“The Most Discriminated Against Group That I’ve Ever Witnessed in My Lifetime”

⁣🇨🇦Alberta's newly minted Premier Danielle Smith has announced that there will be massive, rapid changes to who is managing health care in the province.

Smith will replace Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and recruit a new team of advisers in public health that considers COVID-19 to be an endemic disease, not a pandemic.

She also repeated a pledge to review the leadership of Alberta Health Services (AHS) by the end of 2022.

"I want our front-line healthcare workers to know that reinforcements are coming," Smith said. "We cannot continue understaffing our hospitals and then forcing our front-line workers to work mandatory overtime and be called in on days off and have to cancel their holidays."

As the world grapples with a shortage of healthcare workers and professional burnout, Smith says Alberta won't have any vaccination mandates, which will help attract employees to the province.

Smith has been deeply critical of the Kenney government's use of public health restrictions during the COVID-19 crisis. She has pledged to amend the Alberta Human Rights Act to add vaccination status as a ground subject to protection from discrimination.

"They have been the most discriminated against a group that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime," Smith said of unvaccinated Canadians at the press conference.