Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is scheduled to provide an update today on the government's response to allegations of government interference in lucrative medical contracts. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is also set to appear at the news conference in Calgary. The former head of Alberta Health Services alleges in a lawsuit that she was fired for probing questionable contracts pushed by government officials as high up as the premier's office. Smith has bucked calls from one cabinet ministers and the Opposition NDP to take LaGrange out of her role while the government oversees an internal rev

R-C-M-P in northern Alberta are investigating after two men were found dead in an ice fishing tent. Police say they were called on Saturday afternoon to a remote area of Crow Lake Provincial Park after the bodies were found. R-C-M-P say one man was a 45-year-old from Fort McMurray, Alberta, and the other was a 37-year-old from Labrador City in Newfoundland and Labrador. They say preliminary investigation suggests they died from carbon monoxide poisoning that resulted from a heating source used inside the tent.

Police say a dog that fatally attacked a newborn in a Home west of Edmonton was surrendered to officials. Const. Julie-Ann Strilaiff says the dog was set to be evaluated today by a veterinarian for things like rabies or inbreeding, and an application would possibly be submitted under the Dangerous Dogs Act to have it put down. The newborn was airlifted to the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton after the attack Sunday in the hamlet of Entwistle, about 90 kilometres west of the provincial capital, but officials announced yesterday the baby had died. The breed of dog hadn't been confir

The former CEO of Alberta Health Services has filed a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal and high-level government corruption surrounding medical contracts. A statement of claim alleges Athana Mentzelopoulos (ment-ZAH'-lop-oh-luss) was fired last month for investigating overpriced contracts and conflicts of interest between government staff and companies being contracted. The lawsuit alleges Health Minister Adriana LaGrange (lah-GRAYNGE') tried to shut down the investigation and demanded Mentzelopoulos be fired. The allegations have not been proven in court, and LaGrange says many of them are

Alberta's health minister says a third party has been called to help investigate reports of government interference in medical contracts. The third-party will assist in a review being conducted by Alberta Health Services, but the government says it retains overall control of the investigation. Reviews by A-H-S and the province's auditor general were launched after the former head of the health-care body claimed she was fired for raising the alarm on overpriced contracts with private surgical centres and suppliers. A-H-S has said it will suspend awarding contracts to firms at the centre of it

Demolition has begun on a downtown Calgary shopping centre that was to be the site of a future light rail transit station. An earlier version of the multibillion-dollar Green Line project was to tunnel under downtown to a station where Eau Claire Market had been. But the Alberta government said it would pull its funding under that configuration, and pushed for an elevated track through downtown that connects to the existing rail network. The market, built in 1993 beside the Bow River, never quite lived up to its promise of becoming like Vancouver's Granville Island, and is to be removed despi

Alberta's law society is to hold a hearing to sanction former provincial justice minister Kaycee Madu. Madu was found guilty of misconduct last year when, as justice minister in 2021, he phoned Edmonton's police chief after receiving a traffic ticket. Madu told a hearing last year he didn't call Chief Dale McFee about the ticket, but was looking for reassurance that he wasn't being racially profiled or illegally surveilled. A panel of law society members determined that while Madu didn't ask McFee to do anything about the ticket, he did try to use his position of power to influenc

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she's not sure which recommendations from a controversial new COVID-19 report her government will implement. Doctors have slammed the $2-million review by a government-appointed panel that calls for limits on COVID-19 vaccines and for health professionals not to be punished for promoting alternative treatments. Smith says critics of the report are trying to control the narrative and that she doesn't want to see ``contrarian voices'' shut out when reviewing pandemic response measures. She says getting those perspectives is needed in order tomake go

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will announce a new provincial fund today. Her government says it will increase the Heritage Savings Trust Fund from $250 billion to $400 billion by 2050. Finance Minister Nate Horner will also be in Calgary with her. Smith’s government has promised to cut interest on the province’s general revenue each year and increase investment. The fund was started in 1976 by former Premier Peter Lougheed to set aside revenue, but successive governments have begun to withdraw money from it. It was valued at $23.4 billion as of September, and Horner has promised to add $