How to vote.

I love election time. I love having the candidates come to my door and answering my questions. This year I e-mailed each candidate to let them know I was looking forward to talking to them. Then one day I was at work and they all came by when I wasn't home. So I had to call them all and they came back, well except for one.

To start, here's a little thought. We come form a province that has traditionally shunned the Liberal party. Have you ever thought about what if our province had a Liberal government when the Liberals with in power nationally? Would we have been treated any different? We have two parties represented provincially that are also national parties. The Liberals and the NDP. The Saskparty is it's own little party that only represents Saskatchewan. Although it has strong ties to the Conservatives, it's not the same. All that being said, you still have to vote on what is best for the province.

So here's how I see it at the moment. I really really liked my NDP candidate. He works in healthcare as well, and he figured there needed to be someone in there who actually has something to do with healthcare.
I don't know how I feel about the NDP right now. They have made some progress and you know, things like roads, and a severe nursing shortage don't get fixed oevrnight. So you should give them some credit that the wait list is shorter than before, there are now better incentives for nurses to come back to Saskatchewan, or to stay here after school, and there has been some progress on roads such as highway1 and the road from Stoon to Lloyd. The NDP guy admitted to me that working on the nursing shortage will take a while. A new day surgery centre has already opened in Regina to help with waiting times and there is already plans in the works for a Saskatoon day surgery centre.


The Saskparty guy never came back, and although I have called his office many times, I haven't heard from him or the healthcare critic they promised would call. What exactly is "enterprise Saskatchewan". Would they really privatize the crowns? And what if the first thing they do is pass a bill that elections will be every 4 years no matter what. Well then what if they aren't good, then no one can force an election before there is damage done. This applies to any party, but the Saskparty is the only one talking about making elections every 4 years. And how exactly do they plan to pay for recruiting and retaining nurses? And where do they plan to find 800 nurses? He did say something to Jeff about LPN's, and I don't really know what the plan is there.

The Liberal guy came by, and though he was in a hurry, he answered my questions. There was mention of a bridging program for LPN's to become RN's. Of course it will take a while to deal with the shortage. They would like to set up day surgery centre's to open up OR time (and so do the NDP). All good. But the most important thing, we all know there is not going to be a Liberal government. So I asked what will happen if there is a minority government and he gets elected. The Liberals could have a swing vote if they get enough seats. So he assured me that they would vote on a vote by vote basis, and they would remain Liberal.

Now I have no idea how the SRNA feels about this "bridging program" the various parties are talking about. That will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Some issues being discussed around the hospital are, heart surgeries. Apparently the wait list in Saskatoon is much longer than the one in Regina (this is just gossip mind you). Also heart surgeries in Saskatoon are often cancelled because there are not enough ICU beds. If there is not an ICU bed available, than no heart surgeries that day. Until there are more beds, with the nurses to staff them, this will be an ongoing problem. So which party is going to fix that? These are not easy issues.

So in the last few years, the NDP has had a majority government. That means that the SaskParty has had to just sit back and watch. Be vocal, but watch because they didn't have the numbers to do anything about it.
Now if there was a minority government, then either party would have to lobby for votes in order to get anything passed. So the Liberal party could say, ok we'll vote for you if you change this and this. That way the bills get changed or watered down a little bit, which has potential to be a very good thing.

So what does everyone else think?