New 2025 Provincial Mandate Letter Analysis, Part 5
We’re continuing our analysis of new mandate letters issued to Alberta Ministries. These letters establish priorities and direction for each Ministry. Check out our first post on the topic for more on why mandate letters matter, how they can inform your nonprofit’s strategy, plus an analysis of the first four mandate letters released on September 17.
We’ve also posted an analysis of:
the second set of letters released on September 22
the third set of letters released on September 25
the fourth set of letters released on October 2
The following covers the four letters released on October 8. This is a nonpartisan review intended to support nonprofits navigating processes and partnerships within the provincial government.
Table of Contents
New Provincial Mandate Letters Analysis: 2025 Mandate Letter Themes Analysis: Comparison by Ministry of 2023 Letters to 2025 Assisted Living and Social Services Hospital and Surgical Health Services Mental Health and Addictions Primary and Preventative Health Services Implications for Alberta NonprofitsNew Provincial Mandate Letters
On Wednesday, October 8, the Premier of Alberta issued new mandate letters to four Ministers. See the new directives for:
Mandate letters are issued at the beginning of a term, and these are new letters coming mid-way through this election cycle, with the next provincial election expected in 2027.
Analysis: 2025 Mandate Letter Themes
A few identifiable themes from the new mandate letters:
All new mandate letters emphasize the progress on commitments from the initial mandates, which could signal a government looking to demonstrate success.
Across ministries, economic growth and investment attraction became more explicit.
Stakeholder engagement remains a priority.
Red tape reduction remains a priority.
Equity commitments have been reduced in scope except where tied to already-developed strategies.
Cross-Ministry collaboration gained emphasis.
The following letters also reflect the completion of the Health System Refocus, which restructures the original Ministry of Health into four ministries:
Primary and Preventative Health Services – community, family, and early intervention
Hospital and Surgical Health Services – acute care, emergency, and surgical systems
Assisted Living and Social Services – housing, disability, and continuing care
Mental Health and Addiction – recovery services and prevention
Analysis: Comparison by Ministry of 2023 Letters to 2025
Assisted Living and Social Services
The 2023 commitments for this ministry can be found at the 2023 Ministry of Health mandate letter and the 2023 Ministry of Seniors, Community, and Social Services mandate letter.
Progress on the 2023 commitments (Verbatim from the new mandate letter)
As part of the Health System Refocus, established Assisted Living Alberta as the new provincial continuing care agency responsible for providing a full range of wraparound supports.
Established Navigation and Support Centres in Edmonton and Calgary with one-stop hubs that have connected more than 10,000 Albertans with housing, health, and social supports while also expanding shelter capacity, including Indigenous-led and women-only spaces, as part of the largest investment in Alberta’s history to combat homelessness.
Helped clear the way for more homes to be built faster to help Albertans find housing that meets their needs and budgets so that despite making up less than 13 per cent of Canada’s population, Alberta built nearly a quarter of all housing starts in the country in the first half of 2025.
Created the regulatory environment that saw the province experience the largest year-over-year decline in rental prices in 2024.
Continued to implement the Stronger Foundations affordable housing strategy that is almost half way to its goal of expanding the affordable housing system by 25,000 units by 2031.
What’s Stayed the Same
Housing and affordability remain the central mandate, including construction incentives, regulatory reform, and coordination with federal and municipal partners.
Support for vulnerable Albertans is maintained, including those receiving AISH, disability supports, or seniors’ benefits (though the 2025 letter doesn’t re-state indexation explicitly).
Seniors’ housing remains a consistent priority, with ongoing emphasis on lodge expansion.
Cross-ministry collaboration remains a key delivery approach — especially with Health, Education, and Treasury Board.
What’s Different
The ministry’s new title — Assisted Living and Social Services — reflects a narrower but deeper integration with health and housing systems, emphasizing continuing care, housing transitions, and disability employment pathways rather than broader “community” programming.
A new directive tasks the ministry with transitioning non-acute hospital patients into assisted living — a health system efficiency measure not present in 2023.
The letter introduces a new commitment to work with Treasury Board and Finance on a coordinated, income-tested benefit framework — a modernization and consolidation of income supports that aims to streamline access but could change how eligibility is defined and delivered.
A new online hub for assisted living information signals a shift toward service navigation and transparency for families and providers.
The Alberta Disability Assistance Program is reframed around pathways to employment, aligning disability supports with workforce goals — a notable policy shift from 2023’s focus on seamless support.
