EDMONTON, AB (October 28, 2015): Additional costing, timelines and information on the Calgary Cancer Centre are welcome news a decade after the project was first introduced, but more questions remain about the actual figures tied to the project, the Wildrose Official Opposition said today.
“Wildrose and Calgarians know that the Calgary Cancer Centre is a key infrastructure project for southern Alberta, and I am happy to see it proceeding,” Wildrose Shadow Health Minister Drew Barnes said. “What concerns me is the fact that by the government’s own estimates, this project has now been delayed a further three years – and from all that we have seen from the NDP so far, sticking to timelines isn’t their forte.”
The concept of a cancer centre in Calgary has been announced and re-announced multiple times by Alberta governments, most recently by the NDP in July of 2015.
“By the government’s own numbers, the Calgary Cancer Centre has only been costed to fiscal year 2019-2020,” Barnes said. “That creates a funding gap of three years that has not been included in the $830 million dollar price tag. In order for Albertans to get the best value for our infrastructure dollars, we need to have full information on the costs, the plan, and the firm timeline for these projects.”
Wildrose believes in open and transparent governance, including fully costed plans for health care infrastructure.
“Having a cancer centre in Calgary will drastically improve the quality and efficacy of treatment received by those in southern Alberta,” Wildrose Calgary-Foothills MLA Prasad Panda said. “I am pleased to see this facility proceeding, and the much needed support it will offer to cancer patients and their loved ones.”
The NDP government’s unwillingness to control runaway bureaucracy and ineffective spending has led to an inability to fund important infrastructure and services. Not announcing the full commitment of funding repeats the past government’s mistakes that have led to very inefficient infrastructure spending in Alberta.