Premier Brad Wall took his campaign tour to the Battlefords Tuesday morning where he continued to hammer the NDP over the costs of their election platform.
During a news conference in North Battleford, Wall took leader Dwain Lingenfelter and the NDP to task over their election promises, which he claims amount to "well over $2 billion over four years."
He said the NDP plan would erase an estimated $900 million surplus and plunge the province into deficit.
"If Dwain Lingenfelter becomes the premier and the NDP becomes the government, we are looking at a $1 billion deficit over four years," said Wall.
"I don't think the people of Saskatchewan want to go back to those kinds of deficits," he said. "I think increasingly that's going to be the contrast."
Later, he raised the spectre that the NDP might bring in cuts to balance the budget. He pointed to the NDP position that the promises will be paid for because the economy will grow by four per cent, but Wall said that growth has already been factored into the budget.
"He's talking about another four per cent that is coming from taxpayers, or cuts," said Wall.
Wall, who spent much of the first week of the campaign in the major cities, was in North Battleford for a comprehensive health care policy announcement at Herb Cox's Battlefords campaign office.
With Cox and Don McMorris, health minister under Wall, standing beside him, Wall unveiled a five-point plan for improving patient care in the province. The main points of the policy include: loan forgiveness of student loans up to $120,000 for new physicians and up to $20,000 for new nurses and nurse practitioners who choose to work in underserved rural and northern communities; increasing the number of nurse practitioner training seats from 30 to 50; the creation of a rural locum pool of 20 additional doctors who would provide relief for rural physicians for extended periods; the expansion of pilot projects currently providing emergency services in rural areas such as increasing the Emergency Medical Technician program, and launch of the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society emergency medical helicopter program.
The Saskatchewan Party also committed to adding more doctors and nurses, and pledged to continue to reduce surgical wait times. Major health care infrastructure projects receive support in the platform, including a new Saskatchewan Hospital for psychiatric rehabilitation in North Battleford.
The party says its student loan forgiveness program, which requires new physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners to serve a five-year commitment in an area with a population of 10,000 or less, will help address chronic shortages of health care professionals in rural areas.
"What this will hopefully do is bring more doctors to rural Saskatchewan," said McMorris.
"This will be one more tool in the tool kit."
While the focus of the media conference was health care, Wall also was there to give a boost to Cox, in a hotly-contested race with the NDP and the Liberals for the Battlefords seat.
He gave credit to Cox for his work in pushing for such projects as highways, water treatment plant projects and the Northland Power plant.
"Even though he has not been the MLA, he has been working for the Battlefords," said Wall, who added "imagine how much work he would get done if he were a member of the Legislative Assembly."
Wall also took time to criticize Lingenfelter's announcement made Oct. 13 on Red Pheasant First Nation, where Lingenfelter committed the NDP to a new deal for resource revenue sharing with First Nations and Métis peoples.
The Saskatchewan Party has blasted the idea, saying they support sharing resource wealth with all Saskatchewan people and not with one group.
What his party would never do, said Wall, "is cut a special deal with any one group with the resource revenues of the province."
He said resource revenues belong to everyone, equally.
He also criticized Lingenfelter's plan for not being specific on costs.
"We still don't have a cost for his commitment, so far."
Wall also responded to criticisms from both the NDP's Len Taylor and Liberal leader Ryan Bater questioning the government's commitment to a new Saskatchewan Hospital. The government has committed $8 million to detailed planning for a new 188-bed facility in August, and had pledged to get construction started no later than 2013.
Taylor has since suggested the project could be delayed if the expected $100 million financial commitment is not in the budget. Bater, meanwhile, has dismissed the August funding announcement completely as yet another plan and no real commitment.
Wall responded "they're both wrong," and added the "it was the NDP that was good about talking about studies and analysis of health care, whether it was the children's hospital or other main projects."
"We said from the last election on that we were proceeding with this project," said Wall.
"This project will get done. I'll stack up our record of keeping the promises we made in the last election against the NDP any day of the week. We've kept over 146 promises from the last election. We've worked hard to earn the reputation that we do what we say we do," said Wall.
As for Bater, Wall said "he's not running candidates even in every constituency in the province.
"I don't know how he'll be able to deliver for the Battlefords frankly with that kind of context," said Wall, who added that to get things done in the Battlefords, if he lived in the area, he'd "vote for Herb Cox."
