A pair of Alberta advocacy groups are calling on the provincial government to bring back a seniors advocate.

Public Interest Alberta and Friends of Medicare used Wednesday’s World Elder Abuse Awareness Day to repeat calls for an independent advocate to represent seniors.

On Elder Abuse Awareness Day, local advocacy groups are pushing for the government to bring in a designated, independent seniors advocate.

"Elder abuse remains a real crisis facing Alberta seniors. They deserve better than empty rhetoric from this government,” said Bradley Lafortune, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “The UCP government needs to create an independent seniors advocate.”

Today, Public Interest Alberta and Friends of Medicare are recognizing Alberta Seniors’ Week by calling on the UCP Government to bring back a Seniors’ Advocate.

As of today, it’s been two years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.

In that time, we have faced challenges which would have seemed inconceivable mere months before. Lost jobs. Sleepless nights. Empty shelves in the grocery stores. Shuttered businesses. Months or years separated from family and friends. For many, lost loved ones. 

EDMONTON - Today, on the two year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, a coalition of seniors’ advocacy organizations are launching a campaign demanding that the government legislate a Seniors’ Advocate, a role that the UCP axed early in their tenure in the legislature. 

A group of seniors rallied in downtown Edmonton Thursday morning, using the Alberta legislature as a backdrop to demand improvements to seniors’ care.

Members of Friends of Medicare, Public Interest Alberta, Seniors’ Action and Liaison Team and Alberta Federation of Union Retirees gathered to mark International Day of Older Persons.

This October 1st marks the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Older Persons. This year, as we contend with the ongoing upheaval caused by the COVID-19 global health crisis, we must also bear witness to the suffering caused by the long-standing failures of our seniors’ care system. 

Seniors have suffered the greatest impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and Alberta is no exception. To date 97% of COVID-related deaths have been Albertans aged 60 or older, including 165 residents in continuing care. In July, the Royal Society of Canada found that 81% of COVID-19 deaths nationwide were residents of long-term care homes—a rate far outpacing other countries. Further, the worst impacts have occurred in for-profit facilities, which have been found to have had “more extensive outbreaks and more deaths” than public facilities. COVID-19 has exposed the many shortcomings of our seniors’ care system, borne of decades of privatization and the inequity that perpetual cost-cutting has wrought. What we are seeing now was decades in the making.

A bus carrying dozens of Albertans concerned about the government’s actions regarding health care and senior’s care made a stop near Red Deer on Wednesday.

The People’s Bus, chartered by Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta, was travelling from Edmonton to Calgary and made a stop at a business along Gasoline Alley with the end goal of canvassing the constituency of the Minister of Health, Tyler Shandro.

The groups say they are concerned about deep cuts and privatization the provincial government is imposing on Alberta’s health care and seniors’ care systems.

About 10 central Albertans joined protesters on their way to Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s Calgary constituency on Wednesday.

Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta chartered a bus for Albertans concerned about the UCP government’s cuts and privatization to the provincial health-care system and seniors care.

Close to 30 Albertans trying to bring attention to proposed health care cuts arrived at the constituency office of Health Minister Tyler Shandro on Wednesday.

Members of the group, from all over the province, travelled in a bus they dubbed “the people’s bus.”