The Breakdown

Local AB Web Series on AB Politics. Alleged Media Magnate. Locally crowd funded. Content available everywhere you listen to podcasts & YouTube!

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Episode 8.60 - Gerrymandering Comes to Alberta with Dr Duane Bratt! https://t.co/YUvtanpoEk

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

New episode!

In an extended chat, we sit down with Controversial Calgary Councillor Landon Johnston!

In Part 1, we talk about his handing over confidential documents to media!

In Part 2 (which airs Thursday) we get into serious questions of conflicts of interest with the premiers office!

https://t.co/OFDgZu6vJk

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

In Part 1 of our two part conversation with Calgary Councillor Landon Johnston, we got into his belief that a city councillor should be able to decide for themselves what is confidential.

Regardless of what document or even the rest of council says.

Part 2?

Questions of conflicts of interests involving the premiers office!

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

This is bonkers...

Smith claims she can fix healthcare, but she doesn't even know who was at the negotiating table?

This is some next level incompetence.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[Parksy @PfParks]

https://t.co/DQF3FwvKf8

It's laughable that the Premier is trying to sell to ABs that I'm so powerful I can block her entire govt from implementing a critical intervention to save lives in our EDs!

It's even more laughable when facts are taken into account:
1/3

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

"Alberta lawyer and separatist leader Jeffrey Rath and his wife sold a waterfront estate in B.C. for $6.6 million – more than $4 million above its purchase price – while his firm fought a court order to refund millions to a First Nation client"

#abpoli

https://t.co/uixr7Jzuuq

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

“Emergency Ward Doctor Raj Sherman says health care chaos could defeat Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP.

“Premier Smith is failing miserably on health care and I think this could lose her the election,”

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

https://t.co/yoMHUoLqtF

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

“The UCP is facing pushback from some of its top organizers for demanding all riding presidents sign a non-disclosure agreement that declares they “recognize, respect and will abide by” results of the separation referendum.”

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

https://t.co/DKJDKWIHG2

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Episode 8.61 - Calgary Controversy with Councillor Landon Johnston https://t.co/pKZugfUK6m

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Minister of gambling would like you to know that gambling is never safe.

Berta.

2026.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

"Why would any of this be about “levelling the playing field,” though? That implies that there is or would be consideration on how parties would be affected by changing boundaries...

"Yet, here’s a rather significant government official suggesting otherwise."

https://t.co/xYYDLEmpgR

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

@fette_a There's a few reasons why these two episodes are not to be missed!

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

https://t.co/pKZugfUK6m

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Ya'll are not ready for tonight.

And this is just Part 1.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

This is impressively damning.

Not only did Dale Nally apparently bill taxpayers for his booze cruise, he appears to also have deliberately instructed government to hide the expenses for the COVID conspiracy doc, who wasn’t there in any official capacity!

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[kyall glennie @kyall]

Receipts:

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Minister of gambling would like you to know that gambling is never safe.

Berta.

2026.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

“Stop Celebrating Crisis Protocols as Success.”

Nuff.

Said.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[Dr. Raj Sherman @RajSherman]

It's along read...grab a coffee and if you agree, please retweet...your life depends on it.

Alberta's ER Crisis Is Far From Over. Stop Celebrating Crisis Protocols as Success.

Premier @ABDanielleSmith 's government is celebrating the return of Triage Liaison Physicians (TLPs) as progress in fixing Alberta's overcrowded emergency departments.

Let's get something straight. TLPs are a CRISIS PROTOCOL, not healthcare reform. Their return is an acknowledgement that our healthcare system is still in crisis.

I've practised emergency medicine in Alberta for 35 years. I've served as President of the AMA's Section of Emergency Medicine, an MLA, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health, and Chair of Health Quality Alberta (appointed by Premier Smith & I resigned).

I've seen this crisis from the front lines to the front benches.

And my colleagues and I helped implement many of these same emergency measures nearly 20 years ago:
1. Overcapacity protocols: Moving admitted ER patients into hospital hallways.

2. 11 a.m. discharges: Getting patients home earlier so hospital beds could turn over.

3. Mandatory EMS offloading: Getting paramedics back on the road instead of waiting for hours outside overcrowded ERs.

University of Alberta emergency physicians (Drs. Rowe & Bullard/Holroyd) also developed and studied TLPs approximately 20 years ago to assess and treat patients stuck in waiting rooms.

These were emergency measures to reduce harm when the system couldn't cope. They were never meant to be permanent solutions.

And here we are again.

I worked in an Edmonton ER this past weekend. Roughly 80% of our treatment spaces were occupied by sick patients already admitted to hospital but waiting for beds upstairs. Even our old minor-treatment areas were plugged with admitted patients.

Our ER crisis isn't caused by people coming in with minor illnesses. It's caused by sick patients who can't get out of the ER and into hospital beds.

Edmonton serves a growing, aging population and a massively underserved North. We simply don't have enough staffed hospital beds or the rehabilitation, subacute care, transitional care, supportive living and home-care, assisted living/long term care capacity to move patients through the system.

Patients can't leave hospital. Admitted patients can't leave the ER. Ambulances can't offload. Waiting rooms fill up. Care gets delayed. People suffer & tragically some die :(

And the government's answer is more episodic urgent care centres?

How does that create a single hospital bed? Worse, where will the doctors and nurses come from when our hospitals are already short-staffed?

Now we're asking exhausted ER physicians to volunteer for additional TLP shifts. A 2026 Canadian study found 10% of surveyed ER physicians had left emergency medicine over five years, while another 48% had cut back their clinical hours.

We're asking fewer doctors to do more because we haven't fixed the system.

