The two Cams met over the supper table last Thursday evening in Estevan, and they appeared to be in agreement on all topics of conversation.
Cam Broten, the provincial leader for the New Democratic Party, and Cameron Robuck, NDP candidate in the Estevan Constituency in the April 4 general election, sat down with about 65 other dinner guests, in the Royal Canadian Legion Hall, to talk politics.
Broten was the keynote speaker for the combined dinner and the party’s annual general constituency meeting that followed.
During a 20-minute address to the gathering, Broten covered a number of topics which he said, later during a media scrum, would become main cogs in their campaign.
Broten began by admonishing the current Sask. Party government for running up unnecessary deficits, saying “they spent the rainy day funds on the sunny days.”
He also alluded to the recent breaking story surrounding a convoluted and confusing land flip associated with the much publicized Global Transportation Hub near Regina that he said, “just doesn’t smell right, because the Sask. Party approved payment for land well above market value. So, at best, this is horrible incompetence, or at its worst, it could be a mess that we need to get to the bottom of soon.”
Broten said he has observed changes of late in the Sask. Party that doesn’t fit the pattern that had been set earlier for the province’s premier.
“The party has changed and Brad Wall has changed. He is no longer a grassroots guy. This is a government that has become comfortable, complacent and bureaucratic. They didn’t used to be that way. We are shining a light on them and their misplaced priorities. That is our duty, to highlight their shortcomings.”
Broten spoke about negative experiences in provincial hospital waiting rooms and millions of dollars he said that had been wasted on failed experiments with John Black and Associates who delivered the Lean efficiencies program to provincial health-care facilities and personnel. “That tab is over $50 million now,” he said, “for consultants from Seattle and Japan while local residents have to pay thousands of dollars for ambulance rides to transfer from one hospital to another.”
He said one family had to forego ambulance transfers because they could no longer pay the bills, and were told by government spokespeople they should hold a fundraiser.
“Of course they had already done that and still owed $7,000,” said Broten.
One highlight of the year for him was taking his daughter to her first kindergarten class and witnessing the great job teachers and teacher assistants do, “but they too, are being under resourced. Four hundred teacher assistants have been cut and that’s tough for kids with special needs. This provincial government is beginning to sound more like an American insurance company.”
When it came to Highways and Infrastructure, Broten directed a verbal salvo at the ministry for “paying more but paving less.”
The NDP leader said the Highways Ministry “cut 350 people and then paid for out-of-province contractors.”
The Boundary Dam carbon capture project also grabbed his attention he said, noting that if the Wall government “had come clean on BD3 and its problems when they should have, instead of issuing press releases saying it was exceeding expectations, they could have avoided a lot of the negative global reactions.
“We had to pull teeth to get some truth out of them,” he said, adding that if the Sask. Party hadn’t lied about the project, a solution could have been fast-tracked with the admission that it wasn’t functioning at full efficiency.
Senior care needed improved staffing ratios, he cited, as another growing problem with the current administration along with the parcelling out of projects such as the public, private partnership (P3) “rent-a-schools” to out-of-province companies.
Broten said he was pleased to report that NDP candidates have been selected for pretty well all of the 61 constituencies and almost half of them were women and there was a strong visible minority presence, as well with the average age of the candidates being 42 years.
“So we have the team to defeat and replace this government with a principled NDP,” he said. “We can’t afford four more years of bad deals that don’t smell right. Just keep your heads high and hearts strong and together we create great things,” he said at the conclusion of his speech.
Later during the scrum, Broten said the NDP campaign will include a good mix of social media including Twitter accounts and Facebook messages as well as “good old traditional door-knocking because people will always want to meet and get to know the candidate.”
He said one of the most disturbing things he felt evolved from 10 years of governing by the Sask. Party was the fact they didn’t act wisely with the funds they had in the years of plenty. They didn’t scale back the Lean program when it was obvious it wasn’t achieving expected results, and there were too many misplaced priorities that now had
to be corrected.
“And, by the way, nobody asked for three more MLAs in the legislature, other than the Sask. Party and Brad Wall is still deploying teams of travel scouts, even with deficits facing him. He needs to cut down on his entitlements.”
Broten said another very bothersome item for him was the fact there will be a campaign waged without any current financial accountability coming from the Sask.Party since there will be no financial statement or budget issued prior to the start of the election run-up.
“I think we deserve to know the truth about the actual size of this deficit we’re facing. They said it might be $260 million, but that was back when they were calculating oil prices at between $50 and $60 a barrel. So what is the real deficit? They won’t tell us.”
Robuck said that on the local front, he would be hammering away at the need for improvements in health care, especially on the emergency room files, the Highway 47 north truck bypass safety concerns and pipeline requirements to get oil to markets, as just a few local issues that needed addressing.
Broten fielded a few questions from the audience following Robuck’s address, noting that the once dormant Progressive Conservative Party was now back in operation with their leader Rick Swenson making some noise while turning on his former Conservative friends in the Sask. Party.
Joining Broten and Robuck for the evening were two other NDP candidates, Nathaniel Cole running in the Cannington constituency and Mark Jeworski who is running in the Weyburn-Big
Muddy constituency.
