By James Bowler

Premier fires back over provincial spending criticism

Feb 9, 2015 | 5:27 AM

In the face of spending cuts and criticism from the opposition, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is defending the decisions made so far by the government.

Specifically when it comes to the Lean program, Wall said it has actually benefited the province by saving the government millions in spending.

“Lean is used to improve patient care, to make sure we are providing health care as efficiently as we can,” Wall said. “When we designed the Children’s Hospital for Saskatoon we used Lean, that saved in the order of $16 million off of what we spent or what could have been spent in the construction.”

Wall added with what they have learned from the Lean consultants, they are now able to start their own training and stop using the Lean consultant program.

In response to the question posed by NDP leader Cam Broten asking where has all the money gone, Wall said a lot of it was from inherited debt.

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“Our government paid of $3 billion of debt we inherited from the NDP, that’s where the money went,” Wall said. “We’ve made historic tax cuts in terms of income tax and education property tax in the hundreds of millions of dollars every single year now, so the money went into the Saskatchewan people’s pockets where it belongs when you do tax cuts.”  

Wall said on top of this there were infrastructure costs as well.

“We’ve made $6 billion in infrastructure investment to deal with the infrastructure deficit left behind by the NDP,” he said. “That’s double what they spent in the same period of time, apples to apples.”

“In P.A. alone, the new long-term care facility, that’s where it went, a new gym at Carlton, that’s where it went, 100 per cent increase in revenue sharing for City of Prince Albert, that’s where it went.”

Wall said he feels tax reduction, debt reduction and the investments into infrastructure have actually led to the overall Saskatchewan economy to become stronger.

“We’re potentially months away from an election, I’m still waiting to hear what Mr. Broten might do differently,” said Wall. “Criticism is important, it’s part of his job, but closer to an election we need to start hearing what he would do differently.”

In regards to the tax sharing program, Wall said while it is on the table along with everything else, it’s the last thing they’ll consider cutting.

“The very last resort for us would be to alter a program we developed with municipalities in response to years of neglect from the NDP.”

Wall said moving forward with the upcoming election he’ll work to show every community in Saskatchewan that they matter to the Sask Party government.

“We’ve always worked hard to earn the votes of every region in the province, and also worked hard to earn the respect if not the support of those who couldn’t vote for us, as a government we’ve got to serve everybody,” said Wall. “Our MLAs in Prince Albert have worked for significant investment in the community, we’re always going to tell that story and defend our record whether it’s in Prince Albert or Moose Jaw or my hometown of Swift Current.”

jbowler@panow.com

On Twitter: @journalistjim