The Sask. Party has had a solid rural base for 17 years. Could health care be a disruptive force?
Rural voters have ‘long memories’ and resentments over NDP closures 3 decades ago, says one candidate
There's a common sight obscuring the recently harvested fields alongside Saskatchewan's rural highways these days. Giant political billboards, often sporting the familiar green and yellow colours of the 17-year-long reigning Saskatchewan Party, dot the landscape.
Near the province's eastern border with Manitoba, newly minted Saskatchewan Party candidate for Canora-Pelly Sean Wilson says he feels the pull his party's name seems to have with rural voters.
As he walks around the village of Theodore, people approach him and ask for lawn signs.
"Obviously the economy is a very, very big factor at the door," Wilson says, who works for a construction company while also serving as the mayor for the nearby village of Buchanan. Messages about fighting the carbon tax and standing up to the federal government resonate strongly here, he says.
"The positive thing that I'm hearing is that the people in this constituency trust the Saskatchewan Party to lead our province for the next four years and beyond."
Asked if he is hearing concerns about rural access to health care, he points to his party's plan to recruit and keep health-care workers, saying people are optimistic about the government's efforts and generally have good access to care.
But when he knocks on his first door of the day, the voter on the other side has a very different take.
Richard Thompson shares many of his neighbours' antipathy toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but he also blasts Scott Moe, saying the Sask. Party leader doesn't care about everyday voters. Thompson says he plans to vote for the NDP.
"We are so overrun here with not enough doctors, not enough nurses, and the lines for emergency care are long," Thompson says, adding that his wife had two perforations in her small intestine go undiagnosed for too long, despite seeking medical help.
"My wife went to the hospital at least eight times. Two of those times, she had to come back home because she sat in the hospital for 11 hours and didn't see nobody."
Thompson's wife died only four days before Wilson knocked on the door, due to what Thompson feels was inadequate health care.
"So yeah, health care is a big deal for me. I'm 60 years old and I'm wondering if I stay in Saskatchewan, will I make it to 65?"
- Watch more Sask. election coverage, including full news conferences, on CBC Saskatchewan's YouTube page.
The roots of discontent
Access to rural health care has been a political football thrown back and forth between the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP, which has served as the Official Opposition since the Sask Party toppled it in 2007.
The last time the NDP were in government, they had a 52 point plan for healthcare in rural Saskatchewan. <br><br>There’s 1,200 reasons why we should never let them near our healthcare again.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/skpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#skpoli</a> <a href="https://t.co/r99PRaSffM">pic.twitter.com/r99PRaSffM</a>
—@SaskPartyWhen the NDP took power in 1991, it inherited a $14-billion debt from the previous Progressive Conservative government. It embarked on cost-cutting measures, including shutting down rural schools and converting rural hospitals into community health centres and long-term care facilities. These austerity measures helped bring the books back to balance by 1994.
The Saskatchewan Party has been pointing to those rural closures ever since.
Wilson says those closures left deep wounds in the rural psyche.
"I believe that people in our constituency, they have long memories," he said. "That fear of an NDP government is always in the back of people's minds here."
Communities like Norquay and Theodore had hospitals turned into health centres, Wilson says. Theodore's health centre is now a nursing home.
"There was neglect to our constituency and people don't forget things like that," he said.
Radville's Mayor Rene Bourassa expresses a similar sentiment, even though his town has experienced multiple emergency hospital closures this year due to staffing.
He says the current local troubles speak to larger issues with health care across the country and that he feels the Saskatchewan Party is doing what it can to address the issue.
"Look what happened when the other ones were in years ago," he said, referencing the NDP's time in power. "That's where we lost a lot of our hospitals and schools."
Could health care issues lead to cracks in Sask. Party's rural support?
Former Kamsack mayor Betty Dix doesn't give the Sask. Party as much credit.
Two years ago, she organized a rally at her local hospital to protest the closure of its last acute care bed.
The hospital has been able to keep its doors open, but it is closed in the evenings and at night, causing headaches for people in emergency situations, she says.
