CONTENTS
Standing Committee on Human Services
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
Hansard Verbatim Report
No.
13 — Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Chair
Keisig: —
Well good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Human
Services. My name is MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] Keisig. I’m the
Chair of the committee.
This
afternoon we are joined by committee member MLA Burki with MLA Jorgenson
chitting in; committee member MLA Blakley with MLA Love chitting in; MLA Bromm;
MLA Chan; MLA ChiefCalf with MLA Pratchler chitting in; and MLA McLeod chitting
in for MLA Kropf.
General Revenue Fund
Education
Vote 5
Subvote (ED01)
Chair
Keisig: —
We will start by resuming consideration of vote 5, Education, central
management and services, subvote (ED01). Minister
Hindley is here with his officials. I would ask that officials please state
their names before speaking for the first time. Please do not touch the
microphone. The Hansard operator will turn your microphone on when you
are speaking to the committee.
So,
Minister, please introduce your officials and make any opening remarks.
Hon. Everett Hindley: — Thanks, Mr. Chair.
We went through some introductions last night, and I’ll skip over the opening
remarks. And as you’ve mentioned, we’ll just have the officials introduce
themselves as they come forward to help answer some questions. And we thank the
committee for its time today and look forward to the questions.
Chair
Keisig: —
Thank you, Minister, for your brief comments to get the committee started
today. I’m sure the members opposite appreciate that.
I
will now open the floor for questions. MLA Love.
Matt Love: — Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Minister, today’s final hour of estimates will kind of be a smattering
of topics. We’ll address a number of things in our final hour here.
My first question today, can you provide
the following data and information for the committee: can you provide any
changes to funding for independent schools, including percentage change
overall, year-over-year increase in this year’s budget, as well as if there’s
any changes to schools in each of the following categories — including new
schools that might be appearing for the first time — for registered
independent, qualified independent, certified independent, alternative schools,
and historical high schools?
Jason Pirlot:
— Jason Pirlot. On the first question, no changes in funding to independent
schools this year.
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
There are three new, unfunded registered independent schools: Canora Christian,
Esterhazy Christian, and Saskatoon Islamic.
Jason Pirlot:
— Yeah, just to clarify: for the independent schools, for Cornwall Alternative
School, there was a CBO [community-based organization] increase that was
applied broadly across the budgets, but nothing for certified independent or
qualified independent schools.
Matt Love: — And the other data
that I was seeking is year-over-year change as far as percentage increase or
actual dollars in funding provided to independent schools. And if you can break
that down by category for . . . or not registered independent, but
qualified, certified, historical, and alternative.
Jason Pirlot: — So for the first part of your question,
qualified independent schools are funded at 50 per cent of the per-student
rate. Historical highs, certified independent schools are funded at 80 per cent
of the per-student rate.
There’s
categories in what we would call alternative education category. Those aren’t
necessarily funded on a percentage of the per-student rate. Those would be
contracts generally with entities such as Ranch Ehrlo
or Eagle’s Nest, etc.
And I might
have missed the second part of your question, sorry.
Matt Love: — The actual dollars being spent in this
budget on each category and what the percentage change is related to last year.
Jason Pirlot: — Yeah, so no percentage change, and I’ll get
you the dollars here right away.
Matt Love: — Sorry, I can clarify here, Mr. Chair. Yeah,
just to clarify here, the percentage change might be a result of enrolment
changes. Not the percentage change for the category of school, but for the
actual dollars. Say, if there’s more students in a category than in the past,
you’ve indicated that that’s been the driver behind changes being spent on
private schools.
Jason Pirlot: — Yeah, for sure. For
those categories though that would be utilization driven, right. So at this
time we’re not budgeting a change in what we’re expecting for the independent
schools, but we’ll work with them, and as we start to look at enrolments then
we’ll have a better sense.
Matt Love: — So you don’t have
projected enrolments for qualified, certified, historical schools at this
point?
Jason Pirlot:
— Well we would have projected enrolments, but they line up with the budgeted
amounts from the prior year. So would you just like me to run through the
budgeted amounts for the categories then?
Matt Love: — Yeah, sure.
Jason Pirlot:
— Okay, so for the ’26‑27 budget: qualified independent schools, $7.725 million;
certified independent schools, $9.5 million; Cornwall Alternative School
is $1.067 million — again that was an increase of 2 per cent and that was
tied to a CBO increase — and historical highs is $5.823 million, and that
is the same as it was in ’25‑26.
Matt Love: — And the qualified
and certified numbers, how do those relate to ’25‑26? They’re the same?
They’re flat?
Jason Pirlot:
— Yes.
Matt Love: — How many schools
are now in the certified independent category? There’s no change from last
year? So if you could name those schools in that category, please.
Jason Pirlot:
— Sure. So for certified independent schools, we have three, and that would be
Saskatoon Christian School, Saskatoon Misbah School, and Valley Christian
Academy.
Matt Love: — Does the ministry
track the amount of tuition that any qualified or certified independent schools
charge? And what would be kind of the high and the low in terms of tuition
charged by the schools?
Clint Repski:
— Clint Repski, deputy minister. Regarding the
tuition amount, we don’t track tuition charges for the schools, so we don’t
know what the upper end is. But we do know, based on our conversations with the
institutions, that some are charging zero tuition, so we know the low is zero.
We don’t know the upper end.
Matt Love: — Okay, thank you.
I’ve got a few questions about school nutrition. Yesterday, Minister, in your
opening comments, you provided some numbers. I’m just looking for a little bit
more clarity.
I believe that the updated number that
you provided of provincial funding was 2.8 million in this budget for the
provincially funded child nutrition program. Are those dollars directed to . . .
Do they work together with the federal dollars for the national school
nutrition program? Or are those dollars specifically for, like, the Good Food
Box program funded through community-based organizations for nutrition? Is
there any overlap between the two programs?
[15:45]
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
Thanks. So just some background information around the two programs, which are
separate programs.
What we refer to as the child nutrition
program, that’s the provincial one that’s been in place for over 30 years,
first established by the Ministry of Social Services in 1990. The budget for
that program this year is about $2.8 million. Last year, just our most
recent stats, that provided a number of students 7.2 million meals, 54,000
Good Food Boxes. So that’s through the provincial program. It’s run through an
application process. And I’ll maybe have the officials talk about that in a
second here.
The national school food program. So
that one, the budget amount is about $9.2 million that we’re getting from
the federal government. That’s part of the three-year, $15.8 million
agreement that we signed, in effect until March of 2027.
And they are operated as two separate
programs. The provision of the national program is that we can’t use any of
that funding to displace provincial funds, so it complements what’s already
been done provincially. And I’m not sure if there’s any other information that
Sammi wants to share.
Sameema Haque:
— Good afternoon. Sameema Haque,
assistant deputy minister. So as the minister mentioned, it is two very
distinct programs. The CNP [child nutrition program]
program has been operating for the last 35, 36 years. That program is run
through the local CBOs as well as the school divisions, so funding is provided
based on applications to both entities. And they provide meals to children that
are in the school, attached to the school, and sometimes also within the
community if they come attend an event at the school. The CNP
programs are also often run during school breaks.
The national school food program is the
federal program, and that’s very distinct from CNP.
As a condition of the agreement, the two programs have to be kept separate so
we are able to show to the federal government that none of the provincial
funding has been displaced with federal funding. The national school food
program money is allocated directly to the school divisions, and the school
divisions then form agreements with their local CBOs and other organizations.
And it could be bulk food providers,
whoever they get an agreement with locally. The school divisions can also buy
equipment that’s related to food infrastructure. Right at the start of the
program, they had higher costs related to buying microwaves and fridges, and
items such as that, that are part and parcel of food delivery. And then we are
encouraging, and the school divisions have reported, that most of the money is
actually spent on food items that are provided to the students.
The stipulation with this program that
is a condition by the federal government: that this is a food program that is
for children that are within a school, within the K to 12
[kindergarten to grade 12] school. So it’s those kids that are attached to a
particular school and the school division, so not like during school breaks.
Matt Love: — Thanks, Minister.
Your official just noted the reporting that has to go to the federal government
to show that the funds are used separately. I understand that there is
extensive reporting required as part of the national school nutrition program.
Can you table for the committee the reporting that your government provides to
the federal government?
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
I’ll have the officials talk a bit about where we’re at with the reporting
templates and getting that information to the federal government. And one of
the things I would say is that, yeah, when we were having the discussions with
school divisions, the SSBA [Saskatchewan School
Boards Association] and others, one of the things that was identified was they
were grateful for the addition of having the federal program come in, but they
also wanted us to be mindful, as we were working with the federal government on
what this looks like, that it did try to get as much and as many of the dollars
from the program to kids, to make sure that it was going towards food and,
like, essentially just getting to lunches for kids.
And to really minimize the amount . . .
They didn’t want it to become administratively burdensome, I guess, is probably
the best way of saying it. So we wanted to be mindful (a) that there were
certain parameters that the federal government wants to see met with respect to
our reporting and where the dollars were actually being spent, but at the same
time, they didn’t want to see . . . And I think that was again the
direction we had from schools, was that we didn’t want to see the dollars going
towards hiring of FTEs [full-time equivalent] of a bunch of people to be
tracking and counting how many boxes were going out and all this stuff.
But again I’m probably boiling it down
much more simpler than I should be, but anyway that was the balance we were
trying to strike. But I’ll just ask the team to talk a bit more about the
current status with the . . .
Matt Love: — Yes, Minister, can
I just ask . . .
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
Yeah.
Matt Love: — What I’m looking
for . . . Yeah, what I’m looking for today in the committee isn’t so
much a discussion. I hear those same concerns about reporting, and we do want
to make sure that supports are getting to our kids. We are the province with
the highest number of children living in poverty. My question is, will you
table the reporting for the committee?
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
So I’ll let the assistant deputy minister speak to where we’re at.
Sameema
Haque: — So as you know, this program was
rolled out last year. The school year has not ended yet. So within this school
year the school divisions are required to collect information. The information
that is collected . . . What we’ve done is, in order to assist them
in collecting information, we’ve provided them some templates. That is just to
assist them and so that we have some consistent information. However we don’t
have all their data yet for this year. And any data that we have, of course, that
needs to be reconciled. There’s some back-and-forth with the school division
before we can confirm data.
Then once that’s done, we have an
obligation because this is a federal program that all of the information must
first be shared with the federal government officials, and all their questions
must be answered and those need to be satisfied. And that’s another data
reconciliation process essentially to satisfy the reporting requirements. And
we might have to do some back-and-forth and do some corrections before we
actually have the final data available.
The school divisions will be providing
some information as part of their annual report. Some of that data will be
reported, and we will also have an annual report related to this particular
program which will have the confirmed information available once the federal
government approves that information.
So we’re in the process. We’ve given the
school divisions some templates to assist them. However we don’t have all the
information yet. Once the school year ends, then we’ll have all that
information and we’ll do the reconciliation. The information will become public
once the federal government has agreed upon that data, that they’re satisfied
with that data. And it’ll be part of the annual report related to this program
and will be posted online.
Matt Love: — Do you know what
the deadline is for that reporting and when the annual report is expected to be
posted?
Sameema
Haque: — Any of these annual reports that are
related to federal programs, it’s very difficult to give a deadline for those
because we have to negotiate the annual report and the content. And essentially
word to word sometimes we are negotiating about individual sentences in regards
to the report to the satisfaction of federal government. It must then be . . .
Not only do we have to satisfy the officials, but the federal minister must
endorse and approve that report before it becomes final.
So a lot of that is at the leisure of
the federal government. We do meet our deadlines. We try and get the
information out, get the first draft out. Often with this agreement and any of
the other federal government agreements we have — we have three or four other
agreements with similar structures — there is a lot of back-and-forth that we
have to do before we have a final report. So I do hope that it is soon, but I
can’t unfortunately give you a timeline because that is subject to their
approval.
Matt Love: — Okay, thank you.
Minister, I’d love to hear a genuine response from you to this question. In
Saskatchewan, we have 78,000 children living in poverty. That’s a higher rate
than any other province in the country. Not only do we have the highest number
of kids living in poverty; the depth of poverty here is greater than any other
province in the country. And when we look at provincial contributions to school
nutrition funding, we are in last place.
When our kids attend school and they’re
hungry, they cannot learn. They cannot function. They cannot reach their
potential. That, I hope you and I would agree, is one of the goals of a
well-resourced education system: to help our children reach their potential.
In fact in Saskatchewan, if we tripled
our provincial contribution to school nutrition, we would still be in last
place. That’s how far behind we are. So my question to you, Minister: are you
comfortable presenting a budget in a province with the highest rates of
children living in poverty that has the lowest contribution to school nutrition
in the entire country?
An
Hon. Member: — Point of order.
Chair Keisig: — Point of order.
David Chan: — I fail to see how
the question has to do with the budget. You’re asking the minister if he’s
comfortable. That is not what this committee’s for.
Chair Keisig: — I will ask the member opposite to
rephrase that question and tie it into the budget that we are debating here
today.
Matt Love: — I believe I
expressed myself very clearly. Is the minister comfortable presenting this
budget? If we tripled the amount of money in this budget for school nutrition —
these are questions about this budget — we would still be in last place in the
country. So the question . . . I mean, I think the minister can
decide if he wants to answer that. This is a question about a budget that he’s
presented and the dollars in that budget dedicated to school nutrition.
David Chan: — The question is
how he feels about the budget. I find that question out of order. The question
needs to be on the budget itself and on the work of the government.
Chair Keisig: — Thank you, MLA Chan, for that. The
member opposite has tied the question back into the budget on what finances are
being put toward school nutrition programs. And I think I’ll ask the minister
to answer.
[16:00]
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
Yeah. Absolutely. And again I
would speak to a couple things. One, we’re grateful for the collaboration of
the federal government and the federal dollars that are over and above what the
province is doing. I talked about the number in this year’s budget: $2.8 million
for the provincial child nutrition program.
Years previous
to that have increased by 2 and 3 per cent. In ’24‑25: 2.6, 2.7‑ish. ’25‑26: $2.73 million, another 3 per cent
increase. So we have been making increases to the amount of funds going towards
the provincial child nutrition program. We have the addition of the national
school food program as well that is helping to address some of the needs in our
schools across Saskatchewan.
