EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers will honour their first-ever NHL draft pick Friday night by retiring his jersey.

Kevin Lowe’s No. 4 jersey will be raised to Rogers Place rafters.

The Hockey Hall of Fame member will also be given a plaque which will be unveiled at the Oilers Hall of Fame Room.

“It’s hard to put in words. I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Lowe told CTV News Edmonton.

“It’s particularly, I want to say rewarding, I guess, the way the team’s playing right now, makes things a whole lot easier. The fans are excited to be in the building and watch the Oilers play.”

Lowe was the franchise’s first-ever draft pick, chosen in the first round, 21st overall in the 1979 NHL draft.

The defenceman played 19 seasons in the NHL: 15 with the Oilers and four with the New York Rangers, who the Oilers face off against Friday night. He currently works with the Oilers Entertainment Group.

The 62-year-old won the Stanley Cup five times with Edmonton, once more with New York and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the class of 2020.

As well, he spent one season as head coach of the Oilers in 1999/2000, followed by eight seasons as the team’s general manager, which included a run to the 2006 Stanley Cup final.

But asked what he considers his own career highlight, Lowe said, “Tough to come up with one answer.”

“I mean, playing in the NHL alone is such an incredible feat for a young person growing up. You know, dreaming about it and then to go on and win Stanley Cups — those are the best hockey memories.

“But I’ve been thinking about a lot of things recently, and just thinking about coming to Edmonton and making it home, such a wonderful city. And incredible people and I’m so fortunate.”

Lowe’s number will be the eighth retired by the Oilers. He had been the only player to wear the number until it was given to first overall draft pick Taylor Hall in 2010.

The team prefaced the celebration for Lowe with a gala dinner on Thursday, attended by Lowe’s family and friends and Oilers alumni.

Rogers Place gates open at 4:44 p.m. on Friday. The jersey retirement ceremony will start at 5:45 p.m. and the pre-game warmup at 7 p.m.

Half of the net proceeds from the gala dinner and Friday’s online 50/50 will benefit four organizations important to Lowe’s family: Christmas Bureau of Edmonton, Zebra Child Protection Centre, Sarah McLachlan School of Music and North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper.

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. game were still available Friday morning.

The Edmonton-New York matchup will mark the first time the teams play this season as the Oilers look to extend their three-game win streak.

As cautiously as one can predict a month into the season that a team will end up in the playoffs, Lowe said the current Oilers roster is looking “very good.”

“But the proof is in the pudding when it does come to playoff time. There’s a lot of work to do but they look like a great team and they’re very exciting to watch.” 

CALGARY – The snow in Calgary may have made a brief appearance last week but, with a little snow still in the mountains, Norquay and Lake Louise are now open for the 2021-22 ski season.

Norquay’s Cascade Chair will open this weekend, as will the Glacier Chair at Lake Louise, providing skiers and snowboards their first runs of the fall.

In addition to ski and snowboard gear, guests are reminded to also bring along their face mask to comply with the mandatory pandemic-related policies of both hills.

Both resorts are participating in Alberta’s restrictions exemption program and will be checking for proof of vaccination or documentation of a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for COVID-19.

Vaccine passports are required throughout the mountain in Norquay, At Lake Louise, documents will not be checked at chairlifts, outdoor dining spaces, ticket kiosks or outdoor bathroom trailers.

Both hills will expand operations in the weeks to come as more wintry weather arrives.

EDMONTON – A 15-year-old girl was taken to hospital after being struck by a car in north Edmonton on Thursday morning.

Police say the girl was walking her dog at around 8:35 a.m. when she was reportedly hit by a Mazda 3 while attempting to cross 95 Street at 176 Avenue.

She was treated by paramedics on scene and taken to hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries.

There is no marked crosswalk at the intersection, police noted.

Neither the 35-year-old driver of the car nor the dog were injured in the collision, police said.

The grey Mazda 3 sustained damage to its windshield and driver’s side mirror.

Edmonton police asked motorists to avoid the area near Lago Lindo Elementary School while the EPS major collision unit investigated the incident. 

EDMONTON – Alberta is expected to spend nearly $24 billion on health care this year, landing in the middle of a pack of provinces whose country is seeing record-high health expenditures.

Canada will spend a record $308 billion on health care in 2021, or $8,019 per Canadian, according to new projections by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

CIHI found growth in health spending tripled during the pandemic, from about four per cent each year over 2015-19 to more than 12 per cent in 2020.

The current rate of spending hasn’t been seen in more than three decades, according to CIHI.

It also found Canadian provinces and territories dedicate roughly 40 per cent of their budgets to health care. More than half of the spending goes toward hospitals, drugs and physician services.

ALBERTA COMPARED TO OTHER PROVINCES

Among the provinces, Alberta landed in neither the high nor low end of per capita spending, coming in sixth at $8,230.

Ontario and Quebec are expected to spend the least per person: $7,773 and $7,913, respectively.

