By George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Old folks are good folks for small-town Alberta, which means their neighbours should keep them close and healthy for as long as possible.
That was among the sentiments expressed by the UCP’s Jason Nixon last week as he talked up a provincial framework that, among other things, aims to help communities add as many as 15,000 spaces over the next decade.
The framework announced in December calls for immediate provincial spending of $400 million as part of “billions of dollars” it puts towards new and upgraded units.
“Our communities are better with grandma and grandpa in them,” said Nixon, the minister of assisted living and social services. “I cannot imagine why we would want communities to lose the seniors who benefit them so immensely.”
Seniors keep Alberta thriving by volunteering at higher rates than other age groups do, he said. And it’s “obviously good” to keep young people bonded with the elders who built their hometowns.
Nixon, the UCP member for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, called his government’s bricks-and-mortar goal “the largest continuing care capital program in the history of the province.”
Plugging Gaps, Easing Pressure
Along with capital spending, among the framework’s bullet points are improving home care and other non-medical supports for aging in place. It seeks to improve navigation through emergency departments to provide care solutions other than hospital admissions.
The framework calls for the creation of transition units and pathways in hospitals “so patients move more quickly into the right continuing care or assisted living setting,” said Nixon.
The government wants to plug gaps with new and modernized buildings and services, Nixon said. The approach is designed to keep seniors out of overburdened and understaffed emergency wards and acute-care beds when they don’t belong there.
Tied to a controversial restructuring of health-care delivery, the approach, Nixon said, should ease pressure on other health-care services while Alberta copes with an aging population.
Restructuring and Rebranding
Continuing care and similar supports now fall within a new health-care pillar and under a new cabinet portfolio.
The old Alberta Health Services was primarily geared for acute care and emergency services, Nixon maintained. Assisted living and continuing care therefore got neither the expertise nor the attention they deserved.
Enter an agency called Assisted Living Alberta, one of four pillars in the restructuring of health care.
Billing itself online as a group that’s “transforming Alberta’s continuing care, home care and community care systems,” ALA came into being last April at the start of this fiscal year.
Soon after the agency’s arrival, Nixon’s portfolio shifted from seniors, community and social services to the new one, assisted living and social services.
Opposition Pushback
Terms like age-in-place, follow-the-patient spending, right care at the right time and alternative living pathways are part of today’s continuing-care lingo.
But no matter what the glossary includes, the agency and restructuring remain unpopular with the Opposition.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has called the restructuring chaotic and confusing for Albertans and frontline workers.
Opposition critics have said ALA’s creation doesn’t address a shortage of health-care workers across the province.
It’s another nose under the health-care tent for privatization, the creation of a gig-style economy and the use of underqualified staff, they’ve said.
Nixon said skilled staff shortages in health care are a problem through most of the world’s advanced economies. Continuing care is “not exempt from that challenge.”
The shortage is being addressed, he said, thanks to agreements with unions and physicians, and to independent practice rules the government instituted in 2024 for nurse practitioners.
Using “our contractors appropriately is an opportunity that we have inside the continuing-care sector that doesn’t exist inside the existing health-care system, which is another reason why we want it to be separate.”
A Demographic Shift
Old approaches aren’t likely to work, Nixon said, given the demographic shift underway in Alberta.
“We’re going to be at almost a million seniors by 2035, which is a very big number compared to our population. So we recognize that we have to do things differently,” said Nixon. “You can’t just institutionalize the entire population that built this province.”
He continued that seniors “don’t want to be put in that circumstance, and we can’t afford to do it with numbers like that. So our focus really has been about creating a system to help those who need help but makes sure the right help is taking place.”
The province projects that the average age in Alberta will surpass 43 years in 2051, up from around 39 today.
Treasury Board and Finance documentation notes that median ages are already that high or higher in many non-urban areas, with some places hovering around 50.
Partnering with the Locals
Meeting facility and service needs involves more than a local authority sending in a grant application and hoping for the best. The province is leaning into partnerships that include local commitment and risk.
Working with the feds — along with faith-based organizations and local governments, housing authorities and charities — the province wants “to be the provider that gets the project over the finish line,” said Nixon.
“Instead of being the only provider, we’re supporting the great work that other organizations are doing in their communities,” he said.
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