Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange isn’t totally wrong when she says the national pharmacare deal is a politically motivated plan to keep the supply-and-confidence agreement alive, and stave off the threat of a federal election unwanted by both the NDP and the low-in-the-polls Liberals.

Ottawa is encroaching on Alberta’s authority to deliver health care services, as she said – an area that is primarily a provincial responsibility. And true to form, Alberta and Quebec were the first out of the gate in saying there would be no participation in a program that’s expected to soon cover the costs of diabetes and birth-control medications for everyone.

“I really feel that the federal government needs to partner with the provinces, not just with their federal NDP counterparts,” Ms. LaGrange said to reporters regarding Alberta’s position that it will not participate in the program but will take the money.

But even with politics at play, and legitimate jurisdictional questions to be asked, a decision that would leave Albertans at a serious disadvantage to counterparts in other provinces is bad policy and bad politics.

That is especially true when it comes to contraception – which, it’s no understatement to say, is........

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