Danielle Smith Fires Alberta Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw

In a move that will satisfy a lot of Conservative voters in Alberta who became fed-up with the Alberta government’s draconian approach to COVID-19 restrictions and mandates between 2020 and early 2022 Premier Danielle Smith fired Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

Dr. Hinshaw’s role in government, which was significantly heightened during the pandemic, was to offer medical advice to the government. Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, former Health Minister Tyler Shandro, and current Health Minister Jason Copping gave Dr. Hinshaw latitude to shape the province’s approach to COVID-19, which effectively gave them the excuse to push responsibility for harsh measures onto Dr. Hinshaw’s advice. 

Although the UCP was playing the blame game by effectively putting Dr. Hinshaw in charge of all COVID-19 measures, Dr. Hinshaw definitely did not hold back when it came to the regulations she pushed for, and seemed not to take into account Albertans’ economic needs for Charter rights when making her decisions. 

Danielle Smith firing Dr. Deena Hinshaw is a fulfillment of her campaign promise to do so back during the summer. On October 11, shortly after being sworn in as the next premier of Alberta, Smith had stated:

I appreciate the work that Dr. Deena Hinshaw has done, but I think that we’re in a new phase where we are now talking about treating coronavirus.

There was no criticism of Dr. Hinshaw in the announcement today that she will no longer be serving as the Alberta Chief Medical Officer, and instead highlighted her replacement Dr. Mark Joffe, who is a vice-president within the Alberta Health Service. 

Dr. Joffe is only the interim Chief Medical Officer, and Danielle Smith may be replacing him later with a board of advisors which she and her political staff has been musing about doing since she won the UCP leadership election.

This follows in the footsteps of Jason Kenney firing the former AHS CEO, Dr. Verna Yiu back in January (2022) due to mismanagement within the healthcare system (which was for the most part exclusively covered by The National Telegraph). 

Some Smith supporters may not like multiple advisors being put in the place of a Chief Medical Officer. Premier Smith should consider avoiding making an issue of increasing expenses put towards an advisor role that many people want to hear far less from, not be expanded into a new overpaid board.