He Can't Fix Health Care Now, He's Eating A Cookie

Meet Alberta's equivalent to the "Don't Touch My Junk" guy. Unfortunately, he's running the province's health system.

The National Post’s Tasha Kheiriddin writes that Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett should be fired after his comments to reporters on Friday. If you haven’t seen it yet, the viral clip of Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett attempting to dodge reporters by repeatedly shouting “can’t you see I’m eating my cookie!” is definitely good for a few laughs. It’s a little less funny if you’re on the receiving end of Alberta’s crumbling health system, however, and Kheiridin says Duckett’s actions have rightfully spawned questions about “the CEO’s arrogance, the dire state of the province’s health-care system, and what to do next.” She argues that the entire country is exhibiting similar obstinacy by refusing to recognize that our public health system is unsustainable. “Politicians are just as pig-headed about this as Dr. Duckett was about eating his cookie, refusing to talk about alternatives even though polls show an increasing appetite for private insurance,” she writes. Debates about the future of health care aside, Kheriddin’s labeling of Duckett as arrogant seems harsh. After all, officials routinely refuse to answer reporters that ambush them – they just usually don’t do it in such a hilarious way.

The Calgary Herald’s Ron Braid concurs that Duckett’s comments were inappropriate. “‘I'm eating my cookie’ is appropriate only in limited situations – if your spouse wants you to put out the garbage, for instance, but you're eating your cookie,” he writes. But the blame for Alberta’s health crisis can’t be laid solely on the man who will henceforth be known as the Cookie Monster. The same week as Duckett’s biscuity bungle, Premier Ed Stelmach had a public fight with MLA Raj Sherman over the latter’s criticism of former health minister Ron Liepert, and Braid says the current health minister has nearly paralyzed the bureaucracy with his constant criticism. The only silver lining to this infighting is that doctors have become increasingly organized, and they “appear to have real power for the first time in many years. The way their betters are behaving, it might be a good idea if they took over the whole system.”