Chair Keisig: — I recognize MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. I’d like to turn our attention
to page 42 of the budget estimates and look at library funding. And so it appears
to me that the budgeted amount for this year is 16 million, and that the
increase then would be $175,000 if we do that, making a 1.09 per cent increase
for this year. What would be the cost of your pegging for inflation? And would
that 1.09 per cent be adequate just to meet inflation or any other expenditures
that would come, like power bills and things like that?
Clint Repski: —
The increase provided to libraries this year was a 2 per cent increase. When
you take a look at the Estimates book, the transfers that we provide out to the
regional and municipal libraries increased by 2 per cent this year. If you take
a look at the difference in the Estimates book page 42, that’s the overall
increase. What’s included in there is the ministry portion, so our Provincial
Library office. So the libraries in the sector, they did get a 2 per cent
increase.
Joan Pratchler: — What amount would
that be then?
Clint Repski: — Pardon me?
Joan Pratchler: — What would be the final dollar amount then?
Clint Repski: — The
transfer to is the . . . The total funding:
municipal libraries is 1.456 million; regional libraries, 6.386 million;
and for Pahkisimon NuyeɁáh, 1.050 million.
Joan Pratchler: — So then can you
clear up the difference that we’re reading here that the libraries would have?
On that second line under libraries, for allocations it says 11.731 million.
Is that incorrect?
Clint Repski:
— No. That number also includes our support funding for CommunityNet,
SILS [single integrated library system], multitype, and some out-of-province
pieces, and some disability funding to bring up the total to 11.731 million.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. And so how
many libraries do we have in our province? Last I counted it was around 300. Is
that correct?
Clint Repski:
— I don’t know exactly.
Sameema
Haque: — About 300 libraries.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. So this
$75,000 increase from last year would be spread out over those libraries?
Sameema
Haque: — This funding for the libraries comes
from two streams. The provincial government funding which is in the form of a
grant, and we give the grant to the regional library system or the municipal
library. So we give it to the actual regional library system, and they can
allocate it further. They have their own board. The board makes decisions. They
have local autonomy in regards to making decisions in regards to library
systems.
The second stream of funding is the
municipal levy that is put in. And all of these library systems, whether
they’re a regional library system or a municipal library, have the ability to
generate revenues through that stream as well.
Joan Pratchler: — And is it typical
that around 150 or 175,000 goes as an increase yearly? Is that typically the
increase you would have had last year or the year before?
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
Increase this year, as the deputy minister had shared, is a 2 per cent
increase. Previously, in ’23‑24, it was a 3 per cent increase in resource
sharing grants to our library system. But there’s other areas, as was mentioned
previously. And I’ll ask Sameema to give us some
further detail where we provide some supports and funding to the library
sector.
Sameema
Haque: — So funding and funding supports for
libraries have taken many shapes. As the minister mentioned, sometimes an
increase in the grants. We’ve provided other supports to the libraries as well
too, and those all come with some costs attached to them. For example we
provide internet services; 2.4 million is allocated for that this year.
And that would be to provide internet services, high-speed internet services
across all the library systems.
In addition we sometimes purchase
equipment for the libraries as well. For example we’ve spent 500,000 this year
to purchase brand new routers that would provide a safer internet connection.
So those kinds of initiatives also go on, and they are provincially supported.
We support the courier costs for
interlibrary transfers of books and materials. And that is a significant cost
because that’s shipment all across the province. Right now we have 1.2 million
set aside for that particular assistance, and all of that is covered through
the Provincial Library office.
We also buy books for the library
system. So we bulk purchase books. We provide funding for accessible materials
for, you know, our citizens that require alternate . . . that have a
visual disability. So we also support the library systems through a multitude
of other assistances that could actually reduce their administrative costs,
such as cataloguing services and other administrative tasks through the
Provincial Library and Literacy Office.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. And when the
general public would read this estimate, let’s say they would, I would see that
the goals at the paragraph above says that it’s for the benefit of all
Saskatchewan residents and increases the opportunities for child and family
literacy, which I think are very important.
But when one does the calculation, that
$175 divided over 300 libraries, it comes to $583.83 for a library. Barely buys
15 books. So I’m not just quite sure . . . And that’s fine because
this is what this budget says here. That’s really, I don’t think that’s
supporting as well, but that is my own commentary on that.
So switching to child care now, I’m just
wondering if you would be able to table the reporting that you do to the
federal government for the past two years regarding the child care numbers. And
we don’t have to go through them now. If you can just furnish them to the
committee that would be fine for us.
[16:15]
Sameema
Haque: — As I mentioned, the process for the
national school food program, which is a federal agreement . . .
Similar to that, in these federal agreements that are child care related, we do
the same thing. We have to collect information, negotiate the data with the
operators as well as with the federal government. And all of those reports are
available online. They are posted once they are approved by the federal
government; signed off, they are posted. The English version is usually posted
very quickly, and the French version is posted once we receive the official,
approved translated version from the federal government. They’re all available
on Saskatchewan.ca.
Joan Pratchler: — And those would be
for the years, this past year and the year before as well?
Sameema
Haque: — They’re annual reports.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay, good. I’d
like to talk about assessment and literacy. What amount of funding has been set
aside to address literacy challenges of students grade 4 to grade 12 who can’t
read at grade level? Because I know, as an administrator and a teacher, we do all
kind of testing up to grade 3, and we know exactly when they can’t read after
grade 3. But I’m not quite sure what supports are available for beyond that.
Jason Pirlot: — So as you know we
do have the money in the budget for the K to 3 literacy, and I think we can all
agree that’s important work. To your question on 4 to 12, we’ve spent a lot of
time over the last little bit here building up that K to 3 work. Pretty proud
of that work.
Sean’s team and the team back at the
ministry and the work with the sector has been excellent, and I think we’re in
a pretty good spot. Having said that, once we have that process stood up we
plan to move quickly into 4 to 6. And we acknowledge that there’s literacy
challenges for kids that are slipping, and we need to catch up with them and
provide those supports.
Joan Pratchler: — And what kind of
supports are in place to address our PISA [Programme for International Student
Assessment] results, which are tanking?
Chair
Keisig: — MLA Pratchler, could you just use
the proper name instead of PISA, like not the acronym? What does PISA stand
for?
Joan Pratchler: — Oh, it’s a testing
we do at 15‑year-olds about science, math, social studies. It’s a global
assessment. I forget what that stands for. I’ve always used it for the last 40
years but that’s what it is, yeah.
Chair Keisig: — Okay, yeah.
Obviously the officials and the minister know what it is here.
Joan Pratchler: — Program for
international assessment. Yeah, it’s international.
Jason Pirlot:
— Thanks for the question. And yeah, we discussed this a little bit at Public
Accounts Committee not too long ago. What the province is doing is we’re
introducing a new Saskatchewan student assessment program. Field testing, we’ll
start that this spring actually on that program.
As we discussed at Public Accounts
Committee, we’re pretty excited about this program. We have a lot of support
from the sector. We’ve done a lot of work with the sector and with teachers in
terms of preparing the nature of the assessment, working to prepare the
questions that will be involved in the assessment. And we have a tremendous
team back at the ministry working really hard to have it in place and ready to
go here for this spring, which will be field testing.
So that assessment will actually be in
English language arts for grades 4, 7, and 10. And it will be in mathematics
for grades 5 and 9. It’s a curricular-based assessment. So that’s an important
point because effectively what we’re going to have when we start getting
results back is we’re going to have information on how students are doing in
terms of comprehension of the curriculum.
This is I think a very important point
and separates it from other assessment practices in that it will provide very
valuable information back to not only the province but also schools, school
divisions, and teachers in terms of how their practices and approaches are
working. And it provides a very consistent and objective barometer, so to
speak, in terms of across the province are kids understanding the curriculum
that’s sitting in front of them in those grades?
From I guess an educational policy
perspective, it also is going to provide very important information back to the
province. And as I mentioned to you in Public Accounts a while back, grade 5
mathematics for instance, you know, the needs of students change. Best practice
in curriculum changes. And this will give us a pretty good understanding on, is
our grade 5 math curriculum still where it needs to be? Or as we look at those
results and kind of to I guess the preface of your question as it relates to PISA,
as we think about where our kids are at in terms of their understanding of our
curriculum, you know, what changes might we want to make to improve mathematics
across the province?
Joan Pratchler: — And just on that
note, how many people are tagged with working in your curriculum department in
the ministry then?
Sean Chase: — Sean Chase,
executive director for student achievement and supports. Our overall branch is
34 members.
Joan Pratchler: — And how many
people work in the finance department of the Ministry of Education?
Jason Pirlot:
— Hi there. So for our finance area, we have seven people in the ministry.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you.
Chair Keisig: — I recognize MLA Love.
Matt Love: — Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Minister, I’ve got a question here. I’m looking at data in your ’24‑25
annual report, and I’m curious if you can update the committee on this data. So
I’m looking at page 8 of this report: “percentage of students in grades 1 to 3
reading at or above grade level.” If you can report for the committee the most
recent numbers that you have, probably for the ’24‑25 school year, and
how did that data inform decisions you made for this budget?
[16:30]
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
So ’24-25 numbers, that’s what the member is looking for, for the various
groups, right? Okay. So grade 1 students reading at or above grade level:
overall, 60.7 per cent; Indigenous, 37.6; non-Indigenous, 65.3. Grade 2: all
students, 64.6; Indigenous, 42.7; non-Indigenous, 68.8. And then grade 3: all,
66.8; Indigenous, 44.1 per cent; and non-Indigenous, 71.7 per cent.
And then I would just say that, you
know, that overall that’s why in terms of how does that inform the decisions
that are being made with respect to reading results in our students in grades 1
to 3 and to the previous questions about all of our students, that does inform
the decisions we’re making.
The $2 million that would’ve been
in the budget last year, and then as we’re making the decision about what are
we doing for K to 3 literacy in the new budget, and that again was a $2 million
investment and will continue to be a priority for the government to be able to
make these financial investments into literacy.
And also in addition and in
collaboration with the assessment that’s being done, making sure that we’re
tracking these results, and of course ultimately providing the supports that we
need to for the students so that those numbers can improve across the province.
Chair Keisig: — Thank you, Minister. It is now 4:34.
Having reached our agreed-upon time for consideration of these estimates, we
will now adjourn consideration of the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2
for the Ministry of Education. Minister, do you have any closing comments?
Hon. Everett
Hindley: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just again to thank the committee for their time and for
their questions here this afternoon. And to the staff in my office here at the
Legislative Assembly, the team that helps prepare us for this. And of course
all those with the Ministry of Education who are here are today and last night
as well.
Officials from the DLC
[Distance Learning Centre] who joined us as well to answer a number of
questions last night, thank you too to those folks for the work they do in
collaboration with everyone in the education sector to make sure that we do
this good work on behalf of the sector, students, and everyone that’s part of
the education system. So thanks to everyone for their continued efforts towards
excellence in education.
Chair Keisig: — Thank you, Minister. MLA Pratchler, do
you have any closing comments?
Joan Pratchler: — I echo those
comments. Thank you for all the work you do to help the children of our
province reach their potential. Appreciate it.
Chair Keisig: — MLA Love?
Matt Love: — Yeah. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. Thanks to my colleagues on the committee for the last seven hours.
Thanks to my colleagues on this side. It’s nice to have partners in this work,
and I’m very honoured to get to do this work with MLA Pratchler after her distinguished
career in Catholic education as a teacher and administrator. It’s great to have
a partner here.
To all the officials who are here, thank
you so much for the work that you do on behalf of our children, our teachers,
our education workers. We know that there’s much that goes on behind the scenes
that we don’t often have an opportunity to say thank you for. So on behalf of
the opposition again, thank you for your work, and thank you for the time that
we’ve spent here over the last seven hours together.
Chair Keisig: — Well thank you for that. Thank you,
Minister, for your time. Thank you to the committee members for the good
questions, and thank everyone for their due diligence. This committee will
recess until 5 p.m. in this Chamber. Thank you.
[The
committee recessed from 16:36 until 17:00.]
Chair Keisig: — Welcome back, committee members. We
have MLA Nippi-Albright chitting in for MLA ChiefCalf. We have MLA Jared Clarke
chitting in for MLA Blakley. We have MLA Bromm; MLA Chan; and MLA McLeod
chitting in for MLA Kropf. And MLA Jorgenson joining us as well.
General Revenue Fund
Health
Vote 32
Subvote
(HE01)
Chair Keisig: — We will now proceed with considerations
of vote 32, Health, central management and services, subvote (HE01).
Minister Carr, Minister Cockrill, they
are here with their officials. I would ask that officials please state your
name before speaking and do not touch the microphone. The Hansard
operator will turn your microphone on when you are speaking to the committee.
Minister, I would like to invite you to
introduce your officials and make your opening remarks.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Well thank you,
Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. I would introduce all of the
officials, but I think we’ll just introduce them as they come up to the chair,
because we have a few here with us this evening.
I’m pleased to be here today to
highlight the significant investments made under my portfolio of Mental Health
and Addictions, Seniors and Rural and Remote Health. Today I will focus on the
initiatives within my portfolio. These investments directly support patients
and families. We are putting patients first by improving access to care,
expanding services, and ensuring supports are available closer to home.
I would like to express my sincere
thanks to the Ministry of Health officials, our health partners, and front-line
health care staff across Saskatchewan. Their continued dedication and
commitment ensures patients receive safe, compassionate, and timely care in
communities across the province.
Continuing to make progress on mental
health and addictions remains a top priority for our government. This year we
are making a record investment of $673.7 million. It’s an increase of
$49.9 million or 8 per cent over last year. This is a significant
investment. It reflects the importance of ensuring that Saskatchewan people
have access to mental health and addictions services they need. It allows us to
continue building treatment capacity, expanding recovery-oriented services, and
improving access for patients and families.
At its core, this is about people
receiving the care they need when and where they need it. We are putting
patients first by building a system that is easier to access, better
coordinated, and more responsive to individual needs. Our objective is for patients
to receive the right care at the right time and in the right place.
We recognize that mental health and
addictions challenges continue to have a significant impact across
Saskatchewan. Individuals, families, and communities are experiencing the
effects of substance use and mental health concerns. These challenges place increasing
pressure on emergency responders, health care providers, and community
supports.
