Everyone in Saskatchewan knows that Premier Brad Wall honed his political skills when he worked for the disastrous Grant Devine administration as a Senior Ministerial Aide in the 1980's. It shows!
The Saskatchewan Party has started the campaign off with a strategy of inflating the cost of all promises and policies of the New Democrats in order to portray them as 'fiscally irresponsible'. Let's take a quick look at how the Sask Party is trying to grossly overestimate the cost of New Democratic policy.
In its faulty estimation of the cost of the NDP’s plan for 30 new primary healthcare clinics, the Sask Party multiplied the annual cost of the Saskatoon Community Clinic’s ($7-million provincial cost by 30), and then multiplied that total by four (to cover 4 years of the next term). They arrived at the bizarre figure of $840 Million and then took the liberty of rounding it up to $900,000,000 as you can see in the graphic above.
Based on Saskatchewan Health’s 2010-11 Annual Report, the NDP estimates that the average operating cost of a primary healthcare clinic will be $850,000 annually. Therefore, 30 additional clinics by the fourth year of an NDP government will cost $25.5 million in 2015-16 not the outlandish amount that Wall's staffers have stated.
The Sask Party knows a primary healthcare clinic is not the same thing as a community clinic. For example, the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region’s 2010-11 annual report indicates a cost of $4 million to operate all of the primary healthcare clinics in that region.
That investment in the health of Saskatchewan families is practical and worthwhile.
UPDATE:
CBC TV News is reporting that Sask Party Health Minister Don McMorris has just now acknowledged that the $900 Million figure his party has been using is "grossly in error!" .... ya think?!
POSTSCRIPT:
- Are there NO grownups in the Sask Party campaign who can supervisor the cohort of Sask Party ministerial assistants who are churning out this false schlock?