The tone is toward federal coordination with a specific direction to align housing programs.
Some 2023 priorities — like food bank funding, municipal transit affordability, and indexing of benefits — are not mentioned.
Hospital and Surgical Health Services
Progress on 2023 Commitments (Verbatim from the new mandate letter)
Standing up Acute Care Alberta, the new provincial health agency that will oversee Alberta’s acute care system, and the three provincial health corporations – Cancer Care Alberta, Give Live Alberta and the Emergency Health Services corporation. Together, these organizations will improve the accountability and coordination of acute care services, and help ensure all Albertans can access high-quality care, when and where they need it.
Advancing implementation of the Alberta EMS Provincial Advisory Committee’s recommendations, to better support paramedics and strengthen a sustainable Emergency Health Service system for Albertans now and into the future.
What’s Stayed the Same
Both letters prioritize faster access, better Emergency Medical Services performance, and shorter surgical backlogs.
Collaboration across health portfolios and with other ministries (e.g., Technology & Innovation for IT systems; Justice re: MAiD parameters) remains core.
2023 emphasized strengthening primary care and continuing care to relieve acute pressure; 2025 keeps the focus on patient flow and emergency responsiveness (now with a hospital-centred lens).
Both letters use a delivery/efficiency frame (innovation, accountability, red-tape reduction).
What’s Different
2025 directs full implementation of activity-based funding for insured surgical services and allows qualified public and private providers to compete—a more explicit market/throughput mechanism than in 2023.
2025 adds a requirement to publish wait times online across common surgeries and related services—greater transparency than the 2023 framing.
2025 pushes completion of Mobile Health Card/Alberta Wallet and integrating health numbers on licenses/IDs—more concrete digital access steps than the 2023 “review IT systems” direction.
2025 formalizes inter-portfolio operations (e.g., transitions of non-acute patients to appropriate settings in coordination with Assisted Living & Social Services), which in 2023 was implied through continuing-care reforms but not structured through separate agencies.
Mental Health and Addictions
Progress on 2023 Commitments (Verbatim from the new mandate letter)
Completion of the Mental Health Services Protection Amendment Act in February 2025.
Completion of the Compassionate Intervention Act in April 2025.
What’s Stayed the Same
Both letters emphasize recovery-oriented care as the guiding framework for all services and facilities.
The ministry continues to work with Education, Health, Infrastructure, and Indigenous Relations to coordinate youth prevention, facility construction, and program delivery.
The 2025 letter continues expanding early intervention supports and school-based prevention programming.
Ongoing construction and capital planning for recovery and mental wellness facilities remains a key priority.
Both letters maintain collaboration with Indigenous partners for culturally grounded services.
What’s Different
The 2025 letter shifts from the 2023 focus on expanding infrastructure (building recovery communities and youth centres) to operationalizing these facilities within the recovery model framework.
The 2023 letter envisioned creating legislation to intervene when people pose a danger to themselves or others; by 2025, that law is passed, and the ministry must now launch the program by 2027.
The 2025 directive to review all mental health and addiction facilities and make recommendations for Budget 2027 represents a move from expansion to system planning and sustainability.
The ministry is directed to work with the federal government on therapeutic living units in federal prisons, expanding the reach of recovery programs into correctional settings.
2025 formalizes the ministry’s role within Alberta’s new four-agency health system, particularly in supporting hospital transitions and emergency response improvements.
2023 promised five 75+ bed youth wellness centres; 2025 narrows that to three under construction and one expansion, suggesting a more targeted rollout.
The 2025 letter no longer mentions expanding Counselling Alberta or data system modernization. These were prominent 2023 items that do not appear in the 2025 letter.
Primary and Preventative Health Services
Progress on 2023 Commitments (Verbatim from the new mandate letter)
Refocusing Alberta’s health system into four health pillars to provide a more effective, unified structure that prioritizes patients and empowers front line health care professionals to support Albertans for generations to come.
Advancing the Rural Health Action Plan, which will help address challenges and improve outcomes in rural and remote health care under five focus areas, each with priority actions to address disparities and foster an equitable health care system.
Updating the Alberta Health Workforce Strategy to address ongoing and evolving pressures and ensure a healthy, sustainable, engaged and efficient workforce is available to support timely access to care.
What’s Stayed the Same
Both letters maintain primary care as the cornerstone of Alberta’s health system, aiming for every Albertan to have a “primary care home.”