Every life lost to overdose is a
tragedy. Our government remains deeply committed to providing available
resources for individuals struggling with addictions. We are opening up access
to services and supports they need to pursue recovery and live healthy lives.
We recognize the impact that mental
health and addiction challenges have on individuals but also on families,
caregivers, and communities across Saskatchewan. These challenges affect every
part of a person’s life. They require a coordinated, compassionate, and
patient-oriented response across the entire system of care.
We have now reached the midway point of
our five-year mental health and addictions action plan. This plan is focused on
doubling treatment and recovery capacity, improving access to services, and
strengthening outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. It continues
to be guided by the three key pillars: building capacity for treatment,
improving the system, and transitioning to a recovery-oriented system of care
with a strong focus on treatment and recovery. Together these pillars are
helping to create a more coordinated and responsive system that better supports
people at every stage of their recovery journey.
I’m pleased to provide an overview of
this year’s record investment of 673.7 million in mental health and
addictions programs. This includes an increase of over 23 million in
targeted funding to expand services, improve access, and strengthen recovery-oriented
care. This funding is focused in three key areas: 10.8 million to build
treatment capacity, 9.6 million to strengthen a recovery-oriented system
of care, and 3 million to improve access and navigation.
These targeted investments are completed
by 26.5 million to support increased demand for hospital-based services,
physician visits, and prescription medications to ensure continuity of care
across the system. These investments reflect a growing demand and the need for
services across a full continuum of care from early intervention and
counselling to intensive treatment and long-term recovery supports.
Every individual’s path to recovery is
different. These investments represent a comprehensive approach to strengthen
mental health and addictions services. We are seeing steady and meaningful
progress in expanding access to care and supporting recovery across Saskatchewan.
We are putting patients first by
expanding the treatment capacity so people can access care closer to home when
they are ready to seek help. More than 300 of the planned 500 new addictions
treatment and recovery spaces are now operational across the province. This
represents important progress towards fulfilling our commitment. This includes
the recent addition of 15 second-stage sober living spaces at St. Joseph’s
Addiction Recovery Centre in Estevan and 16 second-stage sober living spaces at
Pine Lodge in Regina.
We are continuing the momentum with
approximately 200 additional spaces planned over the next 12 months. These
spaces are being developed across multiple communities throughout the province
so that individuals in both urban and rural areas have improved access to
treatment options closer to where they live. Expanding access in this way helps
reduce travel barriers and support earlier intervention. It also allows
individuals to remain closer to their families and support networks during
recovery.
Increasing treatment capacity remains a
key priority. We know that timely access to appropriate care can significantly
improve outcomes for individuals and families, and it saves lives.
Besides increased funding towards the
500‑space commitment, this budget provides capital funding to establish a
new, secure youth detox site and expand access to counselling services. The
creation of the new six-bed secure youth detox site at Calder Centre in
Saskatoon will double Saskatchewan’s secure youth detox capacity. Currently
Saskatchewan has one six-bed secure youth detox unit located in Regina. This
expansion will significantly improve access for youth and families across the
province.
This site will provide detox,
stabilization, and treatment in one location. It will follow a
recovery-oriented approach that supports improved outcomes for young people
requiring intensive services. It will also reduce the need for families to
travel long distances for care, removing a key barrier to accessing timely
treatment. We’re putting patients first by improving access to specialized
services for youth and supporting families during some of the most challenging
moments
Rapid access counselling also continues
to be an important part of the system. These services provide free, walk-in
mental health counselling without referral, delivering both in person and
virtually. This budget supports the continued availability of services in more
than 30 communities, ensuring adults can access timely support without long
wait times. This type of early intervention is critical in preventing more
serious mental health challenges and reducing pressure on other parts of the
health care system.
Improving how patients and families
connect to care is another key priority. A $3 million investment will
support continued development of the central intake and navigation system. It
will also support expansion of the virtual access to addiction medicine, or VAAM, program.
The central intake system will provide a
coordinated approach to accessing addictions services, allowing individuals to
self-refer and receive support in navigating available programs. This system
will improve clarity, consistency, and fairness in access while helping
patients and families better understand where to go for help. The system will
be implemented in phases beginning in 2026 and will support coordination across
more than 700 addictions treatment spaces.
At the same time, the VAAM program is improving access to addiction medication
across Saskatchewan. Launched in January 2026 in communities including
Lloydminster, Nipawin, and Cumberland House Cree Nation, VAAM
provides access to assessment, treatment, and ongoing support seven days a week
from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Patients can receive care by phone or video in
partnership with local services such as laboratories, out-patient counselling,
and pharmacists.
This model is particularly important for
rural and northern residents, improving access to care. It also helps ensure
continuity of care and timely intervention, which are critical in preventing
escalation and supporting recovery.
Together these initiatives improve
coordination and create a more seamless experience for patients and families.
We are putting patients first by reducing barriers to care, improving
navigation, and ensuring individuals and families are supported at every step
of their journey.
We continue to strengthen our
recovery-oriented system of care with a $9.6 million investment. This
approach recognizes that recovery is an individual journey and that people may
require different types and durations of care. It ensures that services are
better aligned to meet individuals where they are, whether they are in crisis,
seeking treatment, or maintaining recovery. We are putting patients first by
recognizing that recovery looks different for everyone and ensuring care is
tailored to individual needs and timelines.
This funding will support the expansion
of complex-needs facilities in Prince Albert and North Battleford with work
under way at different stages of development. These facilities build on the
existing 15‑bed sites in Regina and Saskatoon, which have already
supported more than 4,800 individuals.
Complex-needs
facilities provide a safe, secure, and medically supervised environment. Individuals
in crisis can stabilize while being monitored for the effects of drugs or
alcohol. Individuals may remain in these facilities for up to 24 hours for
stabilization and assessment, and are connected to appropriate supports and
services afterwards.
These
facilities are staffed by trained health professionals and support staff who
are experienced in detox and withdrawal management, ensuring individuals
receive appropriate care in a safe environment. They play a critical role in
supporting both patient care and community safety by providing a health-focused
alternative to emergency departments or correctional settings. They also
provide an important connection point to ongoing supports, including addictions
treatments, housing, and community services.
We
are also moving forward with the initial phase of The Compassionate
Intervention Act. This model will be used in rare circumstances where
individuals with severe and life-threatening addictions are unable to seek help
on their own despite significant risk. This approach is intended to provide a
pathway to care for individuals who are at significant risk of harm to
themselves and others while ensuring that appropriate medical and mental health
supports are available to begin the recovery process.
Connecting
patients to primary care. As Minister Cockrill will highlight tomorrow evening,
our government also continues to invest in strengthening primary care across
the province. We are putting patients first by improving access to primary care
to ensure patients receive timely, coordinated services.
Within
my portfolio of Rural and Remote Health, these efforts are supported through
targeted investments. A $1.8 million increase will support the expansion
of patient medical homes, including 10 sites that have been approved or
expanded in rural communities across the province. These team-based models
bring together physicians, nurse practitioners, and allied health professionals
to provide coordinated, patient-centred care.
By
enabling providers to work to their full scope of practice, these teams
increase capacity and improve access for more patients. Patients benefit from
more timely appointments, better coordination of services, and care that is
tailored to their individual needs.
We
are also investing $1 million in virtual care innovation. Virtual care
plays an important role in ensuring patients can access care in a timely and
convenient way, particularly in rural and northern communities, where travel
can be a barrier. This year’s investment builds on the success of the virtual
physician program, which now supports 30 rural hospital sites.
[17:15]
This
program has helped avoid more than 5,200 potential emergency room disruptions
across Saskatchewan. The virtual physician program helps to retain rural and
northern physicians by creating consult support and virtual team-based care.
We
have also partnered with Whitecap Dakota First Nation to establish the Virtual
Health Hub, the first of its kind in Canada, using advanced technology to
support northern communities. Technicians for the Virtual Health Hub are being
trained at the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, strengthening
Indigenous workforce participation and leadership. These innovations are
improving access to care and helping ensure that patients can receive the
services they need.
Seniors
and people with complex medical needs. Providing safe, high-quality care and
supports for seniors and people with complex medical needs or disabilities
remains a priority for our government. This year’s budget includes a
$9.2 million investment to enhance long-term care, home care, and
community-based supports. We are putting patients first by supporting seniors
to maintain independence, age with dignity, and remain connected to their
families and communities.
A
$4.7 million increase will support long-term care services, including
staffing and enhanced oversight and quality improvement. This includes support
for more personalized long-term care services, staffing for beds in Regina and
La Ronge, and enhanced inspection oversight and quality improvement.
A
$3.9 million investment will strengthen home care services across
Saskatchewan. Home care remains a critical service that allows individuals to
receive care in familiar environments while maintaining quality of life. This
investment supports seniors to age in place, reducing the need for
institutional care and helping individuals remain safely in their homes for as
long as possible.
An
additional 651,000 will support community-based programs for people with
complex needs or disabilities. This includes the Rural and Remote Memory Clinic
community-based dementia program and an autism summer program. These programs
also provide important supports for caregivers and families, recognizing the
essential role they play in supporting loved ones.
As
Minister Cockrill
will touch on tomorrow, our government continues to invest in rural and remote
health care to improve access to care across the province. A $6.7 million
increase will support physician recruitment and retention, including expansion
of the rural physician incentive program and supports for internationally
trained physicians.
We are also investing in workplace development through $984,000 to support registered
nurses training to become nurse practitioners and $290,000 for an Indigenous
continuing care assistant pilot program. These initiatives support a
grow-your-own approach to building a sustainable health workforce in rural and
northern communities. By supporting training and career development within
Saskatchewan, we are helping ensure communities have access to health care
providers who understand local needs and are committed to providing care close
to home.
In
addition, 8.7 million in ongoing funding continues to support the rural
and remote recruitment incentive program. Since its launch, this program has
attracted more than 500 health care workers to communities experiencing
staffing challenges. These investments are helping to stabilize health
services, reduce disruptions, and improve continuity of care for patients
living in rural and remote areas.
Through
all of these investments that I had the opportunity to highlight today, we are
advancing a patient-first approach to health care in Saskatchewan. This
approach improves access to care and delivers the right care in the right place
and at the right time.
We
recognize there is more work to be done, and we remain committed to do that
work. We remain committed to building a more responsive, more coordinated, and
better equipped health care system. We are working hard to meet the needs of
Saskatchewan people today and into the future.
My
officials and I would now be pleased to take your questions.
Chair
Keisig: — Thank you,
Minister, for your opening comments, and I want to welcome MLA Kropf to the
committee. I will now open the floor to questions. MLA Nippi-Albright.
Betty Nippi-Albright: — Miigwech,
Minister. Miigwech . . . Thank you to both you and your officials for
being here this evening and for all that are taking time away from their
children and families to sit here and take our questions and hopefully be able
to respond to them. So I appreciate this opportunity to ask questions on the
mental health and addictions budget.
I want to begin by noting that I have a limited
amount of time tonight because I have to share the time with my colleagues. And
I don’t want to take away from the time my colleagues need for their critic
areas.
To make the best use of everyone’s time, I
would ask if the minister or her officials don’t have any of the answers to my
questions this evening, I’m requesting that those answers be tabled pretty quickly, right.
And that they be tabled so that we can get as many answers to our questions
this evening.
So
we need to properly evaluate the six point three point eight million dollar
budget. We need some timely information, so that’s why I ask that if you don’t
have the information tonight that if it could be presented, regarding my
questions anyway.
So
with that, I’m going to ask you — and because it’s mental health and
addictions, I’ll just start with mental health, for example — so of the total
budget that you have, how much of that is allocated just to mental health
supports and services?
And
if you don’t have the answers, you just table it and then we’ll move on to the
next question.
Hon. Lori Carr: — So in this year’s budget of a total of
674 million, 502 million is directed to mental health supports.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you. So of that portion for mental health, how much is specifically
allocated to supports for children, for youth, parents, and their families? And
also adults? So how much of that portion is allocated specifically for
children, youth, families, and of course adults?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So thank you very much for the
question. Within I guess our mental health buckets of funding, we have several
different types of services. And within that service it would actually service
whether that be youth or adults or families. So it’s kind of commingled in all
different types of services. So it would be very difficult to break that out
into specific buckets that you’re asking for.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Actually it would be good to have those broken down so we have a better idea.
If that’s something that could be presented probably within the next couple
weeks, that would be really helpful. But thank you for . . . I assume
that they’re all in the same, but it would be nice to hear, see how much is
actually for specific groups in that area.
So I’m going to move on to the question
on how much of this budget is actually dedicated to school-based mental health
supports. That’s including counsellors, mental health literacy, prevention
programs, and crisis support for students as well as educators. So how much of
this year’s budget is dedicated to those school-based mental health supports?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you very
much for the question. So what we have for school-based mental health supports
is actually funded through the Ministry of Education. Having said that, it is
the mental health capacity funding, and the goal is to have that in all 27
school divisions across the province.
And I know that within the Creighton
School Division we have that program up and running. And some extra supports
were put there, recognizing the very difficult year that has happened there.
And any counsellors that would be available for anything like this would also
be funded through the Ministry of Education.
[17:30]
I think at one time it was within our
Health portfolio. But just because of the nature of how the funding flows to
all of the school divisions, we felt it was more appropriate that they take and
divvy it up amongst the school divisions because they know better where the
services are needed, especially if they have to ramp up something.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you for that. Just for clarity so I can understand better, so of the Mental
Health dollars, do you give dollars to Education to do the mental health piece
for this?
Hon. Lori Carr: — They have their
own funding bucket. We don’t give it to them, so they have their own line item
for that.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
So do you have a timeline of when you will have the school-based mental health
supports for all the schools within the province? Do you have a timeline for
that?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So I don’t know
the exact number. That would definitely be a Ministry of Education question, so
I guess whoever your critic is for Education.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Okay. Yeah, it would be good to know because I think there’s . . . We
know that mental health impacts every one of us, right? And when we look at the
schools, for example, for the children as well as the educators in the school,
we know that we get transfer dollars from the federal government for mental
health.
And I just want to know if . . .
