The provincial budget and the shortage of doctors in rural areas dominated the discussion as leader of the Saskatchewan NDP answered questions during a visit to Nipawin.
“The recent budget really did nothing to undo the serious damage that was done last time and, in fact, worsened some of it, but probably the bigger thing is it just lacks any vision or any plan,” said Ryan Meili at a NDP fundraiser April 28. “This is a government that is tired, it’s out of ideas and doesn’t really have an idea of what they want to achieve in the years or decades to come.”
Meili said the budget doesn’t make improvements on training programs to employ people, doesn’t fight inequality and doesn’t make progress on climate change. He added the social services budget is reaching record levels not because the benefits are being increased, but because there’s more people using that system.
Doctor shortage
The NDP leader, who was once a rural doctor, said that while incentives to attract doctors to rural areas are important for filling gaps in the short term, solving the problem will take longer.
“Really, this is a long term health human resources [issue] where we need to put in place a recruitment program that gets people from smaller communities into the health professions, trains them in the smaller communities so they maintain connections and they have the confidence to work in what is a challenging environment,” he said. “Then they are more likely to stay, be part of the community and put down roots.”
Meili said as doctors stay in the community, it will be easier to recruit more, as having a solid core group of colleagues to work with is something that attracts new doctors.
If he got into government, Meili said he’d work with the College of Medicine to broaden their approach to having more recruitment of people from rural areas and provide more training in rural areas.
“I have to say the College of Medicine has been working on that, but you do really need the provincial government to be strongly supportive in making sure it’s effective.”
Carbon tax
Not mentioned during the fundraiser – but something the governing Saskatchewan Party wants to talk about – is the province’s constitutional challenge to a federally-imposed carbon tax.
Meili said that since the province is in a situation where the federal government’s going to impose a price on carbon, the choice is to enact that plan or develop something that’s made in Saskatchewan.
“I would rather that we have Saskatchewan people, leaders in agriculture and leaders in industry, doing the work to design a program that works for us, that makes life affordable for Saskatchewan people, that increases opportunities for green jobs, protects agriculture and protects industries rather than have something designed in Ottawa,” he said, “which is where the approach of this provincial government is going to land us.”
For their part, the Saskatchewan Party said the NDP is raising the white flag prematurely on the issue.