Outside of the territories — which spend $14,000 to $23,000 per person on health — Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador’s projected health spending were the highest: $8,831 and $9,585 per person, respectively.

A report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) on Nov. 4, 2021, projected Alberta’s 2021 health spending would amount to nearly $24 billion, or $8,230 per person.

Alberta also ranked relatively in the middle when CIHI compared the provinces’ expected rates of growth in health spending at 2.6 per cent over 2020.

British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador’s health budgets were expected to increase the most at four or more per cent, and Quebec’s budget the least at less than half a per cent.

COVID-19 SPENDING

Under the health umbrella, hospitals, drugs and physicians remain the costliest expenses and represent 50 per cent of all health spending in Canada.

However, CIHI calculated COVID-19 costs will likely constitute seven per cent of total health spending at $23 billion.

COVID-19 costs were defined as COVID-19 treatment, contact tracing and vaccinations.

Alberta spent $5 billion on COVID-19 in 2020. The province’s 2021 budget earmarked $23 billion in health spending plus $1.25 billion specifically for a COVID-19 contingency fund.

“COVID-19 resulted in the single biggest increase in health spending we have ever seen in this country. An aging population and the continued pandemic will no doubt put more strain on our health systems and take up a larger proportion of government budgets,” CIHI’s president and CEO David O’Toole said in a statement.

“Challenges lie ahead, no doubt — but so do opportunities as improved technologies, pharmaceuticals and models of care can lead to better health outcomes for Canadians.”

About 75 per cent of the country’s total health expenditures are expected to be paid for by the public sector.

According to the latest data available, Canada ranked among the highest health spenders in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2019, spending $6,666 per person, or 10.8 per cent of its GDP.

The country with the highest spending is the United States, which spent more than $13,000 per person, or 16.8 per cent of its GDP.

The United Kingdom and New Zealand both kept per capita health spending at $5,500 or lower.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa 

EDMONTON – Premier Jason Kenney is rejecting accusations that he is blaming the province’s chief medical officer of health for Alberta’s failures in the handling of the fourth wave of COVID-19.

“The buck does stop with me,” Kenney told the house in response to Opposition NDP questions Wednesday.

“I’ve taken responsibility. We do, of course, take on board the expert advice of our health officials, in particular, the chief medical officer for health.

“The notion that I would ascribe blame is absurd.”

The NDP has been seeking details on why the government took no action in August as COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations were on track to reach dangerous levels and doctors urged for action to be taken.

Earlier this week, during a debate in the house, Kenney said they would have called a cabinet meeting and acted on any such recommendations in August from Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, if she had provided any.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said she was skeptical Kenney would have called such a meeting, mocking the premier as the “Tom Brady of buck passing,” a reference to the star NFL quarterback.

Kenney responded that the government acts when Hinshaw makes recommendations.

He noted in mid-August his government cancelled a plan to reduce COVID-19 testing, tracing and isolation measures at Hinshaw’s direction.

Asked later by reporters why he was breaking cabinet confidentiality to report on Hinshaw’s actions, Kenney said, “This is not about blame. I was simply being transparent about when we received information or advice.”

Hinshaw, who was asked why she didn’t make any recommendations on health restrictions in late August, said while they could see cases were going up, intensive care cases were relatively low and stable.

She said they moved to bring forward additional recommendations when that changed at the end of August and ICU cases began to rise.

“The things that I personally have always taken very seriously are the responsibility to minimize the direct impacts of COVID on the population and the responsibility to minimize the indirect impacts of COVID restrictions on the population,” said Hinshaw.

Kenney’s government did not introduce new measures until early September. By then, the crisis forced the government to scramble to double the number of intensive care beds, cancel thousands of surgeries and call in the Armed Forces to provide medical help.

The case rise came after Kenney’s government lifted almost all public health restrictions as of July 1.

He and Hinshaw have said that was a mistake because it was based on what proved to be flawed projections from the United Kingdom that suggested any rise in COVID-19 cases could be handled within existing health system capacity.

Notley said the results were tragic and foreseeable: “Alberta’s approach in the fourth wave caused five times the (per capita) death rate as Ontario’s.”

Vaccination numbers have risen significantly since Kenney announced a modified vaccine passport system in mid-September. More than 87 per cent of eligible Albertans, those age 12 and older, have had at least one shot and more than 80 per cent are fully vaccinated.

There are fewer than 7,000 active cases and 697 people in hospital with COVID-19 – both figures representing steep drops from the peak of the fourth wave.

Health Minister Jason Copping said the system is starting to work through the backlog of surgeries and that no more cancer operations are being delayed.

The NDP has called for a deep dive into what went wrong in August to prevent such a crisis from recurring. They have asked for an all-party committee with subpoena powers and are asking the auditor general to investigate.

Kenney has said there will be a review but now is not the time because Alberta is still fighting the pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 3, 2021.