I guess I would like to get a better picture. Other than Education, who gets
funds for . . . They have a lot. But at what point does Mental Health
fund where there’s no capacity for Education to do the mental health supports
that they need? At what point? Is there a threshold where Mental Health, the
ministry, the money comes out of that to say, you guys are really struggling?
And
we know that mental health is really affecting so many people, more so than it
has in the past. Is there a point, is there a threshold that says that if
schools are needing more mental health supports, that Mental Health dollars
will come and help?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So I think we can
take for example the extreme circumstances that happened during the wildfires
this summer, right? And some of that was during school time and obviously will
affect people for some time to come.
So as we worked our way through that and
as we listened to the community and tried to target supports to where they were
needed . . . Of course we had the mental health capacity in the
schools to start with, but what we actually did was we set up something called
a rapid response team. And that team was right in the community, working with
individuals to see where the needs were.
When it comes to mental health needs, we
would draw on the resources that we already have within the province, within
our ministry, and put those teams out there to help where and when needed,
ensuring that the right literature was out there for individuals if they just
wanted to make a phone call to talk through something and not necessarily
something in person.
So those are the types of supports that
we would insert into a community on an as-needed basis, whether it’s the
community as a whole . . . If it’s something that has specifically
happened within a school, then those additional resources would absolutely be
put into that school to help out with whatever situation is going on at that
point in time.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you for that. I’m pleased that you shared what you do with what’s
happened with the schools and, of course, the fires. I want to talk about . . .
And I’m glad you brought that up. One of the things my colleagues from the
North have shared, and also I’ve received calls about communities, individuals
across the northern province that have no access to mental health supports.
And we have high, high rates of suicide
amongst our young people. And we have families that live in the far North and
in the northern communities that are in perpetual mourning, loss because young
people are dying every single day. Their community members are dying every day.
And one of the things that we hear often
is that there’s no one there for them in terms of mental health supports, that
yes, we have supports, but they’re not being . . . we’re not able to
staff them. And that’s a challenge, especially when communities are mourning
the loss of loved ones, whether they died by suicide or drug overdose, or are
in mental health distress because of what they have to endure.
And
we know that challenges are there — huge, huge challenges in the North — and
the issues they face in the North are very different than what we face down in
the South. So how much of the budget is going and is dedicated to northern
communities to include mental health counsellors, prevention programs, crisis
support strictly for mental health?
[17:45]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So northern Saskatchewan residents can access mental health and
addictions services via a range of professionals including social workers,
mental health therapists, addiction counsellors, family physicians, and nurses,
as well as visiting the telemedicine services from psychiatrists and other
professionals. Acute in-patient mental health services for residents of the
North are available through nearby in-patient facilities primarily in Prince
Albert, North Battleford, and Saskatoon.
Mental health services are typically
provided by the SHA [Saskatchewan Health Authority] for off-reserve residents,
while Indigenous Services Canada and the First Nation Bands deliver services
for individuals on-reserve. All Saskatchewan residents experiencing mental
health addictions issues, including those in the North, have access to call or
text lines such as 811, 988, Kids Help Phone, mobile crisis lines, and the Hope
for Wellness online chat service.
We also have funding for suicide
prevention including 1.1 million for Roots of Hope community suicide
prevention projects in Meadow Lake, La Ronge, Ile-a-la-Crosse, Prince Albert,
and North Battleford; and 480,000 for a grant program that provides support for
training and awareness-related suicide prevention initiatives for individuals.
We also have the VAAM
program, the virtual addictions medicine program which . . . I’m just
going to turn over to Derek Miller, if you want to give your title and explain
that a little bit, how it works for the North.
Derek Miller:
— Yes. Thank you, Minister. Good evening. I’m Derek Miller. I’m the chief
operating officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, and I’m pleased to
join you this evening and share information around the virtual access to
addiction medicine program. Virtual access to addiction medicine provides
virtual, timely access to physicians, nurses, and counsellors who specialize in
addiction medicine.
Our goal is to make treatment easier to
reach, especially for people in rural and remote areas who may not have a local
prescriber. The initial phase of virtual access to addiction medicine provided
services to Lloydminster, Nipawin, and Cumberland House, as well as to clients
in detox and recovery treatment centres in the province.
VAAM has expanded to additional communities
in the northeast area including Nipawin, Carrot River, Arborfield, Choiceland, Tobin Lake, Cumberland House Cree First Nation,
Shoal Lake Cree First Nation, Red Earth First Nation. And we continue to have
conversations with First Nations communities for expansions during phase 2.
We launched the program initially on the
26th of January 2026. And it’s open to individuals living in the identified
communities that we’ve rolled out to, as well as others that may be attending a
detox or recovery treatment centre. Patients accessing the program would be 18
years or older and be looking for help with substance abuse and be open to
treatment options including medication.
A few services that an individual could
expect when they access the program is meant to be a holistic approach,
including timely assessment and prescriptions for addictions medication;
virtual appointments with physicians, nurses, and counsellors; screening for
sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections; brief counselling and
connection to community supports; stabilization and transition to local care
when possible; and culturally safe and trauma-informed care for all clients.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you for that, Mr. Miller. So my questions have been on just mental health
right now, but thank you for also sharing on the substance use side of this.
I sit here and I wonder about, and I’m
concerned about, the old people, our Elders that don’t have access to internet,
that can’t get themselves to the clinics for the virtual treatment to help with
their mental health. We have these historians, the old people, our Elders in
the communities, especially in the North, that are asked for guidance and help
when they themselves are also experiencing the stress and anxiety that comes
with their community members that are suffering from substance use harms or, in
this case, mental health.
But
so having said that, I guess the question I want to know is how much of the
budget is allocated for the expansion of the remote health incentive plan to
include mental health professions in the North?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So within the rural and remote recruitment incentive program, it’s
$8.73 million. Of course those are for nine professions across several
different professionalities, whether that be a
registered nurse or registered psychiatric nurses or whatever the case might
be. And if there are facilities in the North that have those vacancies, then
those positions would obviously be eligible for that. But we don’t actually
break it down specifically to the North because we look at the province as a
whole when we do that budgeting.
You talked a little bit about the Elders
and what about when they can’t access that virtual care because they’re not
comfortable with FaceTiming or whatever that might
be. Of course we still have first and foremost, we’d like to have individuals
close to them in their health care facilities that they can reach out because
our whole goal is to get the right care at the right time and in the right
place.
But we do have more traditional ways of
like, just a regular telephone call through the HealthLine
811 that can direct you to services that don’t have to be in person, that they
don’t have to be like on a computer or on a FaceTime call. It can literally be
a telephone conversation with a professional that can actually help
individuals, I guess, regardless of your age. But that is definitely one way
that seniors would be able to access those services successfully.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you, thank you for that. I’m going to move on. You know, I think about —
as many in this room and across the province think about — the first
responders, you know, the firefighters out there and the paramedics, the police
officers, the dispatchers, the hospital personnel that greet many of us if we
go to the ER [emergency room], the front-line workers that are out in the
communities helping us.
And we know that many people across the
province are struggling with their mental health. And I often wonder, how are
we there for those first responders? And what I would like to know is, how much
funding is allocated to support the first responders — whether it’s front-line
workers, hospital personnel, paramedics, officers, firefighters, dispatchers —
for their mental health needs?
[18:00]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So to ensure that patients and public receive the best care possible,
I have requested that the SHA actually put a plan in place for mental health
supports for EMS [emergency medical services] providers and all health care workers
within the health care system. SHA currently offers resources for SHA and
contracted EMS operators, as well as medical first responders that are
responding on behalf of the Health Authority.
There are critical incident stress
debriefing teams composed of individuals from mental health, EMS, and other
first responders. Accessing additional supports is not mandatory for employees,
but if an individual wants additional supports, access is available through the
employee family assistance program or their family physician.
Supports for individuals are also
available at a federal and provincial level for RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted
Police] veterans and first-line responders such as EMS, police, firefighters,
and other first-line responders who experience post-traumatic stress disorder
as an operational stress injury.
In May of ’25 we approved the SHA’s request to expand the EMS mental health and wellness
program, so now the total funding for that is 535 K. This funding supports the
addition of two mental health support peer-facilitators, as well as the
transition of the current mental health specialist into a manager position to
oversee that mental health and wellness program. The program also employs a
part-time psychologist.
And all of this funding did become
annualized in the ’26‑27 budget as well. We also give funding to the
River Valley Resilience Retreat in the amount of $250,000. And that is directly
for first responders.
We also have, on top of the employee and
family assistance program, which is that immediate support, if employees need
ongoing support within their plans there is an additional $2,000 for each
employee annually that they can spend on additional counselling if needed.
Betty Nippi-Albright:
— Thank you. I’m just going to ask now, just on a question
about how much of the budget is allocated for training, recruitment, retaining
mental health and addictions professionals?
[18:15]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you. So when
we look at, I guess, professionals within the SHA and we talk about training,
recruiting, and retaining of individuals, of course we have the whole incentive
program as a whole. To break it down into specifically for those mental health
professionals is really tough, because depending on what you’re taking, there’s
always a portion of that that does come into that mental health realm. But we
really do have quite a few things in place for that retention piece of, you
know, whether you’d be a mental health worker or a health professional as a
whole.
And I’m just going to ask Mike to
introduce himself and go through some of that information for you.
Mike Northcott:
— Thank you, Minister. My name is Mike Northcott. I’m the chief human resources
officer for the SHA.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak
about the SHA’s retention initiatives. It’s very
important. Obviously recruitment is important, but even more so is retention
and making sure that we support the staff that we have who do great work each
and every day for those we serve.
I will highlight the SHA well-being and
resilience website. So this is a resource made up of tools, practices to
enhance well-being and resilience. And that’s accessible to all our employees.
I’d also highlight the TELUS Health. So
this is a total mental health through the employee and family assistance
program, so a confidential and voluntary support for employees, physicians, and
families. It covers all areas of well-being, so mental, social, financial,
physical. Has a combination of caregiver support, counselling for example, and
comprehensive self-serve resources, so lots of videos and articles that can be
accessed.
The next item I would highlight is LifeSpeak. So this is an on-demand, comprehensive mental
health and well-being education from experts across many fields. It’s a very
good product.
Workplace strategies for mental health,
so offered in partnership with Canada Life, so tools for workplace mental
health and psychological safety. It includes supports, tools, articles, and
assessments for leaders and front-line team members and their families. The
psychological safety . . . So we have resources on creating
psychologically safe workplaces. We have the SHA violence prevention and
mitigation plan to help address violence and prevent that from happening.
We link folks to the University of
Regina’s online therapy unit. So it’s an online cognitive behaviour therapy to
assist those who are suffering from anxiety, depression, panic, trauma,
addictions, and other challenges, and there’s no cost for those.
We also have access for folks to the
Resilience Institute global assessment, so a seven-minute, evidence-based tool
that provides instant personalized insight for your resilient strengths and
areas for support. We also have a SHA well-being and resilience toolkit, so it
includes over 500 resources for leaders and teams.
I would highlight the 3S [Health Shared
Services Saskatchewan] health benefits.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Can we get back to the question about who they’re recruiting? You’re talking
about services.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Part of the question was how we are going
to retain some of these individuals, and these programs and services that are
offered are very important to help them feel valued and have services that are
available to them to help retain them within the workplace. So I believe that
is what Mr. Northcott is going through.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: — Okay.
Thank you.
Hon. Lori Carr: — You’re welcome.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: — Thank you
so much. I’ll move on to the next question.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Okay.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: — Thank you
so much.
Hon. Lori Carr: — You’re welcome.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: — So first
of all I want to say that . . . And I’m going to move on to the
addictions piece, the substance use harms. I just want to give out a shout-out
to St. Joe’s. They do phenomenal work for substance use harms, and it’s really
good to hear that they’ve expanded, or the government’s expanded to their sober
living homes.
The other one
that’s doing phenomenal work of course is Pine Lodge. And it’s always good that
investments are made to programs that are doing phenomenal work like St. Joe’s,
Pine Lodge, and also culturally Indigenous-led treatment centres like
Battlefords Treatment Centre. So it’s good to see that.
What I would like to know though, in addition
to the expansion of these sober living homes or additional services to these
really good treatment centres, facilities that are helping those that want to
abstain from substance use harms, how much funding is in this budget for
in-province, non-profit, community-based treatment facilities? How much have
they received in this budget for capacity expansion?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you. I guess
I just want to start off with, thank you for acknowledging the work that’s
going on at St. Joseph’s Hospital. That was the first in the province for
recovery-oriented system of care. They celebrated their fifth anniversary last
year, and it really is a model of what that holistic approach looks like for
recovery, you know, the detox, the treatment spaces, the post-treatment spaces.
And so we see the successes that are happening through that work, and that is
the work that we are expanding throughout the whole province. So I’m really
happy that you acknowledge the work that is going on there.
So we talk about the 500 spaces that we
want to add within our action plan for mental health and addictions. And we
already had those 500 existing spaces. As of today we have an additional 316
spaces on top of that that are up and running. So in this fiscal year, we plan
on getting to that full 500 spaces. And within this budget we have added an
additional $6.28 million in increased annualized funding towards actually
getting to that commitment of 500 spaces. And we’re really excited for that to
happen.
And of course as I’ve talked about in
the past and in the House, once all of those spaces are in place, then, you
know, stop; have a look. You know, where are the spaces? What are the spaces?
Where do we see gaps that might still be in place? Do we need more
in-treatment? Do we need more post-treatment? Where should they be in the
province at this point in time based on demand?
So all of that work will continue to
take place so that we can ensure that we get individuals the right care at the
right place and at the right time.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you for that. So out of the existing treatment facilities that we have,
that you have, besides the ones you’ve shared, have they received dollars for a
capacity expansion?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Can you just
repeat that for me?
Betty Nippi-Albright: — Yes. So you’ve got
these great programs that you’ve given dollars for. The ones that are already
in existence in terms of the . . . that are funded by the province,
those existing treatment centres and community support services, have they
received additional dollars to expand their capacity to keep doing the good
work that they’re doing?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you. So
obviously we have several providers that are providing services for us
throughout the entire province. Two of those facilities that have had
expansions are St. Joseph’s — they got that expansion of 15 post-treatment
spaces — as well as Pine Lodge here in Regina. They had an expansion of 16.
