Hello from a UCP member.

It is Policy Resolution time again for the United Conservative Party's AGM coming up this fall.

Before that happens, UCP members submit policies that are ranked by UCP members in a ranking process which you can participate in.

In past years, I have tried several times to get policies through to help children, particularly trafficked and exploited children, and have so far had no success because they have not made it to or through ranking.

For that reason I'm contacting you today to ask you to share the policies below and to rank them at the highest possible rank so that we can help to protect and rescue children and families.

I have written all four of these policy resolutions, however I can only personally submit one, and I have chosen that to be the one that I believe will help children the most, however the three others directly or indirectly achieve similar benefits, so all are needed to pass.

I want to recognize and thank UCP President Rob Smith, because he put these forward to his own board. Rob and one other member of his board are putting forward two of my policies as their own so that they can be advanced and the board itself has put forward the fourth one so that all four of them are going forward to ranking.

Because so much effort has been put in this year and in previous years by both Rob Smith and significantly by the late Ray Strom, both of whom want to help these children and families, I am asking you please to share this and to ensure that it gets ranked as high as it can be ranked because we need to get these to the floor to be voted on.

Premier Smith is very serious about listening to the membership and she has consistently tried to do something about the policies that are put forward and voted on by the membership.

It will take about a year and a half to action these items after we put it through and so I'm asking you to please rank them highly because even after we put it through, it takes our Premier time to get it to the point where action is taken on it, but she is trying.

I know many of you would prefer independence to deal with this, but at this point, we don't know if we will become independent or when, so I think it is imperative that we all do our best to help children who are in very bad situations.

This is one thing that each and every one of us can do to help children who are victims of trafficking and more, we can all rank these highly and vote on these and get others to rank and vote by sharing this information, so you can help and contribute by ranking these highly and by sharing it with as many people as you can to have them rank it at the top too.

You have to have a UCP membership to vote, and that's only $10 on the website here:

https://unitedconservative.ca/take-action/membership/?ref=homepage_hero_membership

So please, if you don't have a membership, get one if for no other reason than to help these children.

Thank you so much.

Sarah Nicholson

Please see the resolutions below:

Proposed Policy Resolution Submissions for 2026

Presented to the PPGC by Sarah Nicholson

Submitted as an individual Member Policy by Sarah Nicholson, Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills

Opening Wording:

The United Conservative Party believes that the government of Alberta should:
Establish an independent oversight panel to investigate complaints and concerns made
by parents and advocates about Child and Family Services (CFS), with the authority to
reverse any and all CFS actions, including the removal of a child, overturn any decision
and initiate police investigations, with the authority to enforce these rulings in a timely
fashion.

Rationale:

Concerns have been raised about the broad authority granted to CFS workers, who can
remove children from families without legal recourse for families, advocates or medical professionals.

Reports indicate that some workers lack formal training
in social work yet have significant decision-making power, even exceeding the powers
of police. There are no standardized guidelines governing child removal, leading to
inconsistencies and alleged abuses. This is exacerbated by the fact that CFS is
incentivized to remove children to, amongst other things, secure funding.
Cases of wrongful child removals have been documented, including cases where
parents had no prior involvement with CFS, yet lost custody of their children without due
process or evidence of child neglect or abuse. Police and legal experts have
commented that unregulated CFS workers have more powers to summarily take action
to remove children without legal recourse than any other policing or legal entity in the
province and country. There are complaints that deaths in CFS care are not properly
investigated, issues inside foster homes, ranging from overcrowded homes, to homes
that are not English speaking, to abuse, neglect and even allegations of the rape of
children which allegedly go without investigation by police or recourse for parents.
The UCP should empower an independent oversight panel with the authority to review
and reverse CFS decisions within 48 hours of removal of a child (and within reasonable
timelines for existing cases), to invoke police investigations where warranted, including
the power to require and oversee a full investigation under the Fatalities Inquiry Act in
the case of death of a child in CFS care, including a full review, as well as to remove
children from foster homes, to close foster homes of concern and to have charges layed
where merited.

To be effective, the panel must be made up of advocates who have already been working to assist affected
families currently seeking help in the system. These do include medical professionals, social workers and more.

Establishing accountability measures
would protect families while maintaining the integrity of child protection services.

Supplemental Information not included in the policy:

Refer to comments for supplemental information.

Submitted as an individual Member Policy by Dave Senecal, Olds – Didsbury – Three Hills:

1. Opening Wording:

The United Conservative Party believes that the government of Alberta should:

Take measures to enforce existing medical privacy legislation contained in the Health Information Act (HIA) by blocking all government employees, such as employees of Child and Family Services (CFS, from unrestricted access to the private medical records of Albertans and only allow the legally permitted regulated medical professionals, such as doctors, nurses and currently restricted naturopaths, to have access to Albertans private and sensitive medical health information.

Rationale:

Concerns have been raised by members of the public, as well as medical professionals, regarding a breach of the Health Information Act (HIA) affecting the private medical records of Albertans. At the moment, non-medical government employees, particularly from Child and Family Services (CFS), are being given unrestricted access to Netcare/ConnectCare/eClinican, leading to reports of misuse and alleged abuse, including the collection and disclosure of health information for purposes unrelated to medical treatment, while Naturopaths (ND’s), who are registered medical professionals regulated by the College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta (CNDA) and providing direct patient care, are blocked from much needed access.

