REGINA — Premier Scott Moe says his government is listening to concerns from municipalities when it comes to issues like health care.
Moe delivered his address to delegates Monday morning at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention in Regina. In that address, and in remarks to reporters afterwards, health care and the government’s Patients First plan for increased access to a primary care provider were key topics.
“What we have heard from Saskatchewan people over the course of the last number of years, and I would say that largely what we’re hearing across Canada is that we need to do better when it comes to improving our health care outcomes, our national health care outcomes,” Moe said.
Moe said the Patients First initiative “speaks to improving those outcomes, supporting our health care workers and delivering the right care at the right time in the right place.”
Moe also spoke about the changes made to municipalities’ share of the cost of health care facility builds. He pointed to that community share portion being lowered to 10 per cent from the 20 per cent that was in place before. Moe also noted that had been lowered from the 35 per cent share that was in place when he was a community fundraiser seeking a health care facility.
“We have since, through inflation and need, seen that that 20 per cent is still a significant load on communities across this province, and that’s why we have lowered that to 10 per cent in that Patients First initiative,” Moe said. He called it “an example of how we are protecting access to health care in our communities and ensuring that that health care is available in community after community across this province.”
SUMA president Randy Goulden welcomed that change, as well as the municipal revenue sharing funding.
“It matters not if it’s the smallest community of the smallest village to the largest city. We’re hearing there are three priorities and that would be infrastructure, public safety and health services,” Goulden said. She said the change “makes a substantial difference to the services that our municipalities can continue to contribute. So thank you for this change in the funding model for any new health facilities.”
Goulden noted that health care is a major consideration for municipalities, pointing out that municipalities provide the infrastructure required before those facilities can be built.
“When those personnel are coming to the health care facility to work and provide the services, they need housing,” Goulden said. “That housing has to have the infrastructure because we know when they come there and they come to our communities, they expect to flush the toilet, they expect clean drinking water, they expect a good road to get to their employment. Well, that comes through us. And when we’re talking about health care, its facilities is definitely something that our communities talk about, but they talk about the resources, the personnel that have to come in.”
Rosthern Mayor Dennis Helmuth was one of the mayors welcoming the change to the community share for their health care project.
“Our current hospital was opened in 1952. It clearly needs to be replaced, and plans are well in play for pre-design and design work. And since 2015, we’ve been getting ready for our 20 per cent, including everything that goes in that new hospital.
“So the announcement that we are now obligated to 10 per cent is really… we can take a deep breath.”
He said the change will give the Town of Rosthern “capacity to think about other projects. It’ll give our ratepayers a certain cause for a deep breath and for a thank you, frankly, that the obligation isn’t as strong or as huge as it was. The bottom line will be significantly more freeing for our community to think about other projects and to redirect that significant amount of money toward other community priorities. So unapologetically, a huge thanks to the provincial government.”
Weyburn Mayor Jeff Richards pointed to the hospital project in his city, which he said is also “very old, built in the ‘50s.”
“We’re a little bit ahead. We expect SHA to take ownership to get the keys in 2026.”
It is still unclear what the actual cost will be for the community share of either the Rosthern or Weyburn project, but Richards agreed with Helmuth that it is “very clear to say that 10 per cent of X is much better than 20 per cent of X.”
“It allows our foundation, our hospital foundation, to focus on equipment. It allows them to focus on other things that the hospital is going to need going forward. And from a municipal standpoint, it allows us, like President Goulden said, to build new streets going into the hospital rather than doing fundraising for that.”