And I would also like to add that any of
our community-based organizations that are doing work for us, you know, whether
it be in . . . well both for mental health and addictions, they all
got a 2 per cent lift to all of their funding to help with the pressures that
they have, and last year they actually received a 3 per cent lift. So we
continue on with increasing for our community-based organizations as well.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Thank you. There was an ask for additional funds for mental health and
addictions emergency room supports. And can you explain why there’s no increase
for mental health and addictions emergency room supports?
[18:30]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. Your question was regarding an ask for emergency room supports. And I
mean I’d really like to say, to start off with, it is that there is absolutely
no shortage of good programs or services that we can add throughout the entire
system, you know. As we’re doing our budgeting, not everything ends up getting
funded. So within this budget for mental health and addictions and supports
that are provided, there’s a $49.9 million increase. That’s an 8 per cent
increase over last year, and last year we had just about an 8 per cent
increase.
But when we talk about our emergency
rooms and supports, I think it’s important to talk about the work that we’re
doing on our urgent care centres. If we look right here in the city of Regina,
the urgent care centre that has been put in place, it actually has a special
door for mental health and addictions and services for individuals like that.
And it’s those types of services that help take the stress off the other
emergency rooms that are within the city. And of course we have the urgent care
centre that is 75 per cent done in Saskatoon. Can’t wait to see that open up
and help that community out in many ways.
But we also have the complex-needs
emergency facilities, both in Saskatoon and Regina. And these facilities
directly, directly take people out of the emergency room as well as out of
possibly our correctional facilities. And so when we think holistically of all
of the services that are provided, those services are all funded to help with
emergency-type supports for individuals. And that work will continue as we move
forward.
Betty Nippi-Albright: — Thank you. The
other . . . I guess there’s another group that I was actually quite
intrigued is the police and crisis team enhancement team, otherwise known as
PACT [police and crisis team]. They also requested additional funds this year,
and they didn’t receive that. And yet we know that with the mental health and
addictions crisis, we need all hands on deck. But can you explain why PACT
didn’t get the additional dollars they were asking as well?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. With regards to PACT teams, we have several PACT teams throughout the
province already. This is a great service. It pairs a police officer with a
social worker. And I mean they de-escalate situations from happening by doing that
fine work. This is a partnership with Justice. You know, it’s just not Health
that actually does this. This is a partnership, excuse me, Community Safety
because now it falls under the Community Safety portfolio.
So we already fund several of these
teams throughout the province. They already exist in several locations. As we
go through the budget process, we always have asks that we want. We want to
build on existing programs, but priorities take place and we have to make
decisions. So there is the full services available that have always been there.
And we had to prioritize some of the initiatives that we’re already doing when
we talk about access to care and timely access to care and different things
like that.
But I would like to just reiterate and
highlight that within this budget we have made some decisions on increasing
services in different areas of mental health and addictions to the tune of 8
per cent of $49.9 million. So that work will continue. And you know, next
year we’re going to have several asks and initiatives come forward, probably
all good initiatives, and we just can’t fund them all.
Chair Keisig: — Minister or Ms. Albright, could you just
inform the committee of PACT? Acronyms are always a challenge for committee
members.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Yeah, it stands
for police and crisis team. Yeah, and really what they do is they take care of
crises kind of before, while they’re occurring, and de-escalate them so that
hopefully someone doesn’t have to go to cells. The situation can be worked out.
And yeah, they’re great teams to have in your community.
Chair Keisig: — Thank you for that.
Hon. Lori Carr: — You’re welcome.
And I’ll try not to use acronyms anymore.
[18:45]
Betty Nippi-Albright: — Okay, so a year
ago — actually I think it was exactly a year ago we were in estimates — I asked
you about the reporting from Willowview and the EHN
[Edgewood Health Network] contracts, and you did say that you would get those
to us. And we haven’t received any of those reports. And I met with actually
the CEO [chief executive officer] of EHN, Edgewood Health Network, Joe Manget. I hope I’m saying his name properly. Anyway he did
say that they do release all the quarterly reports to the ministry and those
reports are always available.
I’m wondering when we will be able to
see those reports or the ministry table those reports from EHN about Willowview and also the complex-needs units.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Could you clarify
what you’re asking for?
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
So last year I asked, during estimates, for the quarterly reports and also the
contract for EHN was granted for the complex-needs units, as well as the Willowview. And your exact words were, “We will be getting
those numbers from them . . . and it will be a regular requirement
within the contract.”
So I’m asking when we’ll be able to get
those quarterly reports that the CEO said that they already give. And is there
a time frame that we can get that within this year, or this session? And I’m
thinking that perhaps it was an oversight that these reports weren’t submitted.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Just one more
question to you before I go to the team here. I guess what are you looking for?
Because there’s several kinds of reporting that can happen, so I need to know
exactly what you’re looking for.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
We’re looking for the quarterly reports that state what their objectives are,
what they’re being funded for, what the target measures are, what the success
rates are, how many people actually went through Willowview,
how many people completed the program, how many people have sustained recovery,
how many people in the complex-needs units actually received counselling or
found recovery.
We’re
looking for the target measures. We’re looking for what was said was going to
be done and what actually happened. That’s what we’re looking for. So that
would be included in the quarterly reports. Does that provide clarification?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Okay, so with
regards to the actual contract with EHN, that’s not something that we’re
prepared to release because it is competitive in nature. We have several
different companies that are going to be bidding on spaces, so that would
release information that is very competitive in nature.
With regards to the reporting that comes
in from EHN with regard to those spaces, we do get some reporting that comes
back from them. And then we cumulate that information into, you know, on a
weekly average how many individuals are in there.
So James will speak to that as well as
our complex-needs facilities that we have. We have some really good stats on
individuals that are brought there and then how many are provided with services
on the other end. And he’s just going to explain both of those to you. Thank
you.
Betty
Nippi-Albright: —
Just before he explains, first of all, thank you for answering that. And I look
forward to hearing or reading about it. Hopefully I can read about your answer
there. I’m just cognizant of the time. I just want to say thank you so much for
taking the time to answer my questions and also to your staff and the folks
that are taking the time to answer these. If that could be given to me later,
that would be great. I’m just thinking of the time.
And the second question that I had is
around the RFP [request for proposal] process for The Compassionate
Intervention Act. What is the RFP process, including the requirements,
evaluation criteria, timelines, and eligibility standards for selecting the
operator for The Compassionate Intervention Act?
And my third question is the procurement
transparency pieces. Have any of these providers who already hold contracts in
Alberta been identified as recipients of the funding allocated in this year’s
budget for phase 1 of Bill 48?
So those are the questions that it would
be good to have within the next couple weeks. And I just want to say thank you
so much for your time and . . . Oh, okay, he can answer then.
James Turner:
— All right. Good evening. James Turner. I’m assistant deputy minister at the
Ministry of Health. In terms of the number from occupants through Willowview at Lumsden, so we’ve been averaging somewhere in
the range of 47 to 58 clients out of the 60‑bed facility at Lumsden. The
total number of patients that have completed the program there are 347 since
January 23 of 2025. And I will say that all quarterly reports have actually
been received by the SHA as per their contract for that.
In terms of the complex-needs
facilities, so we have done an evaluation of the patients going through the
complex-needs facilities. And so 70 per cent of all clients going through both
sites are unique clients. That means they have one stay and are not returning.
So that’s a pretty good result out of the facilities.
Beginning in January of 2025, in terms
of the admissions in Saskatoon, out of 1,990 admissions, 46 were connected with
mental health and addictions supports in the community, 58 per cent were
connected to shelter supports in the community, and 59 per cent were connected
to physical health connections in the community.
In Regina, out of 1,096 admissions, 54
per cent were connected to mental health and addictions supports in the
community, 48 per cent were connected to shelter connections in the community,
and 52 per cent were connected to physical health connections in the community.
Also out of Regina, 70 per cent of intoxication-related arrests from RPS
[Regina Police Service] were redirected to complex-needs facilities.
[19:00]
Betty Nippi-Albright: — Thank you. Thank
you.
Chair Keisig: — I recognize Ms. Conway.
Meara Conway: — Thank you, Chair.
Just a quick question on that. Is there any way that those contracts can be
provided to us, and the sensitive competitive information just be redacted?
Hon. Lori Carr: — We don’t release
the contracts due to the competitive nature.
Meara Conway: — Can you provide
any clarity at all regarding cost per individual serviced under those
contracts?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So I guess what we
will give you is the same information we gave you last year, but updated
numbers. The annual contract with Willowgrove is 7.665 million.
Meara Conway: — Thank you.
Hon. Lori Carr: — You’re welcome.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. I’m going to switch over to virtual care. In the budget you talked
about expanding the virtual physician program. I’m wondering if you can give me
a breakdown as to how much dollars are going into VIPER [virtual physician for
emergency response]? And how many dollars are going into the Virtual Health
Hub?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So with regards to VIPER, the virtual physician program that we have
rolled out throughout the province, the amount in this year’s budget is $6.7 million.
And so far we’ve been able to expand within that budget and we are up to 30
sites throughout the entire province.
With regards to the Virtual Health Hub,
our commitment for that is one-third of the capital expenditures as they are
building that facility, of which we have committed $4 million already.
Jared Clarke: —
Thank you. In your preamble today, you spoke about 5,200 potential disruptions
not occurring because of VIPER. I’m wondering if you can clarify as to the time
frame that that 5,200 disruptions accounts for?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Great. Thank you
very much for the question with regards to the virtual physician for emergency
room program. So the program was in an effort to stabilize emergency room
services in those rural and remote communities. The Saskatchewan Health
Authority piloted that virtual physician emergency room program in two
emergency departments in the summer of 2023, Porcupine Plain on July 1st and
Oxbow on August 1st of 2023. As I mentioned, since then there has been an
expansion to 30 communities as of March 6th, 2026 so that is the time frame
that those numbers are taken from.
Jared
Clarke: — So the 5,200 potential disruptions
that were averted are from the summer of 2023, when those first two facilities
began, to the present?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Correct.
Jared Clarke: — Okay,
thank you. I’m wondering if you can help me understand, Minister, what happens
in a hospital in rural Saskatchewan that has fewer than 4,000 people in the
community when the emergency room has to utilize the VIPER program. And I’m
specifically wondering about acute care beds within the hospital. So what
happens to patients who are in acute care beds when the ER goes onto VIPER?
[19:15]
Hon. Lori Carr: — I’m just going to
turn this over to Brenda to answer that question for you.
Brenda Schwan:
— Good evening. I’m Brenda Schwan. I’m the vice-president for integrated rural
health. So when the virtual physician program’s on, in-patients . . .
So we might have local physicians that will still cover in-patients; so they
would still be on call for in-patients. The virtual physicians don’t cover the
in-patients, but the local physicians might choose to still do that call and
remain on call for their . . . as the most responsible practitioner.
Or based on how many patients are in
there, the acuity of the patients, we might end up transferring some out if the
local physicians don’t cover that call. Then we might transfer some out or we
might, you know, transfer them. Their designation might be ALC
[alternative level of care], so then they can still stay within the hospital.
Jared Clarke: — So how often are,
you know . . . If we have 5,200 potential disruptions over the last
two and a half, three years, how often are patients being transported out of
their hospital due to VIPER coming online?
Brenda Schwan:
— So the virtual physician program is just to cover the ER, right. So our other
physicians that are local cover the in-patient beds. And so it would be rare
that those local physicians would not take that call, and so those people then
would stay in their community.
Jared Clarke: — Can you clarify
for me, if there are doctors within the community, why are they not covering
the emergency room, then?
Ingrid Kirby:
— Good evening. Ingrid Kirby, assistant deputy minister. So there will be situations
where there are local physicians in the community, but they’re not providing on
call to the emergency department. So some of these communities are fairly small
and a physician group might be a one-in-three call rotation. And for physician
work-life balance, it can be difficult for a physician to be on call that
frequently.
If you lose a physician — or even if
you’re a physician group of five physicians in a community, and you lose one or
two physicians — the call frequency becomes really heavy for emergency
departments. It is lighter for in-patient beds if you’re not typically called
in as frequently.
So local physicians would be more
comfortable covering the in-patient beds, knowing that they get to sleep
through the night. But if they’re on call in the emergency department, they are
woken up more frequently. So it is really to address that sustainability for
those physician groups working in a collegial environment, as well as ensuring
that there is continuity of care for those in-patient beds.
Jared Clarke: — So you said it is
rare for patients to be transferred out of acute care when VIPER has been
enacted. But it does happen, so do you track that?
Hon. Lori Carr: — That is not
something that we currently track.
Jared Clarke: —
Thank you. In terms of the impact on EMS in the case of an emergency and a
rural hospital is using VIPER at the moment, what happens to EMS who have
patients that would normally come to this rural hospital?
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in response to the member’s question, when a facility
is on the VIPER program, through system flow with the Saskatchewan Health
Authority, those EMS trips would be diverted to another facility.
Jared Clarke: — Do you track how
often that happens?
[19:30]
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
So I think you’re looking for a specific number of EMS trips that were diverted
or gone to another facility. That number isn’t tracked, but obviously, I mean,
if you look at the number of disruptions, then any EMS trips during those
disruptions would be a part of that.
So the specific number on EMS trips . . .
And I’ll just say too, you know, around the VIPER program, and I think this is
important to note. We’ve talked about it before how the VIPER program has saved
over 5,000 disruptions in rural emergency rooms around the province. No program
is perfect, and you know, this is why we’re going to be initiating a review of
the VIPER program in the coming months. We’re just figuring out . . .
We’ve found a physician who has a lot of experience in acute care settings
really in Western Canada and around the world, and so we are looking forward to
working with them. We’ll be announcing that very shortly in terms of who will
be leading that review.
And I’ll just say, you know, from folks
that Minister Carr and myself have spoken with as we’ve toured rural health
care facilities as well as our EMS partners, you know, there have been some
specific pain points around kind of how EMS and our rural emergency rooms
interact with each other when a facility is on the virtual physician program.
That would be one area of specific interest to the review, trying to understand
again how we can determine, or how system flow can really determine, what is
the right threshold for somebody to be diverted to a different facility. And
we’ve heard about this from EMS folks, again from folks that work in rural
facilities.
