Throughout his years in the Legislature, Brad Wall has flip-flopped on a number of issues but few are as spectacular as his most recently acquired position on equalization.
REALITY CHECK: Sask. Party cuts the wheat and offers students the chaff
Today, less than a year after the Sask. Party slashed over $30 million from the graduate retention program, Brad Wall tried to pass-off a reversal of less than one third of that cut as a ‘new’ commitment.
REALITY CHECK: Still no sightings of elusive Sask. Party budget
The Sask. Party budget is apparently an endangered species, with no sightings at all a month after it was supposed to be out.
REALITY CHECK: When the rubber hits the road, Sask. Party pays more and paves less
Today was a big day for private consultants and foreign companies who have gotten used to the Sask. Party’s government trough.
REALITY CHECK: Sask. Party’s Lean project efficiently spends $1,511 for every $1 saved
The Sask. Party’s costly and stubborn commitment to the Lean project has been an unmitigated failure.
While the Sask. Party has been shoveling millions and millions into the Lean project, ER wait times are growing longer, nurses are being laid-off, and important surgeries are being cancelled.
REALITY CHECK: Brad Wall’s ‘bus’ted mental health strategy
Despite spending taxpayer’s money to commission both a “Mental Health Strategy” and a “Poverty Reduction Plan,” Brad Wall’s Sask. Party is ignoring the expert recommendations. Instead, they’ve opted to reduce the number of people in Saskatchewan suffering from mental health issues by buying them a one-way ticket to BC, putting them on a bus, and shipping them out.
REALITY CHECK: Wall can’t kick the gravy plane habit even as government dissolves
Instead of meeting the Lieutenant Governor at the official residence to request the election call, Brad Wall summoned her to Saskatoon where he was holding a partisan campaign event. Like most other people, Mr. Wall could have made the drive himself but he chose to book an exclusive Executive Air gravy plane and have the Lieutenant Governor fly to meet him.
REALITY CHECK: Sask. Party shovelling more than just dirt with defensive bypass announcement
The Sask. Party’s need to privatize everything transformed a good idea – building an important bypass around Regina – into a $2 billion international boondoggle.
Instead of allowing Saskatchewan companies to directly undertake and benefit from this important project, Sask. Party handed the massive contract to France-based VINCI.
REALITY CHECK: Ottenbreit denies existence of health care crisis… and his staff
When confronted about the importance of the health services in Craik that no longer exist, junior health minister Greg Ottenbreit made the bizarre choice to say that his staff don’t either.
On Saturday, a Craik resident was so frustrated with the Sask. Party’s refusal to provide the health care the community needs, she told Ottenbriet that the least they could do is take down the sign on the Highway 11 that still points to the (now shutdown) 24 hour care.
She went on to remind Ottenbreit that he had heard this call before when a “busload of Craik people came down because we were losing…”
The Sask. Party Minister interrupted, “I don’t recall that at all.”
“Not only did you not do anything about it, you had your assistant stand up and talk to us. I felt absolutely….”
He interrupted again and quipped, “Which assistant?” Then he added, “ I don’t have an assistant in the legislature.”
Who knows why he didn’t count his chief of staff, senior administrative assistant or ministerial assistant, all of whom work from his office in the legislature, but he’s obviously got a lot on his mind. As a member of a cabinet that threw away piles of money on a fleet of King Air planes for cabinet, costly consultants, and a couple Travel Scouts who taste food and test hotel rooms for Brad Wall, it’s clear that health care and the people of Saskatchewan (even the ones in his office) are not his priorities anymore.