To have and have not

Despite oil wealth ranking Alberta the richest province, new numbers show it now ranks dead last among all provinces on total per capita spending on health care infrastructure, shows new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

The provincial government’s spending on the brick and mortar to house hospital beds and other infrastructure has been steadily declining over the past several years while spending on services and things like AI are on the rise.

In 2026, Alberta spent $312 per person on health infrastructure, compared to the national average of $493, said CIHI’s Adam Rondeau, manager of health spending and operations analytics.

Compare that to 2020, when Alberta was second among provinces on health infrastructure spending.

By 2023, Alberta was in seventh place among provinces for health infrastructure spending.

And by 2024, Alberta’s health care infrastructure spending was ninth among the provinces. By 2025 and 2026, Alberta was spending the least among the provinces on health care infrastructure.

“In 2026, we’re projecting Alberta will have spent the least among provinces on capital,” Rondeau told Postmedia.

While capital spending goes in fits and starts because it’s not amortized, year on year it gives people an idea of the province’s priorities.

And Alberta’s recently announced $39 million for planning and land acquisition for nine urgent care clinics, with years down the road before shovels hit the ground, doesn’t count as bricks and mortar.

Being a “have” province with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita doesn’t necessarily translate to enough hospital beds. And while Statistics Canada shows Alberta families and unattached individuals have the highest median after-tax income in the country, that doesn’t translate to higher per capita spending on health.

The Canadian average of all provinces in 2026 is 12.8 percent of GDP spent on health. In Alberta, 9.9 per cent of its GDP is spent on health.

“Obviously, Alberta has higher income per capita, generally speaking, than other provinces, and they have a high GDP with the oil and gas sector. (But) Alberta has the lowest health spending as a percentage of GDP across the country,” Rondeau said.

Next door, Saskatchewan’s spending 11.2 per cent of GDP on health, and B.C. is sitting at 13.9 per cent. Ontario is 12.3 per cent, Quebec at 13.4.

Percentage of GDP spending on health has stuck at similar numbers over the last couple of years in Alberta — 9.9 per cent from 2024 to 2026. However, nationally, the percentage of GDP spent on health has been approaching 13 per cent for the same three years.

Service growth, the silver lining

There is a silver lining since the 2026 budget for Alberta calls for $1.9 billion in new service funding. It’s aiming for things like increased surgical capacity, modernized primary care deliveries by increasing continuing care capacity, mental health and cancer care expansions.

“Their focus may be more on service capacity and surgeries than it is on capital spending,” Rondeau said.

Some physicians worry that increased surgical capacity means private surgical centres can cherry-pick from an assembly line of surgeries, a move that has raised concerns of staff being lured away to easier working conditions, leaving more time-consuming and lifesaving care for public hospitals.

But Rondeau said the system has an ace up its sleeve.

“What is surprising this year is to see that for the first time in a long time across the country and in many of the provinces, including Alberta, we’ve seen money put into the system beyond just addressing those pressures. To me, that’s the big story,” Rondeau said, calling it “investment beyond just keeping up.”

There’s a “big basket” number — overall health spending — CIHI works diligently to parse out.

On that sum, like most other Canadian provinces, Alberta’s making gains. Investment growth is outstripping inflation and population growth.

“Health spending continues to increase in Alberta. We’ve seen, and we’re projecting in 2026, an increase of $2.8 billion from just over $50 billion to $53 billion by the end of this year,” Rondeau said.

“Last year, one of the talking points that we had in analyzing this data is that even though we’re spending more and more every year, we’re basically barely keeping up with the combination of inflation, population growth, and an aging population. This year, however, nationally, we’ve seen a difference in that, and the same is true in Alberta.”

In Alberta, total health sector growth, including federal and provincial, was about 5.8 per cent growth; 1.6 points of that is not taken up by inflation and an aging and growing population.

Rondeau gives a nod to new investments in technologies — new service care delivery beyond just keeping up with demand from factors hammering at the health sector.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen this probably in the better part of a decade. The question now will be monitoring and seeing — is this a new trend or is this a one-time thing?” he wondered aloud.

Faster MRIs

Take Exhibit A — a glance into one of the government efforts to build capacity.

After an August announcement that individuals can pay out of pocket for diagnostic scans, the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technicians (CAMRT) was bracing for an influx of tests that could leave them overwhelmed with still more backlogs.

But on Thursday, Alberta’s Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange announced Acute Care Alberta’s $14-million expansion into new Health Canada-approved AI technology downloaded directly to existing MRI scanners.

The gadgetry’s not just Siri or Alexa to turn clinic lights on.

LaGrange has high hopes the AI system piloted in April 2025 will slash wait times and expedite diagnoses.

“A record number of MRIs were completed last year, and this investment builds on that progress by increasing capacity, reducing wait times and improving access to the care Albertans need,” she said.