Saskatchewan NDP take aim at healthcare, education issues over Thanksgiving weekend
The Saskatchewan NDP hosted a pair of press conferences over the Thanksgiving long weekend – highlighting frustration among both healthcare workers and teachers over the past several years.
Sunday saw the party hold an event outside of Regina’s General Hospital – with healthcare workers highlighting fiscal challenges they’ve faced while working in the system.
"I have coworkers that haven't gotten mileage. They're single moms. They have had to choose between coming to work, and putting gas in their car, or feeding their children,” said Lorelie Schaefer, a continuing care assistant.
"I would like to see [the government] actually listen to us. They never listen to the people doing the jobs."
Saskatchewan NDP candidate for Regina Elphinstone-Centre, Meara Conway, led the conference as she criticized Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe’s "struggle" to retain nurses, often resulting in workers being contracted from outside the province.
"Scott Moe doesn't have a plan to recruit and retain nurses. We've seen the extent to which he has relied on contract nursing,” Conway said. “That's been very demoralizing, paying double what we pay our local health care workers, then having to train them. It's only contributing to burnout."
Conway additionally cited Regina's new Urgent Care Centre – which is not yet operating 24/7 due to short staffing.
"The urgent care center. This is a beautiful building, but there was nothing done to make a plan to staff it, to recruit and retain health care workers … We're only going to see further cuts. We're only going to see further chaos in our health care system ... including nurses," she added.
Burnout among healthcare workers has been a prevalent issue in the last several years – with the COVID-19 pandemic being a major contributor.
Schaefer expressed that she, and many of her coworkers, have faced financial stress.
"I've been with the health region for 27 [years]. In the last 24 years I've received, or my classification has received, just over a $4 an hour raise,” Schaefer said. “We have staff, within the health region as well, barely making over minimum."
Also present at the event were teachers, speaking out against the Saskatchewan Party’s record on education.
"With the value of publicly funded public education for our students and our communities. We know that to have a strong education, we need to invest,” teacher Wybo Ottenbreit-Born explained.
"The promises that we have had keep getting broken, and we're tired of that. I do not want to see another four years of Saskatchewan Party's effects on our children. They will effectively have more cuts, fewer staff, larger classes, less resources, less time for your child."
Wrapping up the event, Conway shared her party's plans, if elected, to rectify these concerns throughout the province.
"We're not here to pit health care workers against each other. What we want to see is a plan, that is going to work," she told reporters.
"So far, Scott Moe has failed to deliver a plan that is working and a plan that is fiscally responsible and a plan that is sustainably staffing. Nurses are literally showing up on his doorstep of the legislature to tell the people of Saskatchewan they cannot guarantee safe care."
The New Democrats followed this up with an event outside Regina’s Pasqua Hospital on Monday. Conway highlighted that interventional radiology services are currently suspended in the city due to lack of available doctors.
"Everyone told us this is very serious in the worst-case scenario. Physicians told us the impact could be life threatening," she said.
Conway went on to express that the number of healthcare workers leaving Saskatchewan has been a longstanding issue – and the current state of the system is exacerbating the problem.
"This is a healthcare crisis through and through,” she said. “Every frontline worker and patient we have talked to, literally hundreds of people, have said so.”
The Saskatchewan NDP have pledged $1.1 billion of their $3.65 billion election platform toward recruiting and retaining healthcare workers.
A further $2 billion has been committed towards education. According to the party’s platform, funding would be aimed at addressing staffing and support issues as well as go towards new schools in Regina, Saskatoon, White City and Moose Jaw.
In its recently released platform, the Saskatchewan Party boasted “record high” education funding – with $2.2 billion in operating funding for school divisions previously announced in the 2024/2025 budget. A total of $7.6 billion has been allocated for healthcare, according to the platform.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Donald Trump picks former U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra as ambassador to Canada
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated former diplomat and U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra to be the American ambassador to Canada.
Genetic evidence backs up COVID-19 origin theory that pandemic started in seafood market
A group of researchers say they have more evidence to suggest the COVID-19 pandemic started in a Chinese seafood market where it spread from infected animals to humans. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in Cell, a scientific journal, nearly five years after the first known COVID-19 outbreak.
Border agency detained dozens of 'forced labour' cargo shipments. Now it's being sued
Canada's border agency says it has detained about 50 shipments of cargo over suspicions they were products of forced labour under rules introduced in 2020 — but only one was eventually determined to be in breach of the ban.
'Ding-dong-ditch' prank leads to kidnapping, assault charges for Que. couple
A Saint-Sauveur couple was back in court on Wednesday, accused of attacking a teenager over a prank.
This is how much money you need to make to buy a house in Canada's largest cities
The average salary needed to buy a home keeps inching down in cities across Canada, according to the latest data.
REVIEW 'Gladiator II' review: Come see a man fight a monkey; stay for Denzel's devious villain
CTV film critic Richard Crouse says the follow-up to Best Picture Oscar winner 'Gladiator' is long on spectacle, but short on soul.
Police report reveals assault allegations against Hegseth
A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.
Alabama to use nitrogen gas to execute man for 1994 slaying of hitchhiker
An Alabama prisoner convicted of the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker is slated Thursday to become the third person executed by nitrogen gas.
Canada's space agency invites you to choose the name of its first lunar rover
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is inviting Canadians to choose the name of the first Canadian Lunar Rover.