Edmonton – During today’s Question Period, Official Opposition Leader Raj Sherman held the PC government accountable for failing seniors on the key issues of long-term care and affordable housing.

“This government’s assault on our seniors began in 2008 by cutting public long-term care beds, privatizing the delivery of home care and long-term care, and nickel-and-diming our seniors with fees to make up for a growing list of delisted services. The Premier said that allowing industry to meet seniors’ needs will create more jobs…The only extra jobs will be for bankers to count the profits off the backs of our seniors,” Sherman said in his preamble. “Why is this government turning our seniors into commodities to be sold on the market to the highest bidder?”

In reference to the Premier’s promise to increase funding for home care, Sherman asked the Minister of Finance “How much more money will go into public home care delivery, or is it all earmarked for private contracts and your PC privatization buddies?”

Sherman also touched on the shocking news that some seniors have reportedly been forced to divorce in order to qualify for the Alberta Seniors Benefit and thereby afford to pay living expenses.

“Couples who can’t afford private facilities face involuntary separation or abandonment in the hospital emergency departments,” Sherman noted. “Will you end this government’s betrayal of our respected seniors and the values that Alberta was founded on and invest more in the public delivery of health care services to our seniors?”

Sherman says that Alberta deserves better.

“I raised these questions in the Legislature today because Alberta’s seniors deserve so much more dignity and respect than they’re receiving from this entitled old government,” Sherman says. “I also pointed out that the Premier wants to lift the senior housing cap to allow operators to charge whatever they can get away with, pricing many seniors out of the market for care. She’s going to create even longer lines for long-term care, and in doing so she’ll make wait times for surgery and ER treatment longer still. Seniors deserve better; Albertans deserve better.”

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