Dr. Raj Sherman@RajSherman
Dear Fellow Albertans,
This letter is written not as a partisan, but as an emergency physician who has cared for more than 100,000 Albertans, a former MLA, and someone who has devoted a working life to this province.
Across Alberta, the strain is obvious. Housing is scarce. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Schools are stretched. The cost of living weighs heavily on families. Anxiety about the future is real and justified. This is not anger. It is concern, because moments like this demand leadership.
When people are under pressure, leadership is not just about solutions, but about direction: an honest explanation of what is actually going wrong, and reassurance about who we are as a society while we fix it.
In recent weeks, Alberta’s challenges have been framed by the Premier, Danielle Smith, in a way that has left many people angry, not at systems or long-standing policy failures, but at immigrants and other governments. That is deeply troubling.
The frustration people feel is understandable. But much of that anger is being misdirected at immigrants. With the exception of Indigenous peoples, all Albertans come from families that arrived here seeking opportunity.
Immigrants did not break Alberta’s healthcare system or tear up family doctor contracts. They did not close hospital beds or cancel planned hospital capacity. They did not under build housing, assisted living, long-term care, or schools. They did not dismantle community care. Politicians did.
Every day in emergency departments, the consequences are visible: acute-care beds occupied by patients who should be at home or in long-term care; ERs functioning as inpatient wards; and population growth encouraged without matching investments in primary care, continuing care, and hospital capacity.
In 1992, Alberta had approximately 11,700 hospital beds. Today, with nearly double the population and a much older demographic, we have roughly 8,800. This is not an Ottawa or immigration problem. It is a planning and capacity problem.
Many of the people caring for seniors, staffing hospitals, and holding the healthcare system together today are newcomers themselves. Blaming them delays real solutions and divides communities.
That lesson is personal. Growing up as a newcomer involved violence, black eyes and broken bones, and learning early what happens when fear is tolerated and adults look away. Home was not always safe either, shaped by alcoholism and domestic violence. Those experiences leave marks.
What mattered most was a mother who taught that anger shrinks a life, while forgiveness, discipline, and service strengthen it, and that opportunity carries an obligation to give back. That belief led to decades in emergency medicine, the training of thousands of doctors, and public service at personal cost.
Those experiences lead to a clear conclusion. Albertans deserve leadership that lowers the temperature, not raises it. Leadership that fixes systems, not finds scapegoats. Leadership that takes responsibility for planning failures and invests in capacity to match growth.
For these reasons, Alberta needs a change in direction and ultimately, a change in leadership, so the province can unite around practical fixes rather than division.
This is not about racism. It is about judgment, competence, and the ability to govern responsibly during difficult times. Alberta needs leadership that brings people together and focuses on solutions, not blame.
Premiers Lougheed, Klein and Stelmach have led through very difficult times and would not take our province to this sharp edge.
Albertans are much better than this.
I am a Canadian, an Albertan and I am an immigrant.
God bless Alberta.
Dr. Raj Sherman
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