The Health Information Act (HIA), defines custodians of health information to be limited to regulated health professionals only. CFS caseworkers, directors and employees are not regulated health practitioners and have no formal training. These individuals do not qualify for access, yet they can view complete medical files for all Albertans while Naturopathic doctors, who are critical to health care and increasingly being used to treat and cure medical health diseases and ailments, such as Long Covid, which allopathic medicine is not effective for. Naturopathic doctors have no access to this critical information for diagnosing, prescribing and treating patients.

The United Conservative Party should take measures to ensure that only qualified healthcare professionals can view medical records by immediately revoking access by all government and CFS employees to Netcare/ConnectCare/eClinician and by modifying Part 1, Section 1(f) of the HIA, which defines custodians of health information, by expressly stating that members of the College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta (CNDA) are custodians, in order to ensure that these qualified healthcare professionals have full access to all medical data, with all rights and responsibilities. This policy would ensure patient confidentiality, prevent potential abuses, and align with existing health privacy laws.

Supporting Documentation:

https://aanmc.org/naturopathic-schools/ccnm/

https://open.alberta.ca/publications/h05

https://www.alberta.ca/health-information-act?utm_source=redirector

Submitted as a Constituency Association motioned and approved Policy by Olds – Didsbury – Three Hills:

2. Opening Wording:

The United Conservative Party believes that the government of Alberta should:

Protect the best interests of children and families and reduce negative outcomes for children by taking measures such as modifying existing legislation to require the courts to assign automatic 50/50 shared parenting orders in cases of separation and divorce unless pre-existing police reports of child abuse exist, which will also dramatically reduce taxpayers costs. Countless studies show that approximately 70% of children without fathers engage in prostitution, do not graduate high school, end up drug addicted, engage in criminal activity and end up in prison straining the healthcare 1and justice systems.

Rationale:

Current custody arrangements are provably harming children, with fathers receiving sole custody in 6.6% of cases and mothers receiving sole custody in 79.3 % of cases while shared custody occurs in only 12.8% of cases, despite the courts allegedly being aware of research indicating that single parent homes are highly detrimental to outcomes for children, with research specifically showing the absence of fathers leading to critical social and developmental failings that burden welfare, medical and justice costs.

According to numerous studies, approximately 70% of children coming from homes without fathers will drop out of school, become drug addicted, pregnant, commit rape, end up in jail and/or engage in criminal behaviour, even murder, with repercussions so significant that one American commentator said that “growing up without a father is a farm team for criminals and social outcasts” that the taxpayer pays for through the cost of prisons, treatment centers and more. "By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. 70% of teenage births, school dropout, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. In the USA, a Progressive Policy Institute study, found that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime rates vanished. The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators says that children raised by a single parent make up 71% of all adolescent substance abuse, 90% of all homeless children, and an astounding 80% of all prison inmates.” Source: Parenting Squad, Are Single Parents the Downfall of Society? September 1, 2011

If courts are required to issue a more appropriate automatic 50/50 Shared Parenting Order at the time of separation and divorce (where no prior child abuse has been found by police), the outlook for children will be dramatically improved and the reduction in costs for the Family Court system, penitentiaries, medical care and all future budgets will be significant. Healthier, happier and more successful children would be the future in Alberta, with plummeting crime rates and far less suffering for children and parents.

Supporting Documentation:

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/famil/stat2000/p4.html?fbclid=IwAR0vwI_t6kaDQCZYYmn_G7x76Wc7zQb8Uup5zWXpahpcvBDT1Vgcud6lVX0

https://www.sj-r.com/story/opinion/columns/2009/01/16/ann-coulter-face-it-liberals/42942048007/

http://parentingsquad.com/are-single-parents-the-downfall-of-society

Submitted as an individual Member Policy by Rob Smith, Olds – Didsbury – Three Hills:

3. Opening Wording:

The United Conservative Party believes that the government of Alberta should:

Take measures to empower all those in accountability positions, including all Ombudsmen, the Ethics Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner, the Patient Advocate, Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) by providing the authority needed to act on investigated complaints so that they can help Albertans bringing forward issues with the system that have personally affected them and by establishing an independent oversite committee with the ability to remove and replace them or overrule their decisions, while also blocking Alberta Health Services (AHS) from directing regulatory colleges, pandemic response and also removing the AHS Covid-19 Scientific Group.

Rationale:

Concerns have been raised over the Ombudsman, Ethics Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner, CME, Patient Advocate and OHS being unable to respond effectively to complaints made by the public and professionals due to lack of authority, enforcement powers and oversight.

Reports of failure of OHS to speak out over multiple concerns, failure of the Patient Advocate to address patient harm, failure of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to speak out, failure of Provincial oversight to step in and ensure that the public and patients were protected (Ombudsman, Public Interest Commissioner, Ethics Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner) have lead some to ask what the point of having these positions is if they are failing, particularly during an emergency.

Medical professionals have stated that Alberta Health Services (AHS) should have never been in charge of directing the regulatory colleges or pandemic response through their AHS COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group. They want this group removed citing allegations and reports that many individuals in this group receive 3rd party funding via pharmaceutical companies, 19 to Zero, Immunization Partnership Fund, Science Up First etc.

Regulatory colleges are required to act independently of government, stakeholders and employers, especially during a public health emergency. This is essential so that they direct the professions without influence and properly based on their field of expertise. Medical professionals and advocates are stating that the self-governance framework has failed and participated in causing direct harm to patients and the public.

The UCP should amend legislation and require enforcement to respond to these issues.