One of the key promises made during this election by both the NDP and the UCP has been to get Alberta off the resource revenue roller coaster, reduce volatility, and bring fiscal stability to the province. In essence, what the parties are promising is that, under their watch, adequate funding for the services and infrastructure Albertans rely upon will no longer depend on the global price of oil and gas. This is an important and laudable goal. The question is whether the suite of policy planks being put forward by either of the two contenders will actually help achieve the promised stability.

From the decision to cancel the Edmonton Hub Lab to the handout of services to DynaLIFE to unacceptable wait times for routine community collections, the handling of medical lab services by the UCP government has been a litany of entirely predictable disasters. Worse still: rather than the product of mistakes, these disasters are the inevitable result of deliberate policy choices on the part of the UCP. With the days of this election campaign ticking down, the contending parties are not talking about labs. But they should—and should, for a change, listen to what lab workers have to say.