Alberta Seniors’ Week is the first full week of June every year, and is a chance for Albertans to show appreciation for Alberta’s seniors and all that they contribute to Alberta. 

EDMONTON — This Senior’s Week, Public Interest Alberta and Friends of Medicare continue to call for the return of an independent Seniors’ Advocate, for Alberta to get on board with universal pharmacare, and for a comprehensive system of service delivery that ensures the well-being of seniors by ensuring their mental, physical, social and financial needs are met.

“Alberta seniors deserve so much better than what they’ve been getting,” said Brad Lafortune, executive director of Public Interest Alberta. “Bringing back an independent seniors’ advocate would be a first step to supporting seniors to live in dignity. Instead, this government has ignored the calls of seniors across Alberta and continued their reckless agenda of cuts and privatization. Enough is enough.”

Recent reports from the Auditor General showed clearly how badly we are failing Alberta seniors living in Long-Term Care. Decades of underfunding and chronic understaffing in seniors' care have spelled disaster for seniors in our province. The Auditor General’s reports confirm the need for a new approach.

“These reports clearly lay out how we’ve failed seniors in long term care, we need to do so much better. said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “But the reports also highlight the systemic issues we’ve been raising in seniors care in Alberta for many years; the infrastructure challenges, the chronic understaffing, the reliance on a precarious workforce without job security, benefits or paid sick days. Ultimately, it all comes back to Alberta’s approach to long term care which treats seniors as commodities, prioritizing profits over providing quality care.”

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