Alberta nurses make it better is more than just an AGM theme, UNA president Heather Smith tells more than 1,000

Alberta nurses make it better, President Heather Smith told more than 1,000 nurses and other participants in United Nurses of Alberta’s Annual General Meeting in Edmonton this morning.

That’s more than just the theme of the 2025 AGM, Smith reminded the opening session of the meeting at the Edmonton EXPO Centre, just as the mission of Alberta’s nurses is to make things better for more people than just nurses.

“As nurses, we also make it better for our patients, for our profession, for our health care system, for all Albertans, for Canada and Canadians,” she said to applause.

This is a challenge at a time when health care workers, teachers, and other public sector employees must deal with a government that appears determined to make things worse, she observed, adding that bargaining fair collective agreements is part of the union’s duty to make it better.

“As a result of the determination of our bargaining committee, of which I am proud to have been a part, no nurse represented by UNA got less than a 15-per-cent pay increase upon ratification,” she said.

“Over the term of the agreement, no eligible UNA nurse will see less than 20 per cent added to their paycheque,” she added to applause.

“I am so grateful to our Negotiating Committee for their grit throughout these long negotiations, which had some unexpected twists and turns, like a rollercoaster,” Smith continued. “But bargaining never stops until every other nurse represented by UNA but working for other employers can expect and can receive similar gains in their pay packets.”

Smith then turned to UNA’s duty to advocate for policies that can only be implemented by governments but that nurses know will make things better.

She also addressed the many grave challenges now faced by supporters of public services and public health care. “We must meet every one of them in the field of public opinion, not just in bargaining,” she said. “The future of public health care is at risk. It is!”

“But there can be no doubt that many of the health care policies of the current government of Alberta are not making it better,” she said, citing the cash-based access to quick diagnostic scans and other medical tests proposed by the government.

“That is queue jumping,” Smith said, adding that the idea such a policy should be supported by public dollars is outrageous. “I say shame! And it must stop.”

That is why UNA is investing in advertising in newspapers, on billboards, on digital media and on the airwaves to remind Albertans that this province needs to build health care capacity, she said, not tear it apart and privatize the pieces.

“More capacity – more staff, more beds, more hospitals and care centres – is what is required to ensure Albertans get the best and safest patient care possible,” she said. “Isn’t that the same thing that the teachers are saying?”

In closing, Smith described why UNA became a third-party advertising for the successful Forever Canadian campaign – which this morning delivered 456,355 petition signatures of Albertans want Alberta to remain in Canada to Elections Alberta.

Instead of tearing down what Canadians and Albertans have already built, we need be building capacity in health care and working to build a stronger Canada,” Smith concluded.