Provincial government faces a difficult year

Last year was a challenging one, admits Greg Ottenbreit, MLA for Yorkton and Minister of Rural and Remote Health. But he also believes that a challenging year is one that brings opportunity, and as a result is optimistic as the government faced a deficit and is now facing the prospect of big changes coming in the future.

“You have to make the best decisions you can with what you have at your disposal and your abilities. I think there are not too many governments that are positioned better to address the challenges we are up against.”

The province’s has been hit with a downturn in its finances this year, something Ottenbreit explains is due to a hit to the prices of several commodities, including oil, potash and uranium, all of which had low prices this year. It has hit the province hard, and income has declined by about $1.2 billion. He does look to the positive, whether that’s a strong credit rating and efforts to find efficiencies in how the government operates. The deficit is forecast to be about $800 million, but he is optimistic that the budget in 2017 will get closer to balance.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job up to this point when it comes to finances. We’ve cut our general revenue debt by a third which is saving $200 million a year, or cumulatively about $1 billion plus over the years.”

Ottenbreit admits that they have a challenge before them, and laments that the opposition NDP has not been helpful as the province deals with a decline in revenue.

“They don’t really tell us what they would like us to cut, but they tell us we are spending too much money.”

As one might expect from someone with a health portfolio, Ottenbreit’s main focus has been on health issues, such as physician training and recruitment as well as infrastructure needs in rural areas. Investing in remote presence technology – including the nurse robot in Sunrise Health Region – is among the ways they hope to enhance services in rural areas.

“It’s quite exciting when you look at the possibilities. For example, Pelican Narrows, which has a high number of youth and children in that area. We saw through the use of remote presence technology, reducing the trips children and families had to take out of town to Saskatoon and Prince Albert, usually by air, by 65 per cent. The health outcomes of the children improved greatly. The cost of transportation and the actual quality of care they were getting improved greatly. It’s quite innovative and quite exciting, and we want to keep working in that direction, not only in the north, but also in rural areas and even in urban areas, where you can have people staying in their home.”

Ottenbreit is also encouraged by the payoff of physician training programs that the government has implemented, noting that four Saskatchewan-trained physicians have set up a practice in Moose Jaw together, also servicing smaller communities. He notes there are more physicians retained using more training seats.

“Just in the statistics alone we can see it’s working. Out of the 60 seats we had previously we only had a 57 per cent retention rate. Now we have 75 per cent retention of the 100 graduates coming out now, and a lot of those are working in rural and remote areas.”

The introduction of private MRI service in the province is controversial, but Ottenbreit is proud of the system they have introduced – a free MRI for someone on the provincial wait list for every one paid for – and the government plans on furthering it to CT scans. He notes over 900 public scans have been handled through the system thus far, with an additional 200 in the queue.

“We find it quite strange that the federal government asks us to be innovative, and when we are innovative and show a great result, they try to impede us.”

Ottenbreit’s issues with the federal government do not end with their disapproval of private medical imaging. Much like Premier Brad Wall, Ottenbreit does not approve of plans to implement a carbon tax.  

“It quite frankly targets Saskatchewan more than any other jurisdiction and that concerns us quite a bit.”

The province’s stance on carbon emissions is that they want to focus on investing in new technology rather than use a tax and potentially harm the economy, Ottenbreit says, and he expects the fight against the idea to continue into the new year. Their belief is that technology investment has an international impact.

“If you look at India, China, and even Germany getting back into building coal-fired power plants without clean coal technology. Saskatchewan, our BD3 project, is one of the most advanced successful project in the world right now. We believe in developing in technology, and sharing it with the world. It’s something that doesn’t impede our economy but enhances our economy.”

While the relationship with the federal government has been contentious, Ottenbreit remains hopeful that they can start to understand each other and work together in the future, but he believes that the federal government needs to listen to the provinces more.

This year also saw efforts to address other challenges facing the province. Saskatchewan’s high rate of drinking and driving offenses have lead to significantly stiffer impaired driving rules. Spurred on by some high profile cases, Ottenbreit believes stricter rules are going to help deal with the problem.

Next year is going to be another challenging one, and Ottenbreit knows that not everyone will be happy with the changes that are going to be made, but he is encouraged by some of the recommendations and the new directions they’re going to take.

“I’m not excited about the challenge coming in the next year but I’m looking forward to the opportunities. Some of these transformational changes we’re coming into, it’s going to be some tight budget decisions, but we’re going to make those the best decisions we can.”