Mayors in northeast Saskatchewan gave the provincial budget mixed reviews, including over health care. (ID 87259426 © Sudok1 | Dreamstime.com)

By Doug Lett

northeast reaction to budget

Budget gets mixed reviews in northeast Saskatchewan

Mar 22, 2023 | 4:56 PM

The Mayor of the City of Humboldt said while there are positives in the budget, he also feels it misses the boat on some critical issues.

For example, although there is an overall increase of 6.7 per cent in health care spending, Humboldt Mayor Michael Behiel believes more is needed.

“Our province is beyond a crisis in health care,” he said. “I was dealing with some people who moved from Humboldt to Saskatoon and it was 18 months, and they couldn’t get a doctor.”.

“I like the increase in health (spending), (but) the 6.7 per cent increase is lower than it was last year. So it’s really not a massive increase,” said Behiel.

He also believes more is needed to tackle homelessness, and addictions – problems he believes are getting worse.

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And while the province has announced increases for people on various support programs, such as Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability (SAID) and Saskatchewan Income Support, Behiel said it’s not enough to meet the need.

“So $30 a month, we asked them for $100 a month for each individual to help them cover those additional costs. They said they couldn’t afford to do it,” said Behiel, adding the result is that more people end up in emergency shelters, which are more expensive to operate.

Behiel praised the increases in education spending and agriculture, but believes the budget missed some important areas.

“It’s just not keeping up with where our key areas are,” he said.

The Mayor of Nipawin said her initial impression of the budget is mostly positive, but much depends on the details – and many details are not clear yet.

“The fact that we’re getting a bit of an increase from the province through municipal revenue sharing…for me, that’s a positive note,” said Mayor Rennie Harper. However, she pointed out the overall 13 per cent increase from the province doesn’t mean every community will get the same increase.

Other positives includes the increase in health care funding.

“The $50,000 increase in incentives to physician recruitment to rural, certainly could have an impact for Nipawin,” she said, along with plans for new training spots for nurses.

She was also pleased by an increase in the subsidy for some personal care homes, and more funding for EMS services in rural areas.

However, there were things she had hoped for that were not in the budget.

“What I didn’t hear, what I like to would like to have heard is some talk about supportive housing and, and those kinds of things for homelessness,” said Harper. “We have homelessness issues. We don’t have places for them necessarily, smaller municipalities don’t have places for them,” she said.

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doug.lett@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @DougLettSK