OP-ED: Danielle Smith fixed the receipts but will she fix this?

Richard Dur writes. "She knew in 2000. She knows now. She acted quickly when receipts were hidden. But when babies are gasping for breath, she has done nothing."

Source: Facebook

By Richard Dur

Earlier this month, Premier Danielle Smith pledged to reverse a policy that hid government expense receipts from public view. When she learned that Albertans could no longer see what officials were billing taxpayers, she called it wrong, promised to investigate, and vowed to fix it. Cabinet will discuss it. The correction, she says, is coming.

But for twenty-five years, she has known about something infinitely worse: babies born alive after failed abortions in Alberta hospitals — and left to die.

In 2000, as a Calgary Herald columnist, Smith called late-term abortion a “horrific practice.” She was right. But now, as Premier, the horror continues.

Receipts were hidden — and she is moving to fix it. Babies are still being abandoned — and she has done nothing.

If Premier Smith can act swiftly to fix receipts, why has she stood still while newborns are left to die? After all, it’s Alberta Health Services policy — under her government — that permits it (as confirmed by two separate AHS documents, here and here). And it’s her silence that sustains it. She moved to restore the public’s right to know — but not a newborn’s right to live. (Not a fetus. A baby. Already born. Alive outside the womb. And still left to die.)

They blacked out receipts. That’s being fixed. But they still look away as newborns are blacked out — not from paper, but from life itself.

Last year in Alberta, 28 babies survived the procedure meant to end their lives — and were born alive. (Twenty the year before. Twenty-six the year before that.) The abortion failed. But AHS policy ensured the outcome stayed the same. They survived the violence. But they couldn’t survive the silence.

Twenty-eight cries. Twenty-eight children. Not one protected. No oxygen. No incubator. Not even an IV. They are left to die. This is “comfort care” under AHS policy — a sterile phrase for state-sanctioned abandonment and deliberate neglect.

Why can government move heaven and earth to prove whether ministers rent Corollas or Corvettes — but turn away when a newborn struggles for breath on a hospital table? So which is the scandal — receipts or gasping newborns? Which is the real emergency?

When it comes to hotel receipts, the fear is that someone might track a minister’s movements. But when a baby is born alive after an abortion, no such vigilance applies. The powerful are shielded. The powerless are abandoned. One is hidden to ensure comfort. The other left exposed to ensure death.

This isn’t just bad policy. This is a moral disgrace. A living child with a heartbeat and rising chest is a patient. To treat them as a problem is barbaric.

Receipts were fixed in days. But babies have been left to die for decades.

Premier Smith had the courage to tell the truth in 2000. She has the power now to end the horror she once described by revising AHS Policies — guaranteeing that every baby born alive in Alberta is treated as a patient, not a problem.

She knew in 2000. She knows now. She acted quickly when receipts were hidden. But when babies are gasping for breath, she has done nothing. The only question is: will she act — or let another 25 years pass with babies born alive left to die?

They can’t survive her silence any longer.

Richard Duris the volunteer Executive Director of the registered political party Prolife Alberta and an award-winning political consultant with experience on campaigns across Canada.