COVID-19 & The Health of Alberta Healthcare
Our next General Membership Meeting is on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at 7 PM, and we’ll welcome a trio of distinguished panelists!
The Alberta government’s COVID vaccine policy has been in the news… and the news isn’t good.
Alone among Canadian provinces, Alberta wants to charge your family for COVID vaccines. An online booking system for “pre-ordering” COVID and flu vaccines is already notorious for its confusing and unclear message. It simply isn’t clear what “pre-ordering” even does or what guarantees, if any, it provides. Experts warn that this is yet another barrier to crucial health care access for Albertans, and especially Albertans who aren’t wealthy.
This extreme outlier policy in provincial healthcare has health care experts ringing alarm bells, and your Union has joined them in calling on Alberta’s government to learn from history instead of repeating it.
Click here to see an important article on the subject.
You can meet three of the most prominent names among the experts in an illuminating panel as part of our General Membership Meeting on September 3rd at 7:00 pm.
Our Guests
Dr. Jeffrey Johnson is a former interim Dean at the School of Public Health, University of Alberta. He is a pharmacist by training and a noted health outcomes researcher with a deep and current knowledge of public health.
Dawn Friesen is the former Assistant Deputy Minister for Public Health and Compliance at the Alberta Ministry of Health. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Victoria and a Master’s degree in Nursing from the University of Alberta.
Dr. Paul Parks is an emergency physician in Medicine Hat and the Past President of the Alberta Medical Association for 2024 – 2025. Dr. Parks has a long history of service with the AMA, having joined in 2001 during his residency, and has spent over 15 years actively involved in AMA work.
Your Union & COVID-19
Obviously, this is a major issue for our membership: UFCW 401 was on the frontlines of the fight for worker health and safety during the pandemic, and our focus on these issues hasn’t changed.
We advocated that vaccines be readily available for those who chose to have them during the pandemic. In fact, we arranged on-site vaccine clinics, free of charge, for workers in major Alberta food processing plants.
Worker health and safety is a very important area of advocacy for unions. 401 workplaces tend to be crowded, with little social distancing. COVID-19, RSV, and the flu can be serious health issues.
On the call, we will discuss serious faults in the government vaccine policies in Alberta and elsewhere, and will cover other topics related to worker health and safety.
Joining the Meeting
As always, you can join our general membership meeting in two ways.
Live Video Stream
A few days prior to our meeting, you will receive an email from noreply@motionmeetings.co with a link to watch the general membership meeting via a live video stream and ask your questions.
At 7 PM on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025, you can click that link to join and watch the meeting and ask your questions.
Telephone Call
If you prefer to listen in to our general membership meetings on the telephone, you can ignore that email and wait for us to give you a call at around 7 PM on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025.
If you answer that call, you will be automatically connected to the general membership meeting, where you can listen in and ask your questions.
We hope you’ll be able to join us for this important meeting on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025, at 7 PM!
Posted on: August 20,2025