The Sask. Party has had a solid rural base for 17 years. Could health care be a disruptive force?
CBC
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?"
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.
When 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.
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