By Jeff Labine

Politically motivated letter sparks apology

May 26, 2017 | 5:00 PM

The head of a service employees union is apologizing for a politically motivated letter that incorrectly criticized the provincial government for cutting funding to a Prince Albert Métis addictions centre.

Service Employees’ International Union West sent the letter, which paints a picture of the local Métis Addictions Council of Saskatchewan Inc. (MACSI) facing tough financial times, to Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback, the city’s two MLAs and city council.

The letter alleged the Prince Albert branch used to offer the same level of services as its counterparts in Regina and Saskatoon but had to end services and lay off staff because of a lack of funding.

But Barbara Cape, president of SEIU-West, said the organization made a mistake in its attempt to raise awareness to the services being underfunded.

“While (MACSI) appreciates the broad strokes of the letter, we did make a mistake in that we identified there was a decrease in funding,” she said. “That is not correct. We are sending out corrections and we certainly do apologize to the executive director and MACSI for making that mistake.”

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Cape continued to advocate that community-based organizations are underfunded and acknowledged the letter was politically motivated.

“Quite frankly, the people who set the funding levels for our community-based organizations like MACSI are the politicians,” she said. “I think the politicians have to understand very clearly there’s a human cost to not providing these services.”

Shauna Lafontaine, the executive director for MACSI, said she was shocked when she saw the letter as no one from SEIU-West contacted them about it. She said the Ministry of Health told her about it last week.

“We have sent out an email to the union asking for a full retraction,” she said. “We did not receive government cutbacks in our funding when the provincial budget was released. We actually maintained a status quo budget. The Saskatchewan government nor the Ministry of Health was responsible or gave direction that we had to shut down the stabilization unit in P.A.”

She explained the reason for the unit being shut down was because there wasn’t enough staff to maintain it.

Although she acknowledged MACSI addiction councillors make less than their counterparts in other health regions, Lafontaine said she didn’t want to get dragged into any fights with the government especially since there hasn’t been any cuts to their budget.

Jeff.labine@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @labinereporter