The year of 2010 has come and gone, and Dwain Lingenfelter, the leader of the official opposition, recently spoke to The News Review about some of the highlights and what the party plans for the upcoming year.
The floods of the past summer have dominated most discussion of the past year. Lingenfelter gives praise to local organizations in the way they handled the disaster situation in the area.
"The community pulled together and I think did a heck of a job locally in bringing things back."
That said, Lingenfelter also feels there are still gaps in the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) and some of the aid that farms received in the aftermath. He says that beef farmers need $150 a head to help feed animals for the winter, and that grain farmers need extra aid to help in seeding next year, and to recover from the losses seen in 2010.
Lingenfelter doesn't believe the problem is solely provincial, but he does believe that the provincial government needs to put more pressure on the federal level, to get greater aid in agriculture.
Another area which the Sask. NDP leader sees issues rising in the past year is healthcare. He sees the numbers of doctors in the province being a big issue in the future, and believes physician recruitment needs to become a priority. He believes the priority should be recruiting doctors trained in the province. Another problem he sees is a lack of a contract for interns and resident doctors, which is an impediment to recruiting young doctors.
"We're spending a lot of money training doctors, and many of them are simply leaving the province because we don't have programs for them," he says.
Cost of living is another main issue for the opposition, and Lingenfelter believes a form of rent control is necessary. He notes that rent is going up too quickly, and that is causing the cost of living to increase too dramatically. However, he admits that rent control is not a solution on its own.
"Rent control by itself wouldn't work, what you need is a very aggressive building program as well and our urging is that CMHC, the federal body that looks after housing, Sask Housing, municipal government and the private sector need to have a major plan to increase affordable housing," Lingenfelter adds.
Another issue which he sees as coming to light in the past year has been children in foster care in the province.
The NDP platform will be put together in March, Lingenfelter says, and he believes that his party will give people something worth voting for.
The auditor's report on the situation has Lingenfelter concerned, and he believes there's a need to better look after not only the children, but foster parents as well.
"We're starting to lose foster parents because we are overworking them and underpaying them. That leads to very serious situations for many of our foster kids."
One of the ways to deal with this, he says, is to have better support for the foster parents and the people who support them. He believes that a better support system and more staff to help parents before the children are taken from the home would be key to helping children in care.
He also believes that including more education about the responsibilities of being a parent into the school system could prevent many children from needing to be placed into foster care.
The upcoming year will be a busy one for both parties in the province, as 2011 is an election year. The NDP has set a date for February to announce the candidate in the Yorkton constituency, Lingenfelter says, and the nomination process is getting underway.
