EDMONTON – Maverick MLA Dr. Raj Sherman was kicked out of Alberta’s Conservative caucus Monday but vowed to continue his fight to fix the province’s "broken" health-care system.
In a closed-door meeting that lasted more than two hours, Tory MLAs voted unanimously to suspend the outspoken doctor-turned-politician, who ignited a political firestorm last week when he publicly criticized his own government for its handling of the health-care crisis.
Sherman said he is disappointed but believes Albertans will stand behind him.
"I have to stick to my guns," he said. "We cannot wait to fix the broken health-care system . . . I believe that it can be better, simply because it must be better, because the lives of our most vulnerable – our children, our parents, our grandparents – depend on it."
Conservative caucus whip MLA Robin Campbell said the suspension is "indefinite" but Sherman could rejoin the Tories if he makes unspecified amends.
"We appreciate the advocacy he does on behalf of the health system, but we have caucus discipline and we expect our members to behave in a certain way, and Raj has failed to do that," Campbell said.
Undeterred, Sherman said he will sit as an independent and has no plans to quit his post as MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark and no intention of joining another party.
"For me, it is not a question of in or out of the Tory caucus, for me it is a question of fixing the public health system," he said. "I ran to be a voice to fix the public health care system. I’ve worked outside of the system, I’ve worked within the system, and at this moment in time I guess I will work outside of the system . . . I’m not going to stop advocating."
Last week, Sherman sent an e-mail to MLAs and doctors that criticized Premier Ed Stelmach for breaking his promise to improve emergency room wait times. The explosive letter prompted a series of long, emotional meetings that ended with a tearful public apology from Sherman.
Hours later, though, he spoke during an emergency health care debate and lambasted Alberta Health Services for a series of "knucklehead" decisions he said undermined patient care and destroyed morale among front-line workers.
He followed up with an attack on Ron Liepert, claiming the former health minister was "rude and offensive" to front-line medical staff.
Finally, on Friday, one of Sherman’s key targets refused to talk to reporters. In a bizarre episode which has received wide video play on the Internet, Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett repeatedly rebuffed journalists’ questions because he was "eating a cookie." Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said Monday the board will discuss the fate of the disgraced Duckett "soon," though he could not say when.
The decision to oust Sherman from caucus was announced at 1 p.m. Monday, just before MLAs headed into the house for question period.
On his way into the house, Liepert said he was hurt and shocked by the comments Sherman made and would not support his return to caucus until he takes the comments back.
"You can’t just go out there and make comments about an individual’s character without backing it up with some substance," Liepert said.
Sherman refused to retract his comments, suggesting instead he and Liepert should have a heart-to-heart talk.
Opposition parties slammed the government for booting the sole physician from the Tory caucus and punishing dissenters.
"It’s a dark day for democracy," Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson said. "They just fired the only ER doctor in the government during an ER crisis."
Critics from the health-care sector agreed.
"Removing Dr. Raj Sherman from the conservative caucus insults the intelligence of the people of Alberta, the spirit of the Canada Health Act, business and government leaders and most importantly, the users of our health system," David Meurer said in an e-mail. Meurer is a nurse and project manager for Clinical Health Informatics, which gathers and disseminates clinical practice recommendations for front-line ER staff.
"Mr. Stelmach could well be on his way to becoming a liability to the public’s welfare."
Dr. Richard Bergstrom, president of the Capital Region Staff Association, said Sherman has been a relentless advocate and should congratulated for his dogged determination.
"If this is the government saying they don’t want to listen, that’s a very sad day for all Albertans," he said. "You need to have real discussions and it sounds like the government doesn’t want to have a discussion about health care."
University of Calgary health policy expert Tom Noseworthy said Sherman knew he did a "political kamikaze" by roasting his government.
"I think Dr. Sherman has found himself in a position where, perhaps attempting to do his best in his role as a physician, he has done himself in as a politician," Noseworthy said.
"I am sure as he was doing that, he was conscious of what he was doing. There is a line you can cross in medicine. There is a different line you can cross in politics and he presumably crossed that. It is very regrettable."
He said the move will damage the relationship between medical professionals and the government, because Sherman left his job as an emergency doctor specifically to influence Alberta’s politics to improve long wait times for care.
"It shows he couldn’t make a difference," Noseworthy said. On the other hand, Sherman knew he wasn’t following the rules.
"If one is going to get taken to calling names in public, then you’ll be held to task for that, whether or not there is justification for doing so," Noseworthy said. "That’s simply not the way you do things in politics."
What people shouldn’t forget, he said, is that even though Sherman has been made into a "folk hero" of sorts for speaking out about long wait times, those wait times haven’t improved.
"Let’s not allow the political melodrama and the cookie eating and the resignations or firings take our eye off the ball that the storefront of our system is not working very well," he said. "Things need to be fixed."
Sherman is the second MLA to be removed from caucus for criticizing the government on health issues. Fort McMurray MLA Guy Boutilier was evicted last year, and now sits as a member of the Wildrose Party.
Edmonton Journal
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