REGINA – Opposition New Democrats could not contain their dismay over the findings in the 2025 Provincial Auditor’s Report – Volume Two.
“Today’s auditor report makes it clear that after 18 years the Sask Party cannot deliver public services that are cost effective and meet the needs of Saskatchewan people,” said NDP Health critic Meara Conway.
“They are failing. They are failing in health, in education, in housing and the simplest functions of government such as procurement, bookkeeping and basic financial management.”
There was no shortage of item’s in provincial auditor Tara Clemett’s report, tabled earlier that day, which the NDP pointed to.
On the findings on IT, Conway spoke of the government’s “horrific mismanagement of our money on IT systems that have blown over budget in a startling fashion.”
She pointed to the spending on the AIMS system, but also pointed to a “second scandal” involving the Enterprise Business Modernization Project, or EBMP, which “has blown over budget by $130 million, to more than a quarter of a billion dollars.”
“EBMP uses the same software as AIMS. This is a $550 million mess of two IT systems that are still not working properly. And the work on AIMS began back in 2018. This is unreal.”
Comway also said she was “horrified” to read the chapter on inspecting special care homes.
“30 of those homes haven’t been inspected in more than four years. And homes where inspections aren’t occurring are seeing deeply disturbing rates of antipsychotic drugs being given to residents.”
Conway pointed to the finding that Saskatchewan long term care homes are giving antipsychotic drugs to 35 per cent of long term care residents.
“We are literally drugging people rather than providing them with the care that they need. This is every child’s worst nightmare when they make the decision to commit a parent’s care to a long term care facility.”
She said the responsibility lies at the feet of the Sask Party, because the issues had been known about for years.
“it’s chilling,” Conway said of the findings.
Conway said inspections are “not happening enough. When they are happening, they’re often announced, which is not great because it doesn’t give us a real picture of what’s actually going on in those homes. I’ll remind you, we’ve had more than one very tragic incident that has been reported to the public just this year about the cost of what’s going on in these care homes. It’s chilling. These are the people that built our province. This is the golden generation. We should be taking care of them.”
Meanwhile, Joan Pratchler, the NDP critic for Child Care, zeroed in on the child care findings in the provincial auditor’s report.
“This report confirms all the things we’ve been talking about for almost the last year,” said Pratchler.
“How does the government explain nearly 700 unused spaces? They missed their target for coverage and they have no plan to hire 1,300 additional childcare educators or even retain the current ones. They didn’t even spend the money they had on childcare and now they claim their deal with the federal government, which was long overdue, will fix everything. Well, it won’t. We still have childcare deserts in this province. We still have childcare centres on the verge of closing and we have no emergency funding or any information from the government on supports needed to keep those centres open.”
Pratchler also had this to say about the auditor’s findings on the GTH and their well-defined collaboration procedures for major developments at the Hub, something that could have prevented competition with other entities such as the City of Regina for projects.
“So it’s government mismanagement, misuse of funds. We have one kind of government, provincial government, at loggerheads or messing around with municipal government,” said Pratchler.
“That should have never happened. Stay in your lane, provincial government. There’s one taxpayer. And that’s the people of Saskatchewan and it’s constituents in my constituency, and all the other constituents here in Regina and they’re going to be footing a bill for something that didn’t need to be happening.”