So looking forward to getting into that
review and really taking a closer look at the program and figuring out . . .
As I said, no program is perfect, but where we have the opportunity to tinker
and make a program better, we’ll take those opportunities.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. I guess you kind of waded into where I was going to kind of go next
in terms of, you know . . . You’re talking about 5,200 potential
service disruptions that didn’t happen, but at the same time EMS is not taking
patients. They’re being diverted. So the number of patients being seen in that
hospital in the emergency room is going to decline.
You
spoke to opening up a review in the next couple of months which will be
interesting to see the results from that. But I’m wondering how, up to this
point in the last three years, you’ve kind of measured any metrics of success
or how you’re gauging this is actually helping the situation. Yeah, so what
metrics are you tracking to support that this is actually a good use of
resources?
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
If you’re looking for kind of a fulsome number of metrics, there’s really one
metric that matters in my mind and that is, is the emergency room open and are
we avoiding disruptions. And so when we talk about . . . You know,
you’ve asked about some other numbers that are not tracked. The most important
number is, is the emergency room open as close to home as possible for
Saskatchewan residents.
And you know, I will say too, I mean
this program is really an expansion of a program that was previously existing,
I believe it was Canora, Maidstone, and Shaunavon with the collaborative
emergency centres. Originally a partnership between the SHA and STARS [Shock
Trauma Air Rescue Service], that really was a unique model in those three
communities. Now we’ve been able to expand VIPER to 30 facilities right around
the province.
And you know, when I talk to community
leaders, and I think about just the community leaders that I’ve spoken with
just in recent weeks and months. You know, the mayor of Lanigan comes to mind,
Tony Mycock. You know, I remember I went to go meet with him several months ago
and he said he was skeptical of the virtual physician
program initially when he met with the SHA. I think Ms. Schwan was likely in
that meeting with the folks from Lanigan. But what it’s done is it’s enabled
that Lanigan emergency room to be open far more consistently. And that’s really
the metric that matters.
Same goes for folks in the town of
Leader. I had a call with them not too long ago. Mayor Wenzel and Pam Busby.
And you know, I’ve quoted Pam before in question period in regards to her
comments about the virtual physician program, how important it is for their
community. Understandably, there’s skepticism
initially on this program. But I think as we’ve been able to expand it to more
facilities as needed, obviously patient safety and patient access, those are
the two key things.
I believe it was here last year at
estimates when I shared with the committee that, you know, up to that point
there had been, knock on wood, no critical incidents stemming from a patient
who had been served under the VIPER program. The same is still true today. I
mean, obviously as we look at further expansion, the program, patient safety
will continue to be the number one priority.
But I think the key metric is, is the
emergency room open.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. I mean it’s slightly concerning because you talk about, you know, is
the emergency room open or closed, and providing care closest to home. But when
we’re diverting, you know, emergencies that are coming in through EMS, then
they’re not getting the care in that facility. So they’re not getting that care
closest to home.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
You know, obviously the yes or no metric is not the only metric. I mean there’s
others, like what you would track in terms of the CTAS [Canadian triage and
acuity scale] score of a patient presenting, the time they’re presenting, and
that’s how you get volume numbers overall. You know, and obviously the CTAS
numbers are important just in regards to, you know, how we make decisions
around resources, you know, targeted at a specific facility or at specific
times.
I’ll make a comment on volume though.
And this is interesting, and Ms. Schwan just shared it with me, and it’s reminded
of a discussion that we had previously around this. When we look at the volumes
coming through a facility pre-implementation of VIPER and then after the
implementation of VIPER, the volumes are roughly similar.
And you know, this goes back to my
earlier comment in regards to patient confidence or community confidence in the
program. That tells me that even though a community may be aware that their
facility may be utilizing the VIPER program from time to time or on a more
consistent basis depending on the physician roster in that community, there’s
still confidence in the folks in that community, in the area that they’re going
to get quality care regardless if the facility is utilizing the virtual
physician program at any given time.
So again back to your question about
metrics, it’s obviously not just yes or no. Other things are tracked, as they
would be if you presented at Regina General or Regina Pasqua. What’s your CTAS
score? What time did you present? How long the call was with the virtual
physician doctor. So it’s not like it’s just yes or no; there are other things.
But I don’t know if that answers your question in terms of . . .There’s
not necessarily other specific metrics only tracked by the VIPER program
compared to other presentations at non-VIPER facilities.
[19:45]
Jared Clarke: — Thank you. How are
physicians who are working the VIPER program compensated? Is it an hourly rate?
Is it a shift rate? And if it’s an hourly rate, what is that rate?
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
So it is an hourly rate, and that hourly rate currently is at $292.99 per hour.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. I’m going to switch gears a little bit here. I’m wondering if there
were any scurvy, tuberculosis, or measles outbreaks in rural or northern
Saskatchewan this past fiscal year. Scurvy, tuberculosis, measles.
Hon. Lori Carr: — So to answer your
question regarding scurvy, there were none. TB [tuberculosis] there were three
in the North. And for measles, areas of elevated risk are reported on the
website.
Jared Clarke: — When we’re talking
about the tuberculosis, what communities were those in?
[20:00]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for your
patience.
Jared Clarke: — I was just saying
I want the minister back because you seem to be faster.
Hon. Lori Carr: — I’m here all night
for you. So one was in the Northeast 5 which is the Nipawin area, the Northeast
4 which is the Prince Albert area, and the Northeast 2 which is the Sandy Bay
area.
Jared Clarke: —
Thank you. I’m going to switch gears again, this time into capital. I’m
wondering, when it comes to the Yorkton hospital, what is the expected timeline
for this project? How long is it going to stay in the pre-design phase?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So the funding in
the budget, which you didn’t ask for but I’m going to give it to you, is
$1.775 million to support the planning of that project. But really the
timeline and that process is something that you would have to ask SaskBuilds.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you. In the
budget document on page 50 — of the little guy, not the coil one, no — I’m
looking at the capital plan, the Saskatchewan capital plan 2025‑26 to
2029‑30. Under health care facilities, we see $472.3 million. And
then in ’27‑28, 252.3. In ’28‑29 we see a reduction to 101.3. And
then to 2029‑30 we see capital and health facilities at
$133.3 million.
Would
you say it’s safe to say, Minister, that building a hospital in Yorkton isn’t
projected in these values here in the next three, four years?
Hon. Lori Carr: — So as we talked
about in the previous answer, this project is still in that pre-design phase
that we talked about that SaskBuilds is in charge of.
But we do have placeholders in the budget in the out years to continue that
work. So we are committed to this project. We have talked about it. We have put
dollars in for the planning of it.
Within this document we also talk about
that the work will continue on other important projects such as . . .
We list several facilities, and in that is a hospital in Yorkton and Rosthern.
So we’ve got those right within this document. The commitment is there.
[20:15]
But another one of the things, as we
have been working with the community of Yorkton, you know, talking with
community leaders and the foundation, there is that community share that
they’re responsible for. So they’re starting to raise that, knowing that that
facility has been committed to.
And that community is super excited
because we took that amount for community share . . . Actually it
used to be 35 per cent, I believe, in 2007 before we had the opportunity to
lead the province. We reduced it to 20 per cent a few years ago, and now this
year we’ve taken that down to 10 per cent to take that burden off of that
community, to help with that community share. So they are actively fundraising
for that amount, knowing that that project is going to be moving forward in
their community.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. I’d be curious to know an analysis of how far a dollar went back in
2007 at 35 per cent of a hospital build, versus 20 per cent last year, versus
10 per cent this year. I’m not asking that question, but the analysis in terms
of how much a community is on the hook for would be an interesting comparison.
But
I’m curious to know, you kind of spoke a little bit vaguely on this in terms of
the work continuing. I’m wondering if you can specifically speak to how many
dollars are allotted in those upcoming three years for the Yorkton hospital.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So we are here to talk about . . . Mr. Chair, we’re here to
talk about the ’26‑27 estimates, so future year projections are actually
out of the scope of what we’re talking about here today. So we’re not going to
speak specifically to those numbers. But I am going to ask Sheldon just to
address the process a little bit.
Sheldon Brandt:
— Thank you. Good evening. Sheldon Brandt, the exec director at the Ministry of
Health. So as the minister mentioned, placeholder amounts are included in
budget that are associated with moving this project through the process.
Amounts are projected in the budget as
mentioned, and those amounts are not publicly disclosed as they may influence
the competitive bidding process for this project as it advances.
Jared Clarke: —
Can you give me a ballpark as to how much a regional hospital build in Yorkton
would cost?
Chair Keisig: — Minister, just before you answer that
question, I just want to remind members we’re here to debate and scrutinize
subvote 32 of the budget. I’m not sure how a broad-ranging question about the
future cost of the project is relevant to what we’re debating tonight.
So if the minister’s willing, I’ll allow
the question to stand. But I do want to remind members what our duty and
performance values are here tonight. So thank you for that.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Okay. So we really
can’t speak to hypothetical questions. The scope of the project has not been
finalized yet. We haven’t completed the due diligent work that needs to happen
to actually come up with any of those numbers. So to just throw a ballpark number
would be completely irresponsible.
What I can talk about though is the
capital projects that we have completed as far as facilities within the
province. We have the Weyburn hospital that come in at 148 million. Of
course we need to keep in mind that that was procured a few years ago. We also
have the P.A. [Prince Albert] Vic Hospital that we’re very proud of that’s
going to provide great services for the North, and it’s at $898 million.
And I know those are not perfect comparators, but it just gives you an idea of
the vast range of the cost of facilities that can actually happen within this
province.
And I mean I would say, given the nature
of the environment we’re in — the geopolitical, the uncertainty of all sorts of
things — until we actually get through the process and get those actual scope
and what that’s going to look like, it would be completely irresponsible to
throw any numbers out there, being ballparking.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you. Yeah,
I’m just surprised a little bit by the answer in terms of, you know, we’re
debating the budget of 2026‑27. Within this document, your budget, you
are projecting outlooks in ’27‑28, ’28‑29, ’29‑30 with health
care facility numbers. So why include these numbers if we’re not — in the
budget book — if we’re not actually talking about these numbers?
But I’m hearing from you, Minister, that
there is no specific numbers attributed beyond the pre-design phase for Yorkton
hospital in those outlooks going forward. But I’ll move on to another question
because I’m running out of time here.
Hon. Lori Carr: — I would just like
to address that.
Jared Clarke: — Sure.
Hon. Lori Carr: — I think what we
heard the official say is due to procurement and a competitive process, that
those numbers would not be divulged. Thank you.
Jared Clarke: — In terms of the
Community Oncology Program of Saskatchewan, I’m curious how many COPS locations
. . . I believe there’s 16. I’m curious to know how many COPS
locations don’t mix their chemo drugs on site.
[20:30]
Hon. Lori Carr: — So just in lieu of
time, we’re waiting on a little bit of information. We believe that there are
two sites that do not mix their chemo drugs on site. One is Melville, and
theirs gets mixed in Yorkton. And the other one is Meadow Lake, and it gets
mixed at Battlefords Union. And they’re just waiting. If one more comes up
we’ll let you know, but they think that this is accurate.
And I guess, just as a point of
clarification to the Chair’s comment earlier. When we look in the Estimates
book for ’26‑27, which is what we’re debating tonight, and you look on
page 71 for the Health estimates, there are no future years referenced. It is
the estimates for this year. So that is right in vote no. 32. Thank you.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you,
Minister. There are instances where premixed chemo drugs are wasted if a
patient hasn’t gotten the proper blood work in time or misses an appointment.
And we know that these chemo drugs can be very expensive. I’m wondering, one,
do you track how often the premixed chemo drugs at these two sites are wasted?
And if so, what are those numbers in the last fiscal year?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Okay, so I have
one more community to add for you. Melfort is mixing for Tisdale.
Jared Clarke: — Thank you.
Appreciate the opportunity to ask some of these questions. I’m going to pass it
over to my colleague here.
Meara Conway: — Thank you. Just
before we move along to some questions about seniors, because we’re going to
continue the fun on Health tomorrow, I just wanted to close out some of the
rural and remote issues just by tabling some letters. I had reached out to
yourself, Minister Carr, and Minister Cockrill, after last year’s Rural and
Remote Health estimates. There had been a number of items that had been
committed that weren’t provided.
I sent a letter on May 7th. I sent a
follow-up June 5th. I sent a further follow-up on August 7th, 2025. These were
all letters that were sent to your office, Minister Carr, and Minister
Cockrill’s; as well as copied to the former shadow minister for Health, Vicki
Mowat; and the Chair and the ADM [assistant deputy minister] at the time.
And then I followed up with a final
letter on March 23, 2026, very similar to these letters just regarding
outstanding information from 2025 Health estimates, outlining that I had
requested disruptions data. I pinpointed the page in estimates where it was
committed that you would follow up with this.
Vacancy data back to 2022, also
pinpointed the page in estimates where this had been committed.
SIPPA
[Saskatchewan international physician practice assessment] data. In fairness to
you at the time, Minister Carr, you said you would try to get me this data. It
wasn’t an unequivocal commitment, but you did say you’d try to get me this
data. Pinpointed that.
The 2024‑25 amounts spent on
contract nursing, haven’t received that yet. Pinpointed where that commitment
was made.
And a copy of a redacted vacancy table
that you spoke to at that time that you committed to provide, which I still am
not in receipt of.
I’m going to table all of these letters
today through my colleague, the shadow minister for Rural and Remote Health,
and just request that these get provided. I just want to get your thoughts on
that, whether that’s something you can commit to today. And then maybe — for
good measure — provide the updated number for each of these areas of estimates.
[20:45]
I’m also told by my colleague Mr. Jorgenson that there are a
number of things that he was committed to receive last year: full-time
equivalents, how many full-time equivalents there are, people who are working
in CPAS [client patient access services]; the total number of full-time
equivalents in long-term care. And I’m not quoting the letter verbatim, but it
will be tabled for clarification. The number of CPAS workers and analogous
workers in Regina employed from 2024 to the present. And the number of respite
beds that accommodate a risk of wandering. I’m told these are items that he
says were committed that were not sent.