We dealt with this under Premier @EdStelmachMLA . We understood that healthcare needed predictable, adequate, multi-year funding, workforce retention, team-based family medicine, and serious investment in home care, rehabilitation, subacute, transitional care and assisted living and long term & palliative/hospice care.

The goal was to keep people healthy, keep seniors in their homes, and keep patients moving through hospitals.

TLPs can save lives. I support them. But let's not confuse preventing harm with fixing the underlying problem.

Success isn't how many doctors sign up for crisis shifts. Success is getting 90% of admitted ER patients into hospital beds within eight hours, getting ambulances back on the road, and providing Albertans safe, timely care.

Premier Smith, stop celebrating Band-Aids as healthcare reform.

You cannot triage your way out of a hospital bed shortage.

After 35 years in emergency medicine, I find it astonishing that we're still relying on the same crisis measures we introduced nearly two decades ago.

The return of crisis protocols isn't a victory. It's proof that the crisis is far from over.

BTW, Danielle, @FreeAlbertaRob and the wildrose caucus supported my amendment in 2010 to legislate admissions to hospitals within 8 hours (90%of the time)...did you forget???

Dr. Raj Sherman
Emergency & Trauma Physician
Former MLA & Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health
Former Chair, Health Quality Alberta
@UCPCaucus @Alberta_UCP @nenshi @PfParks @NightShiftMD @raghu_venugopal @TheSGEM @jkenney @RachelNotley @JMeddings
@ryanjespersen @cspotweet @TheBreakdownAB @AdrianaLaGrange @AHS_media @Albertadoctors @UnitedNurses @david_parker @CAEP_Docs

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

This is…

Quite the tweet.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[Crystal Vargas @IConcedeToNoOne]

PREMIER DANIELLE SMITH

The Premier’s Office was DIRECTLY and EXTENSIVELY INVOLVED in enabling, pressure-testing, and enforcing these specific property transactions.

While Premier Smith herself was cleared of personal financial wrongdoing by the independent Wyant review, sworn court affidavits, leaked internal memos, and cross-referenced text logs prove that the highest echelons of the Premier’s Office were weaponized to force these real estate pipelines through the municipal and Indigenous frameworks.

Breakdown of the Premier's Office operatives who orchestrated these transactions includes:

1. Marshall Smith
Former Chief of Staff to the Premier

As the most powerful non-elected official in Alberta, Marshall Smith ran the day-to-day operations of the Premier’s Office.

The Transaction Leverage:

Court filings from the Tsuut’ina Nation v. Braun lawsuit explicitly reveal that Marshall Smith utilized the full authority of the Premier's Office to pressure regional leaders.

He was the key figure who introduced Chief Whitney to Mraiche in late 2022, pitching the $35-million recovery center as a "priority directive of the Executive Council."

The Retaliation Vector:

When independent public service executives and internal cabinet ministers, liike Infrastructure Minister Guthrie, tried to pull the land titles and audit the rapid capital outflow on the 124th Ave land-flip property and the Red Road Commons facility, Marshall explicitly coordinated the political counter-offensive from the Premier’s desk, resulting in the immediate termination of the AHS CEO and the blacklisting of dissenting cabinet members.

2. Khalil Mraiche
Premier’s Office Policy Advisor

The direct conflict of interest reached right inside the Premier's inner circle through Sam Mraiche's son, Khalil Mraiche.

The Insider Role:

While his father’s shell companies, Quantum Global, Executrade Capital, were actively routing the incoming $7.7-million in diverted transaction cash, Khalil was formally employed as a UCP Government Policy Advisor working directly under Marshall in the Premier’s Office.

The Proximity:

Legislative records show that Khalil’s hiring timeline perfectly intersected with the exact weeks that the Griesbach and Peace River apartment complex contracts were transitioned from private residential builds into sole-sourced, provincially funded social program spaces.

This placement gave the Mraiche enterprise an active, daily listening post inside the very office authorizing the provincial grant expansions.

3. The Roommate Network Premier's Executive Staffers

The property schemes physically intersected with the Premier’s staff through a highly irregular residential arrangement:

The Tenants:

While managing the Premier's legislative agenda, Marshall sublet rooms in the $1.6-million luxury home,purchased by Mraiche's sister, to two other high-level political staffers from the Premier's Office matrix.

Eric Engler, Chief of Staff for Addictions, and Ehan Lecavalier-Kidney.

The Flow of Capital:

This arrangement meant that while the Premier's executive staff were advising the government on which land assets to approve for provincial funding, they were simultaneously passing taxpayer-funded housing stipends directly to the family of the billionaire contractor winning those exact real estate deals.

Ultimately, the Premier's Office did not merely observe these transactions, it acted as the central political engine that shielded the network, suppressed internal whistleblowers, and utilized its immense executive authority to ensure Mraiche's real estate holding companies captured millions in public capital...7/

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Anyways, here's our thread from back in 2024...

The only question we have is which one of this power couple will be running instead of Jason Stephan?

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

So about that "Contrarian" doc heading up Danielle Smith's other $2 million dollar COVID panel...

(Not the Preston Manning one)

The potential conflict goes a LOT deeper than just...

"He's contrarian"

Thread!

/1

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

Dale Nally's booze cruise just gets worse!

It appears that Nally brought the husband of his Chief of Staff (who coincidentally ran for an imaginary senate position) on the booze cruise.

But it actually gets more bizarre!

/1

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

But yet again, we have the entitled UCP government using taxpayer dollars to party with their besties with no regard for proper ethics whatsoever.

But Smith will probably say that the good doctor was there to supervise everyone's health and monitor their consumption.

/5