The UCP Tried to Kill a Health Story with Claims That Didn’t Stand Up

The Alberta government was quick to react when an Investigative Journalism Foundation investigation revealed that the amount of overtime worked by paramedics in Edmonton had increased by 81 per cent between 2021 and 2024.

The report was republished by several media outlets across Canada last summer through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Staff from Premier Danielle Smith’s office and the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services immediately began messaging reporters and editors, claiming that data had been omitted and asking that the story be rewritten or deleted. At least one news outlet complied with the government’s request.

But after filing multiple access to information requests, the IJF found that information cited in emails from the premier’s staff doesn’t line up with data from the province’s own health agencies.

That’s a serious problem, said Lorian Hardcastle, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Calgary.

“In many cases, government is the only one with access to particular data,” she said. “And so it’s essential to government accountability to democracy for them to be honest and open and transparent with that data.”

“Where that data is false, or where that data is misleading or is manipulated in a way to make it seem more favourable, all of that is really problematic,” Hardcastle said. “And it takes away the ability of the public to hold the government’s feet to the fire to make improvements.” Inaccurate data also makes it harder for those working in the system to make needed changes, she said.

The emergency medical services or EMS staffing shortage and the reliance on paramedics working overtime just to keep ambulances on the road have been a persistent Alberta issue.

The IJF investigation found Edmonton emergency medical services overtime hours had jumped 81 per cent in three years and overtime costs had increased from $5.3 million to $10 million.

Steve Buick, a government relations officer in the premier’s office, raised three issues in a July 2025 email to the IJF and other media after the report was published.

Despite Edmonton EMS working more than 134,000 hours of overtime in 2024, Buick wrote that presenting the increase in overtime as a problem is misleading.

“First, overtime as a percentage of total worked hours in Edmonton EMS is down by more than half, to 2.8 per cent in 2025 to date compared to 6.3 per cent in 2024. The 2025 figure is only slightly higher than 2022 or 2023,” Buick said.

“EMS has expanded significantly in recent years so total hours and overtime hours are up sharply, but overtime as a percentage of total worked hours is not. Omitting that data is unacceptable; it reflects a standard that would never be accepted in any other context.”

These statistics were repeated in a separate email from the Health Ministry asking for the story to be altered.

Data subsequently released through an access to information request shows that overtime as a percentage of hours worked is significantly higher than the figures quoted by Buick and has consistently hovered around 10 per cent in recent years.

In 2024, 9.9 per cent of all hours worked by Edmonton EMS were overtime, up from 9.8 per cent in 2023, according to data from Alberta Health Services. Between January and July 2025, overtime made up on average 10.11 per cent of hours worked, hitting a low of 8.18 per cent in January and a high of 11.44 per cent in March.

So where does the statistic about overtime hours quoted by Buick come from?

According to the provincial health agency Acute Care Alberta, the 6.3 per cent figure represents overtime as a percentage of total paid hours, which is “greater than actual worked hours as they include vacation, training, sick hours, etc.”

Even using this metric, the amount of overtime worked by Edmonton EMS has increased since 2022.

In 2022 overtime accounted for five per cent of total paid hours, and it increased to six per cent in 2023 and again to 6.3 per cent in 2024. Between January and July 2025, overtime as a percentage of paid hours still averaged 6.3 per cent.

The IJF was unable to identify the source of the claim from the premier’s office that overtime has fallen by half in 2025 to 2.8 per cent.

Neither Buick nor the premier’s office nor the Hospital and Surgical Health Services Ministry, which oversees EMS, responded to questions from the IJF.

‘It feels like the government's gaslighting us’

Chris Gallaway, executive director of the public health advocacy group Friends of Medicare, said health data is increasingly harder for the public to access as Alberta’s government has become less proactive in its release and/or “they only put out the data when it tells a good story.”

Gallaway said he’s heard from paramedics who say “it feels like the government’s gaslighting us, because when we say this is what it’s like, they say we’re wrong and put out other data.”

“When you look at something like EMS and how they've handled the data and the reporting and responded to questions about it, they're ignoring the fact that that is horrible for the morale of those who work in EMS,” Gallaway said.

“We're short-staffed, clearly, and the data shows that because of the overtime and so on. And rather than address those very real concerns, they're gaslighting people pretending they're not real concerns,” he said.

“The government's tone and their refusal to admit reality and share good data is driving people away.”

In December, Alberta’s auditor general released a report on public performance reporting by Alberta Health Services.

The report’s findings included differences between publicly reported numbers and internal reporting from the same period, instances where “numbers selected for public reporting made performance look better than it actually was.” Records of the sources of data used in public reports were not being kept, it found.

The auditor general gave an example of an April 2023 progress report showing response times for remote EMS had improved significantly, with “wait times reduced from over 60 minutes to just 39.6 minutes.”

“We traced the EMS numbers to a single week in mid-April, when the wait times for remote EMS temporarily dipped to 39.6 minutes from a consistent weekly average of around 63 minutes,” the report states.

Government officials placed the blame for this selective use of data on Alberta Health Services and said it was part of the reason the province had dismantled AHS and distributed its responsibilities among four distinct health agencies.

In the July email, Buick said the most important thing was that EMS response times in Edmonton were down, “from nearly 18 minutes in 2022 to 14 minutes in June 2025. Response time is the essential measure of EMS performance as the patient sees it; it’s unacceptable to omit it from a story headlined ‘EMS in crisis.’”

The government’s target is to respond to 90 per cent of urban EMS calls within 12 minutes’ time. Data shows that the average response time in Edmonton for the 90th percentile was 15.5 minutes in 2022 and 15.1 minutes between January and June 2025.

Hardcastle said that when it comes to the performance of Alberta’s health-care agencies, “ultimately, the buck stops with government.”

If it presents data, it needs to ensure the information is accurate.

“Fixing the health-care system is hard work, and this government doesn't seem to be overly committed to that. And the response isn’t to manipulate the data to make it look like you did succeed. The response is to go back to the drawing board, to talk to people who do know what's needed to improve the health-care system, and to roll up your sleeves and do the work.”