I didn’t receive any responses to any of
these letters, so I don’t know if the issue is you feel they weren’t committed.
Happy to have that conversation. But I do feel this process is sacred, and when
we make a commitment we should follow through. So I’ll table those today. And
we’re back tomorrow for Health estimates. Maybe we can discuss it more
tomorrow. Maybe there was a miscommunication. But I did want to just get this
on the record to give folks 24 hours for tomorrow to kind of be responsive to
this.
So I’ll table a letter from May 2025; a
letter from June 5th, 2025; a letter from August 7th, 2025; a follow-up letter
from March 23rd, 2026; all authored by myself. And then a letter from Mr.
Jorgenson dated March 31st, today’s date. He has not sent this directly to the
ministers, but he’s tabling it today in lieu of that.
And then with that, unless you want to . . .
We can talk about it tomorrow or we can talk about it now. If you’re content,
Minister Carr, I’ll just maybe pass it along to my colleague, Mr. Jorgenson, to ask some questions about
seniors.
Keith
Jorgenson: — Thank you
very much. I wanted to start off by thanking both Minister Carr and Minister
Cockrill for being here tonight, and all the SHA officials. I know it’s been a
long day. I can see a lot of folks are a bit tired. I also in particular want
to thank both Minister Carr and Minister Cockrill. We often disagree, but I
would never question your love for this province. So I did want to extend again
a congratulations to Minister Cockrill on the recent birth of his child.
So there’s also a number of requests
that I’m going to make that have quite a bit of data in them. And just in the
sake of expediency, because we have about an hour and 10 minutes, a bit more,
today, I’m quite content for those to be provided at a later date, because a
couple of things I’m going to ask for do have quite a bit of data in them.
So the first thing is, I have a couple
questions around inspections of facilities, both personal care homes and
special-care homes. My first question is about inspections for personal care
homes. And so I know in your opening remarks, Minister Carr, you mentioned
enhanced inspections and oversights of facilities, which I think a lot of
people would look forward to seeing. So my question has to do with the
inspections that occurred last year at about this time in personal care homes.
So my office has gone through the
inspection data for personal care homes in Saskatchewan. In November of ’24
there was four inspections; in December there were eight; in January there were
10; in February there were 17; and then in March there were 84. Then afterwards
it went back down to 15 this most recent September, 15 in November.
And so on February 5th there was a
gentleman who wandered away from a personal care home in Saskatoon and froze to
death. And so what I’m trying to understand is how we have a consistent pattern
of approximately 10 inspections in personal care homes a month — that seems to
be about the average historically if we go forward and backwards — and then we
all of a sudden have this spike where it goes from eight one month to the next
month 84. So we see a tenfold increase in the number of inspections that are
occurring in personal care homes at about the time that someone froze to death
in one of those homes.
And so I’m trying to understand how this
came to pass. So was there an amount of money that was infused into inspections
in March of ’25 that led to the number of inspections increasing by 500 to
1,000 per cent? Or is there some other explanation for why we saw this huge
spike in the number of inspections in personal care homes?
So
if you could provide me with an explanation as to how there were so many
inspections that occurred in March of ’25 and so few before and after. Thank
you.
Hon. Lori Carr: — Okay, thank you
very much for the question. I guess coming into 2025, there was still a lot of
catch-up work. We got behind because of COVID and different reasons. I mean
having said all of that, it was completely unacceptable that we were behind
that far. We expect better, to have those inspected on a regular basis. So what
the ministry did was they re-prioritized the resources and the activities that
that team did, and they said, you will go out and you will get these
inspections done, period. And so that is exactly what they did.
And I guess just to bring it up to date,
as of today those inspections have been kept up to date. Every home has been
inspected within the allotted time frame. And we plan on staying on that path
moving forward.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Thank you, Minister Carr. Again I guess it’s just . . . I found it
curious when, you know, there was such an enormous number that occurred in such
a short period of time. But thank you for that answer.
So I wanted to turn now to inspections
of special-care homes or long-term care facilities, was something that was
highlighted in the auditor’s report, obviously, and found a number of these
facilities that had not been inspected — again, you know, in a parallel problem
to the personal care homes — in a very long time. And so I just wanted to
follow up in terms of some of the data that was highlighted in the auditor’s
report.
I’m
just curious, in terms of those special-care homes, have all of them been
inspected in the last year? Have some of them . . . Has it been more
than a year? More than two years? More than three years? More than four years?
[21:00]
Hon. Lori Carr: — So your question
was with regards to the special-care homes and about how long has it been since
they’ve been inspected. So we have 161 homes within the province. All of these
inspections are actually done on a three-year cycle is how it works for these
facilities.
And we instituted a new process on how
we inspected homes four years ago. So in the first year, 20 homes were done
that first year because we were figuring out the process, what that was going
to look like. And then over the next three years, the remainder 141 were done.
So I guess outside of the process, technically 20 homes, but it was a new
process that we were working out.
We have all of the funding in place.
Everything’s been annualized. We’re fully staffed. And we’re just starting the
process, and all of those 161 homes will be done in this three-year cycle. We
have a very stringent process in place now. We have a schedule, and all of
those will get done.
The only thing that would compromise
some of the timeline for individual homes as the inspections are being done are
the kind of things that are out of our control. If a home has an outbreak, then
obviously we can’t go into that home. And then that would delay that inspection
for up to eight weeks. And then you’ve got to make sure that that outbreak is
clear for so many weeks after that. But then we would just go to a different
home, so they would just get reshuffled in the deck.
So if someone falls outside of it, at
this point in time, like I said, it’s important that these get done on time.
That’s what we expect, that’s what I expect, and actually that’s what the
team’s goals are. So I have confidence that that will be done within the
three-year cycle this time around.
Keith
Jorgenson: — Thank you.
Thank you very much. So I wanted to move on to something else that was
highlighted in the auditor’s report, and that was the use of antipsychotics in
long-term care facilities when there is no diagnosis of psychosis.
And so a
recent kind of like a survey of long-term care facilities that, you know . . .
In a recent survey of long-term care facilities, 68 per cent of the facilities
were found to exceed the benchmark of the use of, you know,
like the benchmark or the acceptable range for the use of psychotics without a
diagnosis.
So I’m just curious in terms of . . .
I’ve kind of got a two-part question. What is the ministry doing to bring the
use of antipsychotics without the use of a diagnosis down to an acceptable
benchmark?
And the second part of that question is
around, for lack of a better term, data integrity. When I talk to facilities,
like people in long-term care facilities people — SHA staff — I’ve been told
that this sort of definition of the use of restraint has evolved. And there
might be a good rationale for changing when we define what it constitutes to
restrain an older adult, whether it be physically or chemically.
But I guess my question is how do we
know — if we’re changing the definition inside of a home of what it means to
chemically restrain an older adult — how do we know if the data is showing an
improvement, that the improvement has actually occurred? Or is that merely as a
result of us having changed the definition of what it means to chemically
restrain someone? Sorry, does that make sense?
Hon. Lori Carr: — It does. I just, I
have a quick question. What survey are you referring to? Just so I can get the
accuracy here.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
So we received, through a freedom of information request, the data for quality
indicator data from long-term care facilities in Saskatchewan. And so obviously
when you take a snapshot one day, that’s going to be slightly different than
the next day. In the period of time that was provided to us by the Ministry of
Health, if you just go through and counted which facilities were underneath the
benchmark set and which ones were above, 68 per cent of the long-term care
facilities were above.
And you know, I would encourage us not
to maybe get caught up on it being exactly 68 per cent. Again you could take a
different set of data and come up with a number that was slightly higher or
lower. You know, I think we would all agree that whether it be . . .
that 68 per cent above the benchmark is clearly not what we want. We would all
want them to be below the benchmark.
So I’m just curious what we’re doing to
reduce the use of antipsychotics and get it to an acceptable level in the vast
majority of the homes that care for older adults. And also how do we know, how
can the ministry provide the people that love these older adults with certainty
that the data is actually improving when they’ve changed the definition of what
it means to chemically restrain someone?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. I am just going to turn it over to Heather because she is our expert
in this area.
Heather Murray:
— All right. Hello. Heather Murray, executive director of continuing care. So
just to clarify the quality indicators and where they come from, so these are
derived out of the quarterly assessment done within the home, which is the LTCF [long-term care facility].
Quality indicators are not a direct
measure of quality per resident, rather an indication of the presence or
absence of potential poor practice or outcomes of the care. So the goal is a QI
[quality indicator] is triggered. Homes would then go investigate, do a
root-cause analysis. Sometimes it is appropriate, and you just need to document
that and that you followed all the guidelines and processes, or do a further
root-cause analysis of what needs to be different.
So in terms of the antipsychotic use
without a diagnosis, so again it is based on that assessment. These definitions
are standardized by CIHI [Canadian Institute for Health Information] and the developer of
the tool, interRAI. The only changes that may have
been made is for clarification because it wasn’t clear to the assessors, but
they have not substantively changed that all of a sudden that’s very different
and the data’s not comparable.
Our data quality in Saskatchewan, based
on CIHI’s feedback to us, they’ve said we have very accurate, quality data and
have no concerns about the accuracy. And we are comparable to other provinces.
In terms of the antipsychotic use, we
have seen a reduction of 3 per cent. And it’s not necessarily a Saskatchewan
issue; it’s across Canada, the use of antipsychotics without a diagnosis. Yes,
we have some higher rates.
There is a national working group or
consortium trying to address this. And so there’s two targets: it’s either get
to 15 per cent, or if you’re well above that — because you’re not going to be
able to boil the ocean, for lack of a better term — you create a goal of a 15
per cent reduction year over year. And that is what Saskatchewan has elected to
do.
And it is the SHA who has a quality indicator
monitoring program where the data is submitted. It’s reviewed, discussed with
homes. And that’s why we’re seeing a 3 per cent reduction as of, like, January.
The year hasn’t ended, so we don’t have the year-end data.
So some of the work that we are doing
specifically . . . Because I believe that was some of your question,
about actions. So facilities are reviewing newly admitted residents who are
prescribed antipsychotics, because often they are entering the home on these
prescriptions, whether it’s from hospital or from home and their family
physician. It could have been added due to the hospitalization and/or illness.
Facilities are also reviewing the
residents that have been on antipsychotics for years, and the facility would
first lower the dose and then eliminate it. You wouldn’t just stop right away
just because of the implications of that. And it’s usually done through a
multidisciplinary team medication review to make sure it’s appropriate. And
sometimes individuals would be on these medications for short-term procedures
or issues, and then they are weaned off. So one quarter could be different from
another.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Thank you very much. Yeah, and I just . . . The reference was, I’ve
been in facilities where people have told me, “Our data last year looked like
this because . . .” You know, an example would be used around
physical restraint. What they say, when we put someone in, like, a Broda chair
and put the tabletop on, are they physically restrained? So it might be
reasonable to change that definition.
But still, if you’re comparing a
different data set, right, it still alters whether or not the data is actually
getting better. Like maybe it was appropriate to change that definition.
Okay, so the next question I had is . . .
This is something that if the minister and her team could endeavour to table
this, because it is something that would take far too long to read out. So last
year in estimates, Minister, you kindly provided me with data around the number
of ALC patients in a number of facilities and the
breakdown of those folks, if they were there awaiting long-term care or another
care placement. Or if they were there — I believe the term that was used was
“financial, housing, or social supports required.”
[21:15]
So if you would be able to provide those
to us for the facilities that have acute care patients, just so we understand
if a given facility has . . . Like I think last year there was, you
know, RUH [Royal University Hospital] had something like 50 ALC
patients, and seven of them were in the facility because of financial, housing,
and social supports required.
And again, that’s far too much data for
you to provide tonight, but if you could endeavour in several weeks or a month
to, even if it was just on one day, provide us with a snapshot of what that
data looked like for the facilities that have acute care patients in the
province. Is that possible for that to be provided to us in, let’s say, a
month?
Hon. Lori Carr: — I guess first of
all, I just want to clarify. On the last question, the official made it quite
clear that the definition has not substantially changed. Okay?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I understand, Minister. I’m not saying . . . It’s
like the interpretation of the definition. So I was not in any way trying to
suggest that someone was trying to sort of like massage the data to make it say
something it wasn’t. Even correcting how you interpret something is still going
to change the data. Maybe the data looked worse before than it actually was, is
the point that I was making.
So is that possible, let’s say in a
month, to get a snapshot of a day where we see the number of ALC beds by acute care facility, and broken down as to how
many of those people are in the facility for financial, housing, or social
supports?
Hon. Lori Carr: — I’m just going to
check with my officials quickly.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Okay. Sure.
Chair Keisig: — MLA Jorgenson, could you provide the
committee a definition of ALC?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Sorry. Alternative level of care.
Chair Keisig: — Thank you very much.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
It’s an acronym that’s usually used to describe somebody who is in an acute
care setting who does not require acute care.
Chair Keisig: — Perfect.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Sorry.
Chair
Keisig: —
The committee will learn I despise acronyms. Thank you.
Hon. Lori Carr: — So I actually have
that here, and it’s actually not too terribly long so I’m just going to give
you the information. Okay, so this is as of March 31st, 2026 and this is for
Regina and Saskatoon, because that’s where these numbers are tracked.
And we have Royal University Hospital,
45 in total; Saskatoon City Hospital, 21 in total; St. Paul’s Hospital, 53 in
total; Jim Pattison, one in total; Pasqua Hospital, 49 in total; Regina General
Hospital, 23 in total; for a total of 192.
And now of those 192, no facility
available to meet the care needs due to capacity is 75; allied health
interprofessional practice assessment delayed, 29; no barrier selected, 24;
delay due to patient searching for appropriate housing, 12; discharge assessment
delayed, 11; no facility available to meet care needs due to care complexity,
11; delay due to screening committee, 10; level of care assessment delayed, 10.
Delays in support from other outside
agency, three; delay due to social concerns, two; approved and waiting for
admission to a facility or a bed, one; clinician refusing proposed discharge
placement facility, one; delay due to financial instability, one; home care
services delayed, one; and no available facility bed, one.
