Public relations debacle
Mishandling of changes to PDD haunting premier and cabinet
Thomson: Mishandling of PDD changes is haunting the Redford government.
To look at Marie Renaud, you wouldn’t think she’s the stuff of nightmares.
The soft-spoken executive director of the non-profit LoSe-Ca Foundation is dedicated to helping disabled adults.
But if Human Services Minister Dave Hancock is having trouble sleeping these days it’s because of Renaud — and the large protests she has organized at the front door of the legislature every Friday for the past three weeks.
These are not protests by the usual suspects or by high school kids cutting classes. These are protests by disabled Albertans, many in wheelchairs. They are turning out in the hundreds, week after week.
They are not demanding more money or an investigation or for the minister’s resignation.
They are simply expressing their fears and concerns over changes to the government’s Person with Developmental Disabilities program. They want to be consulted on the changes, or at the very least to be told what the changes mean to them individually.
Renaud, herself, is a reluctant activist, saying of her role as protest organizer, “This is definitely not what I want to be doing.”
Her goals are noble, her motivations unassailable. And the optics for the government are terrible.
One protest by hundreds of people in wheelchairs on the front steps of the legislature is a problem. Three protests in as many weeks is an excruciating embarrassment — and will have the public wondering what is going on?
This is the stuff of a politician’s nightmare. Wait, it gets worse. Not only has the government managed to frighten clients of the Human Services department, it is also scaring the heck out of clients of the health ministry, specifically those who rely on home care.
The government — via Alberta Health Services — is switching delivery of home care from dozens of non-profit agencies to a few for-profit corporations. Provincewide, hundreds of unionized home-care workers are losing their jobs and being told to reapply for jobs with the new non-union providers.
Unions are understandably upset and accuse the government of trying to save money on the backs of the old, the sick and the disabled. AHS says it is “ensuring home-care clients receive quality of care while at the same time ensuring taxpayers get value out of every dollar spent.”
Once again, caught in the middle are confused and worried people complaining they were never consulted.
On an almost daily basis the government is caught in stories where it appears to have declared war on these groups. What is going on? How did a government that won re-election a year ago promising to protect Alberta’s most vulnerable citizens find itself under siege by those same citizens?
How did a government run by such socially progressive politicians as Hancock and Premier Alison Redford turn into Snidely Whiplash?
The short answer is that the government hasn’t changed at all.
Redford and Hancock are not out to balance the budget on the backs of the disabled.
They are sincerely trying to improve the delivery of care by cutting the costs of administration while ensuring that funding is not based on a onesize-fits-all criteria but is more tailor-made to each client.
In fact, service providers such as Marie Renaud agree the system needs to be made more efficient and effective.
Under the current system, for example, care for the mentally
How did a government run by such socially progressive politicians as Hancock and Redford turn into Snidely Whiplash?
handicapped is based in part on an arbitrary IQ test. The PDD system is not open to adults who suffer brain injuries. The level of care offered is not consistent across the province. The list goes on. Everyone agrees change is needed.
The government promised change and now it’s delivering. So, why the protests?
The short answer is the government has managed to monumentally screw up how it communicated the changes to the regional PDD boards, who in turn passed on the information to the service providers such as Renaud, who then explained the changes to the clients and families of the clients.
It was a daisy chain of garbled communication.
This is where the finger pointing starts.
Government officials quietly blame the PDD boards for failing to communicate the plans properly.
The officials also blame the service providers for unnecessarily upsetting the clients with talk of cutbacks.
PDD officials are quietly blaming the government for not being clear enough.
Service providers are genuinely confused, saying they were told by the PDD boards to expect budget cuts.
The clients and their families are simply looking for answers. That’s why they’re on the front steps of the legislature.
The main source of the confusion is the government itself. There are some inside the loop who not only admit to the screw up but say part of the problem is having Hancock running the massive Human Services ministry that has $4-billion budget and 7,000 employees as well as being the government house leader, a job that kept him busily distracted during the spring sitting of the legislature. Hancock may have been too busy with the day-today operating of the session to notice the gaping holes in the government’s PDD communications strategy.
Looking back over what went wrong, probably the government’s biggest mistake was tying the PDD changes to the provincial budget. The total budget for persons with developmental disabilities has actually increased slightly this year to $691 million from $686 million last year. However, the government also cut $42 million from the portion of the budget dealing with the Community Access Support Program. That rang alarm bells at the PDD boards, who immediately told service providers to cut on average 12 per cent from their budgets.
“The government kept saying there’s no cuts. Well, I had an email from PDD saying, ‘I need the first draft of your cuts by Friday,’ ” says Renaud. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s just fear and confusion. I’m not fanning the fear flame, I’m really not. I’m trying to reassure people that it’ll be OK.”
Renaud says at an Edmonton PDD board meeting held this week, officials told service providers the “cuts are off the table.” PDD officials never returned my calls to explain the confusion. Instead, I was directed back to their boss, Human Services Minister Hancock, who has been travelling the province trying to gently stomp out the PDD brush fires.
Even though Hancock is giving service providers until September to negotiate new contracts with their local PDD boards, he is not backing down on the changes. He predicts the protests will end as families come to understand that the government is trying to improve the system.
“What we’ll see is gradually it will dissipate as people realize there is a discussion happening,” says Hancock. “There is a real intent to discuss with individuals and their families the best interests of that particular person.”
Just give it time, says Hancock, and this controversy too shall pass. Same with the uproar over the decision by AHS to use a few profit-based companies to provide home care. Hancock denies the shift is part of an ideological move by government to privatize more health-care delivery.
His political opponents aren’t too sure. The confusion over the government’s changes to PDD and home care, as well as this week’s firing of the Alberta Health Services board, has all opposition parties convinced the public is losing faith in the government’s competence. And questioning its motives.
“Redford has run on a certain narrative and that narrative was that she was a compassionate, reasonable person who cares about vulnerable Albertans, and what we’ve seen almost exclusively in the last six months is attack after attack,” says NDP MLA Rachel Notley. “The spectre of her saving a relatively small amount of money at the expense of these people is offensive to many, many people who have no direct relationship with the disabled community. It’s just offensive at a gut level.”
Redford would argue the changes are not about the budget or saving money. You could just as easily argue the government lost that debate the minute it tied the changes to the provincial budget in the spring.
So, the government is now embarked on damage control, client by client.
“Change is scary and I understand that,” said Premier Redford in an interview Friday. Like Hancock, she is convinced the families of the handicapped will support the changes once they see details. “They do have concerns until they see that (the changes) are not going to adversely impact them. The way we have to ensure that we’re communicating that is on a family by family basis and that takes some time. And until each client has been dealt with in a way they can have some comfort and calm we are going to see this (protests).”
Redford suspects the protests are motivated in part by service providers afraid of change who are raising roadblocks to protect their own interests.
“I’m not dismissing that as being the only reason,” she says. “These are all factors and when we talk about doing things differently it means we’re looking at how service providers are providing those services.”
Redford and Hancock may be right that as we move forward the outrage will dissipate if families of the disabled are convinced the changes are for the better.
However, the fear felt in the disabled community is very real — and it’s fear of the unknown that is driving the weekly protests at the legislature.
The fear will linger longer with service providers such as Renaud, who worry not about necessary changes to the system but that they’ll be punished by the government for speaking out.
“I’m fearful that it’s not going to result in positive things for Lo-Se-Ca,” says Renaud with a wry laugh. “I’m fearful, maybe it’s based on nothing, but I’m fearful.”
The government helped create those fears, and now it’s up to the government to allay them.