Improving access and outcomes outside major cities remains a constant.
Each letter emphasizes collaboration with Health’s sister portfolios (Mental Health and Addiction, Assisted Living, Hospital and Surgical), as well as Technology and Innovation for digital modernization.
Both prioritize expanding training seats, improving retention, and attracting health professionals — particularly to rural communities.
Each letter includes mandates around improving IT systems and implementing the Mobile Health Card and Alberta Wallet, though 2025 makes these near-term deliverables.
Both emphasize publicly tracking progress and improving transparency.
What’s Different
The new ministry — Primary and Preventative Health Services — now focuses solely on family medicine, prevention, and early intervention, whereas the 2023 Health letter covered the entire continuum from hospitals to continuing care.
2025 introduces a new directive to pass legislation expanding access to elective testing, screening, and diagnostic services — a major shift toward preventative care autonomy.
The 2025 letter adds a review of government-funded vaccinations to ensure they’re targeted to populations “scientifically proven” to be at substantial risk, and consideration of funding for additional vaccines for at-risk groups. This narrows the universal framing of immunization present in earlier health policy.
The 2025 letter explicitly directs the minister to protect children by ensuring full implementation of Bill 26 using “all available legal and constitutional means.” Bill 26 is the Protection of Children from Exposure to Explicit Sexual Material Act — a new legal dimension not present in 2023.
The Minister of Primary and Preventative Health is now designated the oversight minister for ensuring system integration across all four new health agencies — a structural leadership role absent in 2023.
Implications for Alberta Nonprofits
Here are some suggestions for your nonprofit in light of themes that cut across all letters:
With this provincial government in mid-term and looking to demonstrate outcomes, consider how your nonprofit has contributed to any of the progress as identified in the mandate letters and how your nonprofit can contribute to demonstrable results in the outlined priorities.
Explain how your work helps people sooner, saves money later, and keeps government systems from being overwhelmed. You can formalize this in the language of both return on investment (ROI) and return on community (ROC).
Explain how your organization is either directly involved in government priorities, or helps reach the people and communities that matter for those priorities. Remind decision-makers that nonprofits never work alone: every dollar put into your work also brings in volunteers, donations, and community partners. That means the impact is multiplied — far greater than what government could achieve on its own.
Make a clear case how your nonprofit contributes to red tape reduction and include that language in all core communications. Point out that many nonprofits reduce downstream government costs and burdens by preventing crises whether in health, justice, or employment.
Prepare for reduced emphasis on diversity/inclusion mandates compared to 2023, which may mean developing targeted government relations strategies, changing core communications, and/or developing advocacy strategies to support the communities you serve. Even though equity language has been trimmed from mandate letters, nonprofits can argue that equity work isn’t “extra”, it’s a driver of stronger labour markets, safer communities, and innovation. Nonprofits can surface community voices that government might otherwise miss.
Build partnerships across ministries as cross-ministry collaboration is emphasized.
Here are suggestions based on individual mandate letter analysis*:
Map where your work fits within Alberta’s new four-agency health structure and build relationships with the ministries most connected to your programs.
Demonstrate how your services help people move from emergency or acute care to stable housing, treatment, and community supports, without being lost in transition.
Expect more performance reporting and outcome tracking tied to government contracts.
Be ready to respond to new policy priorities in your programs, communications, and advocacy. These include a focus on recovery in mental health, income-tested benefits, vaccination funding priorities, changes to Medical Assistance in Dying, and the Protection of Children from Exposure to Explicit Sexual Material Act.
Housing nonprofits should anticipate more collaboration with Assisted Living Alberta on seniors’ housing, care transitions, and system navigation.
Changes are being made to move patients out of hospital more quickly post-surgery, giving preference to assisted living / continuing care scenarios. Anticipate higher community demand and more referrals to nonprofit services. Engage governments early to avoid gaps in assisted living — ensuring sufficient spaces, supports for complex cases and rural patients, and availability of a qualified workforce through the Alberta Health Workforce Strategy.
Discuss with governments any expected gaps in food security or affordable transit, which were addressed in 2023 mandates but not in 2025.
*In previous analyses, we’ve provided some suggestions for how nonprofits can continue to engage with the Government of Alberta within their ministry's new directions. This list refers to the ministries included in this analysis. If you’d like to learn more about how your organization may be impacted and what you can do, check out our other posts where we’ve shared other ministry specific action suggestions.