Rally calling for Premier Smith and health minister LaGrange to step down takes place outside Medicine Hat MLA office on Feb. 22, 2025. (Photo: CHAT News Today)

By Jayk Sterkenburg / Eli J. Ridder

Weekend protests call for Danielle Smith’s resignation

Feb 24, 2025 | 8:40 AM

Protests calling for Alberta premier Danielle Smith to step down amid allegations of corruption within the province’s healthcare sector took place Saturday in several communities, including Medicine Hat.

READ: Premier Smith, Minister LaGrange stand by denials of wrongdoing in AHS corruption case

The “Pink Slip Protests” also occurred at the Alberta Legislature Building, McDougall Centre in Calgary, Adriana LaGrange’s constituency office in Red Deer, and MLA Nathan Neudorf’s office in Lethbridge.

The former head of Alberta Health Services, Athana Mentzelopoulos, alleges in a lawsuit that she was wrongfully dismissed for looking into questionable contracts pushed by government officials as high up as the premier’s office.

The statement of claim alleges Mentzelopoulos was pressured by government officials to sign off on contracts with surgical facilities at unjustified, inflated prices.

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Ashley Large, a rally attendee in Medicine Hat, said that if the allegations are even partially true, it should mean that an election should happen right away.

“I would like the several ministers as well as the premier to step aside and let public inquiry find out if there is corruption, if these things are true,” he said.

“There’s a lot of people asking Danielle Smith to be accountable for what is happening right now within so many different areas of the province, different ministries.”

Large said that his main reason for attendance was to help protect transgender kids and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community that are feeling vulnerable for being “unnecessarily and unfairly picked on.”

“Every single professional governing body for our country has told her openly that her policies are bad, anti-science, and are going to harm people,” he said.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to have happen. We’re going to have more funerals,” he added.

“We’re going to bury more people who are losing their fight with mental health, because we have a government that’s completely indifferent.”

Shelley Ewing, another attendee, also said she was there for many reasons, but mainly in regards to the province’s adopted transgender policies.

“I started to see that they were treating groups of people differently. And I can’t support a government like that,” she said.

“They’re making a lot of policies, a lot of policies that are going to make the situations that we’re dealing with worse.”

Ewing also said that a public inquiry is needed, for people to find out the truth, as “all of this corruption that Danielle Smith has with the health care- she’s investigating herself.”

“It’s a ridiculous little dangle they’re putting in front of us,” she said.

“We can no longer be complacent. We have to stand up, speak out, and get involved,” she added.

“If we all stand by and don’t say anything, it’s going to be too late someday.”

Brent Woods, an attendee, said that the first thing that should be done is a re-election process.

“Get somebody better. Better elected, better informed, that actually represents the people, instead of big business,” he said.

Anna Hansen, an attendee, said that her main reason for protest was in relation to the province lifting its coal mining moratorium on new coal development in the Rocky Mountains.

“It seems to me like they’re going ahead with the coal mines and yet there are so many unanswered questions. Like, where is the water coming from? I’ve heard so many different things,” she said.

“It doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what kind of mining is going to take place. And they’ve said no open pit mining. And they’ve said ‘no, it won’t be strip mining’. But what kind of mining?” she added.

“A project that is this close to being approved. The people of Alberta should know these basic things.”

Kym Porter, and attendee, said that she was excited to see the amount of people who are “thinking straight in this community.”

“We’re tired of the lies. We’re tired of what’s happening in our province,” she said.

“It’s encouraging to see people step forward, step out of their comfort zones to speak the truth, to look for the truth.”

Porter said that she originally got involved in advocacy because of the UCP’s policies around harm reduction.

“I continue to see the falsehoods and I become more and more discouraged,” she said.

“I feel it’s my responsibility to find out what the truth is, and to educate people in that area.”

Frank Crooks, an attendee, said that he’s lived in Alberta for 77 years.

“They’ve tried the healthcare system, what they’re trying to do,” he said.

“Instead of having one overall healthcare, they’re going to put different stages in. We’ve gone through that, and it did not work,” he added.

“All you’re doing is putting more management into things, and the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

Mentzelopoulos’ allegations have not been tested in court and a statement of defence has not been filed.

Smith says the government is working to hire an independent third party to help with an internal review and is setting up a “legal conflicts wall” to separate ongoing work of those implicated from the investigation.

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