Here are some exerpts from an article by Shiela Pratt, published in the Edmonton Journal December 21st. I'm sure it opened a lot people's eyes.
It is becoming clear that Mr. Stelmach is using Mr. Liepert as a "tough guy" front man to advance the government's agenda to de-list services, close hospitals, and extra-bill. It is unlikely Mr. Liepert is acting on his own initiative, but if he is then Mr. Stelmach's first job for 2009 should be to reign him in! Albertans want public health improved, not sold off in pieces to the private for-profit health industry. In targetting senior's health, Friends of Medicare finds the government's first moves in this direction particularly offensive and cynical.

Tough Medicine

Ron Liepert, the tough guy from Calgary West, doesn't have much time for the usual give and take of political life.
"You assess the pros and cons and make a bloody decision," says the ambitious new minister of health.
That's how he's been running Alberta's Health Ministry for the last 12 months -- abolishing regional health authorities, firing CEOs, hiring business executives to run the $8-billion system, ending universal drug coverage for seniors,
expanding home care, moving more seniors care to the private sector.
All this with barely a shred of consultation with the public or the health-care community. And he's unapologetic about it.
"Ralph Klein did all sorts of consultations," he says. "How much success did they have? How much did health care change under Ralph Klein? So why would we follow the same path he did and get the same results?"
Ron Liepert has certainly carved his own path in the last two years. With a meteoric rise from rookie backbencher to top cabinet post, he's become a key player in Ed Stelmach's cabinet and the most prominent public face in a government with a reputation for bland and low-key.
A Saskatchewan farm boy with a pragmatic streak and a notoriously short fuse, the 59-year-old Liepert has no time for the "negative" whiners on the opposition benches. He grew up poor, didn't finish high school and has always been a fighter, a trait that helped him make the journey into the ranks of the province's political elite.
Decisive and confident, Liepert is moving swiftly on many fronts with health reform: introducing competition in private clinics; defining a new role for under-used rural hospitals; and expanding the duties of paramedics.
But he won't talk about the big picture, where the system will end up. He figures he'll succeed where his predecessors have failed by rolling things out piece by piece.
The Tory caucus gives a quick stamp of approval to Liepert's policies before he announces them. Sources say Tory MLAs give him high marks for getting things done even if it's not in the most politically sensitive way. (No MLA in the Edmonton caucus will discuss the issue publicly).


A year later, as health minister, he startled everyone by announcing Albertans had voted for change in health care in the March 2008 election, even though health-care reform wasn't mentioned in the campaign. (Stelmach said the Third Way was "DOA" -- dead on arrival). Shortly after, Liepert shook up Edmonton by dismantling Capital Health and firing its highly regarded CEO, Sheila Weatherill.
This summer, he ignored his own Health Ministry and abruptly cancelled an awareness campaign about the spread of syphilis, even though an internal report showed the disease was moving into the general population.
...this fall, Liepert recruited a group of business executives from the oilsands, engineering companies, banking, accounting and legal firms for his new health-services board. That included highly successful Edmonton CEO Tony Franceschini, founder of Stantec.
"I want to trust the Tony Franceschinis who have had way more experience running $8-billion corporations than I have," Liepert says.
Handing traditional public works to the private sector is a hallmark of the Stelmach government.
For a politician with media roots, Liepert has surprisingly low regard for the press in politics. That's perhaps only rivalled by his disdain for the opposition. Both, he says, are just too negative.
Take, for instance, the scrum on Thursday, Nov. 23, the day Liepert announced the members of the new Health Services Board.
It was 1:30 p.m. and Liepert was heading into the legislature for question period. A CTV reporter stepped up and asked about a potential conflict of interest over the appointment of Franceschini to the health-services board -- an issue raised initially by the NDP, who noted that Stantec has major contracts for hospital construction with the health department.
Liepert rolled his eyes, refused to answer and walked away muttering "give me a break." So why not just answer the question?
"Well, (the reporter) is some guy I don't even know and the first thing he asks me is some negative question ... about someone who has accomplished more in his lifetime than the whole pack of media guys are ever going to accomplish in their lifetime. And it offends me, so I'm not going to give the guy the time of day."
He's equally dismissive of the NDP for raising the question.
"Screw the NDP, we got our majority," he adds.
"I'm way more combative than Lougheed ever was," he admits.
But Lougheed never really had an opposition, adds Liepert.
In the house, he doesn't hesitate to hit below the belt, accusing former Kevin Taft, for instance, of never having a real job -- an accusation full of irony, given that Liepert, like the former Liberal leader, has run his own consulting firm and worked in government.

Dave Eggen, a former New Democrat MLA, now runs Friends of Medicare. When Liberal health critic Hugh MacDonald asked Liepert why he hadn't appointed anyone from the health consumer side to the health-services board, Liepert ignored conventions of confidentiality and shot back that Eggen had applied but was found not to be a suitable candidate.
Eggen was taken aback at the revelation and demanded an apology for the breach of confidentiality. He didn't get it, but he wasn't too surprised.
As education critic, Eggen had sparred with Liepert. At times it was jocular, and other times antagonistic and bullying.
"He's got the confidence to make tough decisions, but he needs people on-side," Eggen says. "This is a huge public entity."
The trouble is, Liepert approaches his job with an assumption that he's "unassailable" thanks to the massive Conservative majority, so he sees no need to bring together all kinds of opinions or consult other groups in carrying out reform, Eggen says.
"The health system needs reforming, but I fear what Liepert has in mind is a hijacking of the system. There's lots of money to be made in private delivery."

It's unclear how much of this reform agenda is Liepert's alone and how much is Stelmach's. It's certainly a convenient good-cop, bad-cop political partnership. Liepert is out front and will take the flak if the public starts to resist. Stelmach, who needed a tough guy from Calgary to shake up health care, can decide when to step in and play the hero. That's how it worked with the teachers' pension issue.
Liepert insists the caucus fully supports his moves. Certainly, if Edmonton Tory MLAs felt any heat when Liepert abolished Capital Health last summer, they're not talking about it. Though there's been some fence-mending since, there were rumblings last summer that this episode did as much damage in Edmonton as the royalty increase did in Calgary.
Heather Smith, president of the nurses' union, says it would be a mistake to view this as solely Liepert's agenda. It's a continuation of the Klein agenda "by covert operations," she charges.
Albertans will wake up to find the "Third Way" of two-tier medicine, rejected by the Tory caucus in 2006, is taking shape. If that's the case -- and Liepert rejects that notion -- there could be political battles ahead.