Where I stand

I'm John Roggeveen, the Alberta Liberal candidate for Calgary-Shaw. These are the priorities I'll fight for — and what's gone wrong under the UCP.

Health Care

The UCP government isn't reducing wait times in Alberta's emergency rooms or in accessing surgeries. Many rural hospital ERs have been closed because the hospital can't staff them, and there are long wait times in the big cities. I know these frustrations personally — I had a medical condition for most of 2025 and into early 2026 that caused me to have to go to ERs in Calgary and wait for 9, 10 and 11 hours before being seen. This can't go on.

The UCP isn't focused on this problem. Instead it's focused on disintegrating the system, adding bureaucracy and red tape. There is no plan — or at least no plan that the government has informed Albertans about. It is also supporting private facilities at taxpayer expense, and enabling those who can afford to pay to jump the queue ahead of the rest. It is systematically destroying the principle of access to health care based on need, not how big your wallet is. The UCP's health care dismantling must be reversed. Fixing it will take time, so we need to start now.

Canada needs a national approach to health care, and Alberta needs to cooperate in it. Only through cooperation among the provinces, in conjunction with the federal government, can the problems in health care be solved. That initiative is thwarted by the Alberta government insisting on maintaining total control over health care and refusing to be accountable for the health care transfer money it receives from Ottawa. The Alberta government needs to adopt a practical, functional approach — and be prepared to relinquish some control to improve treatment and outcomes for everyone in Alberta and Canada.

Referendums

Here's the statement I gave to CTV News, which was quoted in part in a CTV News story:

"The referendums have been a waste of time and money from the start. They are non-binding, performative political theatre that the Danielle Smith UCP government is using to scapegoat immigrants and the federal government for the failures of the Premier and her UCP minions. Mountains of Albertans' tax dollars have been sunk into them already, but cancelling them now would save some taxpayer money that hasn't already been squandered. If they proceed because the Smith/UCP government doesn't have the spine to stand up to the separatists — which we all know is the case — Albertans will need to show up at the polls and resoundingly stand up for Alberta remaining in Canada.

"Ms. Smith is clearly not a player for Team Canada. Her tepid statements on how Canada should deal with the abusive behaviour of US President Trump and his administration are pathetically insufficient, and serve to indicate to Mr. Trump that he can treat us as badly as he likes and Alberta will not punish him for doing so."

John Roggeveen, to CTV News

If the province holds referendums, it should instead ask Albertans whether the government should use the Notwithstanding Clause to take away citizens' rights. At the same time as using the Notwithstanding Clause four times last fall, the UCP also overrode the Alberta Bill of Rights — which, ironically, Premier Smith and the UCP amended soon after the 2023 general election to allegedly better protect Albertans from government overreach.

Affordability

The UCP is making life tougher and less affordable for Albertans, while claiming the opposite. It has increased property taxes by raising the "education" portion — money that for years now has gone into general revenues, isn't earmarked for education, and isn't controlled by school boards. The government has also dramatically increased user fees, like the cost of registering a house transfer and mortgage, among many other things.

The government can and should revise the way electricity is marketed, to create actual competition, and encourage other energy sources by removing most of the restrictions on renewable energy development. Albertans also need help with the delivery costs for utilities, which form a large part of what we pay to heat our homes.

The "data centres" the government is fast-tracking may drive your electricity costs even higher, which won't make life more affordable. And unlike the federal government, which eliminated the federal tax on gasoline, the Alberta government refused to do the same — instead offering a paltry $100 to every Albertan.

Public Education

Public schools need to be built and funded before taxpayers subsidize and help build private schools. There isn't enough money to go around for taxpayers to be paying for private entities.

We need to reduce class sizes to a level that ensures our kids get proper attention from teachers.

We also need to reduce tuition costs for Alberta's trade schools and universities. We are only hurting ourselves in the long term by burdening our young people with huge debts coming out of school.

Accountability

There are very serious allegations raised by a former member of the UCP cabinet about how the UCP spent millions of taxpayers' dollars that appear to have gone to UCP cronies for acetaminophen (known by the brand name "Tylenol") that generally wasn't usable and largely went to waste — even though the manufacturers of Tylenol itself had offered to supply the product at a lower cost.

There are also equally, if not more, serious allegations by the former President and CEO of Alberta Health Services of conflicts of interest relating to health care procurement contracts and private surgical businesses — which the government has refused to call a public inquiry about. In addition, the UCP government has made it more difficult for citizens to get information through Freedom of Information requests.

Clearly the UCP doesn't want you to know how their cronies are making bank at taxpayer expense. Alberta needs a Transparency Act, with teeth, to hold elected officials and those they appoint accountable to the public.

The UCP has also failed at proper public consultation before rushing headlong into approving projects. While it has stymied growth of the renewable energy industry, it has skirted its own laws to fast-track server farms (aka "data centres") that have the potential to use up scarce water resources and drive up electricity costs.

Rights

The UCP clawed back $200 per month given by the federal government to our most vulnerable citizens. No other province in Canada has pulled the same stunt. Beyond despicable, it shows us the current UCP-run Alberta government is just plain mean. And the lack of compassion didn't stop there: they've brought in a new system with bureaucratic hurdles that vulnerable people will have difficulty surmounting. The chaos caused by the government resulted in at least one man taking his own life.

The UCP government is also turning car insurance into a no-fault system administered by private insurance companies, coming into effect January 1, 2027. There is no certainty it will save anyone money, but it will leave compensation for injuries to be determined under a chart overseen by insurance companies. What could possibly go wrong? If the NDP forms government, it will likely make it a government-run program with no compensation for those injured in car accidents — which would not be an improvement. Any changes to the car insurance system need to ensure that those injured by the fault of others get compensated by the wrongdoer.

As mentioned above, the UCP used the Notwithstanding Clause to deny some Albertans their Charter rights, and even overrode their own Bill of Rights that they amended early after the 2023 provincial election. That is wrong. The government should put any use of the Notwithstanding Clause to the citizens of the province, to determine whether Albertans agree to such drastic action by their government.

Waste

The UCP government is brilliant at one thing: wasting taxpayers' money. Dynalife was a fiasco. Blowing millions on unusable Tylenol is another. Squandering tax money on non-binding referendum "trial balloons" is yet a third.

Then there are the mining contracts in the Crowsnest Pass that the government entered into after setting aside a longstanding moratorium without consulting the public — and then had to pay settlements to the mining companies, to the tune of millions. Those are just some of the biggest ones.

Send the government a message.

Vote for John Roggeveen, the Alberta Liberal Party's candidate in Calgary-Shaw, in the by-election on September 14.