Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has defended her decision to have a physician who has accused the province of exaggerating the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals lead a review of pandemic-era health data. Dr. Gary Davidson, the former chief of emergency medicine at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, was appointed chair of the task force a year ago. During the height of the fourth wave of the pandemic in 2021, Davidson claimed hospital admission numbers were overblown and being manipulated to justify public health restrictions. The provincial health authority, Alberta Health Services, rejected those accusations as false.