Cookie-Gate

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Stephen Duckett is no longer AHS CEO. More here...

 

The CEO of Alberta Health Services sure likes his cookies:

 

 

After the ensuing firestorm, Stephen Duckett decided to apologize:

 

The chief executive of Alberta Health Services apologized Saturday for his cookie comments as critics renewed calls for his dismissal.

(...)

 

Duckett apologized on his blog and in a written statement on Saturday.
His repeated cookie remarks followed a daylong meeting of about 100 medical leaders from Alberta Health Services pulled together to draft remedies to the emergency care crisis.
"The meeting made great progress," Duckett wrote on his blog. "That success has to some extent been overshadowed by my poor responses to the media afterwards, which I deeply regret and for which I apologize unreservedly."

UPDATE: My Monday editorial comment addresses this subject:

 

The problems plaguing Alberta's emergency rooms are no laughing matter, but the story has taken a very bizarre twist.

Of all the words one might associate with this controversy, "cookie" might be near the bottom of the list.
Unfortunately, though, the word "cookie" has become very relevant in this discussion, and may perhaps come to symbolize the way politicians and bureaucrats are responding to it.
Last Friday morning, Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett presided over a meeting with health care stakeholders in which the ER crisis was discussed.
One would think that there would be important questions for Mr. Duckett following such a meeting. What's going to be done to fix the problems in the system? What about the crticism of Alberta Health Services this week from Tory MLA Dr. Raj Sherman?
Instead of answering the questions, or even replying with a "no comment", Duckett instead - with a grin on his face - that he was eating his cookie.
When one reporter pointed out that Albertans are interesting in hearing from the top health bureaucrat, Duckett responded by saying again, quote "I'm interested in eating my cookie".
At a time when Albertans are hearing about people dying and suffering after waiting hours upon hours in emergency rooms, it comes across as incredibly arrogant, not to mention indifferent.
Inevtiably it is the politicians who are accountable for all of this. They designed the system Duckett was hired to run - they are obviously the ones who hired him in the first place.
If there are problems at the health superboard then those are problems for the Stelmach government. Not surprising, then, that the Premier on Friday stated that he had not lost confidence in Alberta Health Services.
It's unclear whether the Premier was aware of the cookie remarks at the time. But Albertans now are, and many of them are losing confidence - if there was still any left to lose

UPDATE #2 Well let's see: Stephen Duckett made some newsworthy remarks. Raj Sherman made some newsworthy remarks. Which of the two has been punished?

 

Maverick MLA Dr. Raj Sherman was kicked out of Alberta’s Conservative caucus Monday but vowed to continue his fight to fix the province’s “broken” health-care system.
In a closed-door meeting that lasted more than two hours, Tory MLAs voted unanimously to suspend the outspoken doctor-turned-politician, who ignited a political firestorm last week when he publicly criticized his own government for its handling of the health-care crisis.
Sherman said he is disappointed but believes Albertans will stand behind him.
“I have to stick to my guns,” he said. “We cannot wait to fix the broken health-care system. ... I believe that it can be better, simply because it must be better, because the lives of our most vulnerable — our children, our parents, our grandparents — depend on it.”
Conservative caucus whip MLA Robin Campbell said the suspension is “indefinite” but that Sherman could rejoin the Tories if he makes unspecified amends.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from me (and others) on the Tuesday politics panel on Access TV's Alberta Primetime