Dear Editor
I am compelled to respond to a recent article, “Young NDP have key role in election." It is encouraging to see young people taking an interest in politics, public policy and issues important to their community, but I am writing in response to remarks made by NDP candidate Rob Feist.
I found it amusing that he would try to suggest priorities of the Saskatchewan NDP include rural health care and doctor shortages. Feist is a member of the same NDP that closed 52 hospitals and more than 1,200 long-term care beds for seniors. The same NDP also drove doctors and nurses out of the province and let surgery wait times grow to be the longest in Canada.
I don't think things are perfect in health care, but the province has 500 more doctors and 3,000 more nurses than it did under the NDP, wait times for surgeries are now among the shortest in the country and the Battlefords are getting a new hospital.
The NDP refuses to support increased trade for our farmers and agri-business by not supporting the world's largest trading agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and they are against vital national energy projects like Energy East. Now the NDP is against funding a new program that would help get up to 1,200 energy sector workers back to work.
In a province with a strong and diversified economy, it can be easy to lose sight of the way things used to be under the NDP.
Gregg Sheppard
North Battleford
