nurse Danielle Larivee to discuss the current negotiations between the Alberta government and the province's nurses as they seek a new contract.

Is the Contract Dispute between AHS and Alberta Nurses strictly about Money?

Thursday, September 9, 2021 from 12 noon to 1 p.m. MDT
YouTube Live link:  https://youtu.be/VDgtX_xy7cs

Alberta Health Services (AHS) (the Alberta Government) is demanding across-the-board pay cuts of 3 per cent, plus additional monetary cuts that would raise the cost of the rollbacks to an average 5 per cent in their negotiations with United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) members who have already endured six years of zero per cent increases. All this arguably amounts to a relatively large reduction in nurses’ pay under the guise that Alberta nurses are being paid more than their provincial counterparts.

The government claims it respects the sacrifice and dedication of Alberta’s nurses throughout the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Under these circumstances, with pay cuts and major rollbacks still on the table, this appears to compound the disrespect shown by AHS during these negotiations. The speaker will clarify where negotiations are between AHS and UNA. She will also dig deeper into the current health care staffing crisis, challenges of COVID, and the UCP privatization agenda attacking health care in Alberta.

Speaker:                   Danielle Larivee

Danielle Larivee has been a registered nurse for over 24 years, and has worked in a variety of settings, from frontline public health, to First Nation homecare, to teaching nursing, and is currently the first vice-president of UNA, the union representing over 30,000 RNs, RPNs, and other frontline health care workers. 

She proudly served as president of her UNA local 315 until she was elected to the Alberta Legislature on May 5, 2015 and went on to fill multiple cabinet posts, including Minister of Municipal Affairs, Service Alberta, Children’s Services and Status of Women. During her time in office, she managed many complicated and sensitive files, such as being Alberta’s lead for the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires, developing and implementing a plan to improve Alberta's child intervention system, and co-chairing a review of the province’s mental health system.

Larivee feels strongly that advocating at the political level is part of a nurse’s responsibility and is thankful for the opportunity in her newest role to advocate for both Alberta’s nurses and for our publicly funded, publicly delivered health care system.

In order to ask questions of our speaker in the chat feature of YouTube, you must have a YouTube account and be signed in. Please do so well ahead of the scheduled start time, so you’ll be ready. Go the YouTube Live link provided in this session flyer and on the top right of your browser click the “sign in” button. If you have Google or Gmail accounts, they can be used to sign in. If you don’t, click “Create Account” and follow along. Once you are signed in, you can return to the live stream and use the chat feature to ask your questions of the speaker. You can only participate in the chat feature while we are livestreaming.

Link to SACPA’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthernAlbertaCouncilonPublicAffairs/videos

For further information on the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs, visit the SACPA website.