Keith Jorgenson: — Thank you,
Minister. Okay, could you tell me how much the province has spent on the SCAAP [senior citizens’ ambulance assistance program]
program — I think I’m saying that . . . the seniors ambulance
assistance program — and in the current year. And how would that reflect
historically over the previous year?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So you were asking about the seniors’ ambulance assistance program
and how much was spent. So for the, I guess for the ’25‑26 year, the
estimate is 24.1 million. Now those will still need to be firmed up, but
that’s what we’re estimating it’s going to come out at. The ’24‑25 was
22.85, ’23‑24 was 23, ’22‑23 was 21.8.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
So I wanted to move on. Thank you very much, Minister. So I wanted to move on,
and I guess I’d start by saying I think there’s sometimes it’s been
characterized that the NDP [New Democratic Party] is opposed to virtual care.
That’s simply not the case. You know, we are in favour of the appropriate use
of virtual care.
So with that said, I wanted to ask — and
I’m quoting from a memo that was released and circulated from the SHA — and I’m
quoting from it where it says, “The full list and map of service disruptions
are available at the SHA service disruption/home.” And so what I’m trying to
understand . . . I guess I’ve got a two-part question. One is, do we
have a figure for how much SHA is paying to maintain this inward-facing website
that tracks disruptions through the province?
And what would be the rationale behind
creating and paying for an inward-facing website that tracks, in real times,
disruptions across the province and not allowing members of the general public
to see it as well as front-line health care workers?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Can you just
clarify, what were you reading from? Could I get a copy of that?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Well it’s my phone. It is a much-discussed memo that was circulated. We’ve
spoken about it with regards to sort of one-RN [registered nurse] emergency
room. But the point number 10 in it speaks to the existence of an SHA map and
list of service disruptions. And it is referred to as the SHA service
disruption/home.
[21:30]
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
So we’ve had obviously many discussions, you know, in this House around the
notification of emergency room disruptions. Members on both sides will be well
aware of the new process that was launched several months ago for the website
that’s available to the public, updated every day at 4 p.m.
You know, obviously that’s a
point-in-time look at 4 p.m. on that day in terms of what disruptions around
the province could . . . temporary disruptions around the province
could look like. It’s important to note though that there’s a whole internal
process behind that in terms of, you know, how we’re managing resources behind
the scenes and trying to mitigate any potential disruptions.
I think Derek is going to share a little
more about that process internally and hopefully answer the member’s question.
Derek Miller: —
Thank you, Minister. Derek Miller. I’m the chief operating officer with the
Saskatchewan Health Authority. I’m happy to provide more information around how
we track and monitor service disruptions and potential service disruptions.
We
do have an internal tracking tool that we use for the logging of potential
service disruptions. The process essentially is that locally they would submit
a notification of an anticipated disruption. Upon that notification, our
leadership is engaged, and they review the situation and look for ways to
mitigate a potential impact for service delivery. And often something . . .
We can take action to actually avoid a disruption at that point of time.
And
then on a daily basis, we use the information that’s been . . . where
we have approved disruptions and anticipated disruptions that are coming up in
the next 24 hours, that we make that information available on the public
website. We do have occasions where there may be a disruption — for example,
for lab services due to equipment failure or staff availability where we have
point-of-care testing available at that site. So there wouldn’t actually be a
disruption. But we do receive notification through this type of process.
I
do want to emphasize that any disruptions, that there is notification with 811,
so there is awareness if a member of the public calls 811 and gets advice on
accessing emergency services, they have awareness of which emergency
departments may be on disruption at that time. And likewise for our System Flow
Coordination Centre that supports the movement of patients within the province.
And
as I mentioned, the tool, we had developed that internally. It’s part of our IT
[information technology] systems. There’s no cost associated with maintaining
that in terms of an external vendor or something like that.
Hon. Jeremy Cockrill: — If I can just add
to that as well. It’s really important to emphasize what Derek mentioned
earlier, that the internal tool is for potential disruptions. And Derek did a
good job indicating there’s a whole process in there in terms of, you know,
mitigating potential.
But
that internal tool is not tracking where there will be disruptions but where
there could be, and then obviously the teams around the province get to work on
mitigating as much of that as possible. I think that’s just an important
emphasis to note.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Sorry, I’d like to ask a follow-up question with regards to it. So just before
I start, I’m going to actually read from the work standard, point no. 10
where it says, “At any time, leaders can access a full list and map of existing
service disruptions by visiting service disruptions, SHA service
disruptions/home.”
I’m troubled in that it doesn’t say
“potential disruptions” in this service memo. It says “existing service
disruptions.” So you know, I don’t know if there’s an error in the document
that was sent out to all of the hospitals about this, but it’s saying that
they’re existing service disruptions.
And it also seems like we’re playing a
bit of sort of a word game between tool and website. So this is a web-based
tool, so to me that is still a website.
And the last thing I want to . . .
The last prefix I want to give to my question is that just on one day — I think
it was this last weekend, it was the weekend before — there was two disruptions
that were missed on the forward-facing website. Just in one day, there was two
missed.
My office looks at them. The vast
majority of them are historical in nature. So they tell us about a disruption
that happened yesterday, which . . . I don’t want to know if my local
hospital was closed yesterday. I want to know if it’s open now.
And so I’m just trying to understand
why, if you have this tool that costs, in your own words, the SHA no money to
maintain because it’s part of an existing IT network, why you wouldn’t take
that existing tool and allow it to have, as it says, existing service
disruptions logged here and then make it available to the general public and to
front-line health care workers. What would be the rationale behind not doing
that?
Chair Keisig: — Ministers, I just . . . It’s
hard to make a comment on something that they haven’t seen, a document they
haven’t seen and hasn’t been presented to the committee. I’m just struggling
with a little bit of that.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
You know, I know the document, the standard that he’s referring to.
Chair Keisig: — Do you understand? Okay.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: — You
know, if I may though, I’m curious . . . You know, Mr. Jorgenson, I
agree. I mean it’s the purpose of the public-facing website is certainly to
understand the current state.
Can you share with us, you know . . .
And if there were errors on that, I’d certainly like to follow up on that with
our teams here. We’ve got our very qualified teams and officials here. So which
day was that? And which two communities?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Well I’ll forward that to you. I mean there’s probably 20 I could send you. I
will have my CA [constituency assistant] send the full list that we’ve logged
to date, but . . .
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
And what’s the process of how you logged that, Mr. Jorgenson?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Well I mean, again, it’s just me and my CA. But we would look at the disruption
map . . .
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
Like calling facilities or . . .
Keith
Jorgenson: —
No.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
No?
Keith
Jorgenson: —
We look at Facebook basically. So there still are some communities . . .
And so I think that this is one of the flaws in the existing processes. I think
there’s actually a lot of people found out via looking on Facebook. And there’s
a number of towns that used to notify their residents via Facebook, and they’ve
stopped because they assume that the SHA public-facing website works. But it
frequently misses disruptions.
And I have some sense in terms of how
that happens. I don’t think we have time tonight to delve into that. But again
I talk to people who’ve seen the tool and have some understanding of what the
functionality of the tool is.
And so again I’m troubled with why
tonight, as many of us drive home on highways, we can look at the Highway
Hotline and I can see a snowplow going down the
highway, but I can’t tell whether or not the hospital that’s closest to my kids
has X-ray services. And I find that troubling. And I don’t understand why, if
we have this tool, why we can’t make that tool available.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
Well certainly I hope that you’ll share that information with my office,
because that would be concerning to me as well. And so certainly we’ll ask our
teams to look into those specific dates and those specific communities when you
provide that information.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
I will get that to you tomorrow, Minister.
So
now part of the reason why I had asked about the cost of the ambulances is one
of my . . . Again as I’ve said, like virtual care is great,
especially in a rural province. The challenges that we face providing health
care in a rural province, virtual care is necessary. But my concern is the
government is sort of missing the full cost accounting of virtual care. And so
I have two questions that I wanted to ask about that.
One
has to do with ambulances. There was a gentleman who showed me — he didn’t feel
comfortable coming public — from the Davidson area who showed me an ambulance
bill that was over $900. So instead of him taking an ambulance to his local
hospital in Davidson, because it was on virtual care, he ended up taking an
ambulance to a major centre. And instead of having a 100 or $200 ambulance
bill, had an 8 or $900 bill. So is the SHA able to track and tell us how much
the cost of ambulance rides have gone up since we’ve expanded virtual care and
rolled it out into an increasing number of communities?
[21:45]
Hon. Lori Carr: — Thank you for the
question. So there really is no way for us to track what you are asking for
here. But like, as we look at the numbers that we have seen from the number of
calls where the patients were transferred since virtual care has come into
existence, there has been no increase in the number of calls as compared to
previous years.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
Thank you. Okay, I have three more questions, so hopefully we can get through
them all in the time that’s left. So the other question I had with regards to,
sort of, the incidental costs of virtual care is the number of acute care beds
that we sort of functionally lose in rural Saskatchewan.
So I’m looking at a facility monthly
occupancy report for the years ’24‑25, and we have three facilities
during that period of time that for some months had an occupancy of zero.
Davidson Health Care Centre, Kipling Health Care Centre, and Wolseley Health
Care Centre all had periods of time where there was no occupancy. So no one was
in the hospital admitted.
I also have toured Lanigan Hospital.
Wonderful facility, lots of great folks there. It does have patients in it.
When I visited that, all of the patients there were ALC
beds. So although the facility continues to provide excellent care to folks in
the surrounding community, those aren’t functionally acute care beds anymore
due to not having, you know, for periods of time not having a doctor in the
facility.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
So we should be very clear on this. You know, the introduction to the virtual
physician program has not removed any acute care beds in rural Saskatchewan.
That has to absolutely be emphasized.
And, Mr. Jorgenson, I hope you can be careful with your
wording. Because just because there’s an ALC patient
in an acute care bed doesn’t make it not an acute care bed, right? And so that
wording can start to lead people to make assumptions about their local hospital
that are just not the facts. And so I think this is where we have to be very
clear on wording. Still an acute care bed. There may be an ALC
patient in there; still staffed an acute care bed. There’s still a most
responsible provider in the facility looking after the patient in that bed.
And you know,
you mentioned several facilities. Davidson Health Centre, two acute care beds
in that facility; Kipling Integrated Health Centre, 12; Lanigan, 5; Wolseley,
11. You know, if anything, I think the virtual physician program, what it’s
enabled is actually for a wider range of services to be offered in rural
Saskatchewan.
So I just
caution that we should be very careful with our wording. There may be ALC patients in an acute care bed — it’s still an acute
care bed, especially in rural Saskatchewan.
Keith
Jorgenson: — I’m not
for a second questioning the need for those acute care beds. Quite the
opposite. I’m just saying, functionally, if a facility has zero per cent
occupancy and there is no one in the bed, we can still call it an acute care
bed. But in terms of system flow, it doesn’t function
as a bed that system flow can put someone into.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
There’s a patient in the bed.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
But not if the occupancy is zero.
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
Sorry, I don’t follow your . . .
Keith
Jorgenson: —
So in this document there are periods . . . There’s multiple months
where the occupancy in these facilities was zero, right? So that means there
was no one at any point was lying in an acute care bed in that facility.
And the document is quite thorough. And
I mean, there’s a facility that had 0.65 per cent capacity, so obviously
someone’s doing the math. And there’s multiple months where I think Kipling, it
was something like six or seven months where there was no one admitted to acute
care.
Okay, so I’m going to move on to my last
question. So I had a kind of a two-part question about the cost of AIMS
[administrative information management system]. So I’m curious about the total
cost of AIMS in ’25‑26 versus ’26‑27. And then I would like a
breakdown of a number that AIMS is being charged to affiliates. These are both
embedded affiliates as well as other affiliates. Many of these are long-term
care facilities. Some of them are obviously hospitals as well.
And so in that amount for the
affiliates, I want to make sure we’re getting kind of a full cost of the
charges for AIMS ’25‑26 versus ’26 through ’27, including current AIMS
and enhancement fees, AIMS licence, and BSSA [business systems support and
analytics] fees, and I’m . . . I can’t tell you what that means.
So
if you could provide us with that, that would be fabulous.
[22:00]
Hon. Jeremy
Cockrill: —
Thanks for your patience. So we’ll just compare. So capital in ’25‑26 was
just shy of $30 million on the AIMS project. That goes to $0 on the ’26‑27
budget. From an operating perspective, operating costs in ’25‑26 were
2.9 million; that’s a budget number. Obviously we don’t have the actuals
from ’25‑26 yet; we’re still in the last day of the fiscal today. And the
budgeted number for operating this year is 8.8.
Important to know, I mean, I’m sure you
understand we’re moving from the project development phase into a phase where
now it’s licensing and support to all different health sector partners on the
AIMS system. The total expected to be charged to those partners — now that
includes the SHA; that includes 3S; that includes, you know, all facilities
using it — expected to be roughly $19 million across the whole sector.
Keith
Jorgenson: —
I see that our time has expired, so I just wanted to thank the Table . . .
Oh, sorry.
Chair Keisig: — Well thank you for that, MLA. We’ve
reached our agreed-upon time for consideration of estimates today. We will
adjourn consideration of the estimates and the supplementary estimates
no. 2 for the Ministry of Health. Minister, do you have any closing
comments?
Hon. Lori Carr: — Well I would just quickly thank everybody
for being here tonight. I guess we’ll probably have different opposition
members tomorrow, but we’ll see you all again tomorrow night. So thank you to
everybody that was here.
Chair Keisig: — MLA Jorgenson, do you have any closing
comments?
Keith
Jorgenson: — Yeah, I
certainly do. I wanted to thank both of the ministers for kindly providing so
much of their time to the committee, especially being away from family and so
on. I want to thank all of the members of the SHA for coming here and giving up
so much of their time from their families into the evening. And of course thank
the Table Officers, the Hansard folks, and the video folks for recording
all of this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Minister Carr and Minister
Cockrill.
Chair Keisig: — MLA Clarke, would you like to . . .
Well I want to thank the ministers and everyone. We stand adjourned until 3:30
tomorrow. Thank you, everyone.
[The committee
adjourned at 22:05.]
Published
under the authority of the Hon. Todd Goudy, Speaker
Disclaimer:
The electronic versions of the Legislative Assembly’s
documents are provided on this site for informational purposes only. The Clerk
is responsible for the records of each legislature.