"You have to be sent to Canora. You get to Canora [hospital] and you find out Canora's closed. You go to Yorkton and you sit there for hours before you see a doctor. It's not good."
She and her friend Brenda Andrews say their community has seen a continual churn of doctors coming and leaving, which they see as a failure of a provincial plan to recruit international doctors.
"It's become a conveyor belt for doctors that can't get standing in the other provinces to get standing by working a couple years here. Then they can go out to Toronto or Edmonton," Andrews says, adding she would prefer if the province could find a way to recruit people with long-standing ties to the Kamsack area who are more likely to stay.
"Let's make the door open for people who want to come and serve here."
Jared Clarke, the Sask. NDP's candidate for Regina-Walsh Acres and former critic for rural and remote health, says his party would offer more opportunities for health-care workers willing to work in rural Saskatchewan, turn casual and part-time rural health positions into permanent, full-time work, and bring back community advisory councils to consult on local health issues and needs.
"If you live in rural Saskatchewan, you know health care is crumbling," Clarke said, adding people are struggling to deliver babies and get dialysis treatment, among other issues. Hospitals outside of Saskatoon and Regina have seen more than 8,600 service disruptions over the last five years, he says.
"When we hear the Sask Party talking about the NDP closing hospitals in the '90s, it's kind of like, 'Wake up, people are struggling today.'"
New hospitals going up
As both urban and rural hospitals struggle with staffing pressures, new health-care facilities are under construction in centres like Weyburn and Prince Albert.
But Andrews and Dix question how those hospitals will be staffed, given the struggles of existing rural facilities.
Just 15 minutes down the road from Kamsack, a new health-care facility is under construction for the people of Keeseekoose, Key and Cote First Nations.
"How are they expected to put doctors and nurses in there when they can't put doctors and nurses here?" asked Dix, adding she's still unsure if people outside the reserves can access services at the facility.
"I would much rather have seen this [Kamsack] hospital added on to and have state-of-the-art [equipment] and have the Indigenous people involved in it."
Former Keeseekoose chief Ted Quewezance said he's heard cynicism, even from some people in his own community, about opening and running the new 4,500 square-metre facility on the reserve.
"You know why this facility is there? The more criticism we got, the harder our chiefs work and the more our elders worked," he says.
Quewezance is the co-chair of Saulteaux Pelly Agency Health Alliance, which has led the drive for the new $47-million facility. The plan is for it to have 23 beds, a pharmacy and an ambulance bay when it opens next year. Quewezance says people from outside the reserves will be welcome to use the space for emergency health needs.
The federal government provided the capital for the project, while the province will provide staffing.
Quewezance says he feels the agency has done its "due diligence" by reaching out to Indigenous and international nurses and physicians about working at the new health centre.
He says he hopes the health centre can be a model for others across the country by putting the voices and needs of health-care workers at the centre of operations.
"There's no place for politicians in the health-care system."
'More anger and frustration out there': Andrews
Andrews and Dix say they don't plan to vote for the Sask. Party under Moe's leadership and don't believe they are alone, despite the prevailing view that rural areas are hotbeds of Sask. Party support.
"There's more anger and frustration out there," Andrews says, adding she doesn't believe polls tell the whole story.
"I think the Sask Party has got to be worried about the rural areas. They're not a given anymore."
Whichever party wins in the next election, Dix hopes they focus on rural needs. She's worried about what could happen if a deadly emergency collides with a lack of hospital services.
"It seems as if everyone is worried about the cities because that's where your votes are," she said.
"I understand that, but we're humans too. We're people. We deserve the same rights as everyone else does: proper health care, availability to food — you know, the basics of life.
"And I feel that we're not getting it."
This story is from the This is Saskatchewan podcast — your connection to the stories Saskatchewan is talking about. Every week, Leisha Grebinski and Nichole Huck will cover local issues that matter. Hear the voices that are creating change, shaping policy and fuelling creativity in Saskatchewan.
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