Latest news with #OppositionNDP
CTV News
6 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Sask. adding 77 permanent positions to rural hospitals
WATCH: As Wayne Mantyka tells us, help is on the way for those working in rural hospitals across Saskatchewan. The province says help is on the way for rural hospitals across Saskatchewan, with 77 full-time positions being created across 30 communities. The province hopes it will help stabilize the provision of emergency and other services. 'I am pleased that we have the chance to celebrate the ongoing efforts to reduce service disruptions in rural and northern communities and today I am very pleased to announce 77 new and enhanced permanent full-time positions to 30 different rural and northern communities,' Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said on Wednesday. Most of the 77 positions are currently being filled by part-time and temporary staff, but it's difficult to retain workers without offering full-time job stability. 'Adding more full-time roles will help attract more professionals, support existing employees by providing better staffing coverage, improve team cohesiveness and provide a safer work environment for workers and providers,' Cockrill said. Cockrill made the announcement in Moose Jaw, where seven permanent nursing jobs will be added. Other rural communities like Kipling, southeast of Regina, will gain two permanent nursing positions. The Opposition NDP is questioning how the positions will be filled. 'You know as of this morning according to publicly available data, we have 1,647 vacant health care positions in the province and so why should people believe that [with] these 77 the Sask. Party will be able to fill whereas the previous 1,647 they could not,' NDP MLA Keith Jorgenson said. The Saskatchewan Health Authority does not know how long it will take to fill the 77 permanent positions but with any of the spots already filled by parttime and temporary workers, convincing them to go full-time could make the job easier.
CBC
19-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Premier defends $4.8-million office budget increase, citing end of Alberta's energy 'war room'
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending a nearly 23 per cent increase to her office's budget, saying it's coming at the expense of the Energy Ministry as her office assumes some formal and financial responsibility for promoting the province's oil and gas industry. Smith, appearing at a legislative committee meeting Tuesday to take budgetary questions from Opposition NDP members and United Conservative backbenchers, said the roughly $4.8-million increase planned for the premier's office budget will complete the process of folding the controversial Canadian Energy Centre into government. The centre, also referred to as the energy "war room," was created in 2019 by former United Conservative premier Jason Kenney and given an initial $30-million budget to do battle against what it considered misinformation being hurled at Alberta's oil sector. Alberta's Opposition NDP has called the centre a massive waste of public dollars. It was fully shut down last summer and its resources were returned to the government. "I thought it was very interesting the work that the Canadian Energy Centre has done, and that is part of the reason why I wanted to preserve them," Smith told the committee Tuesday, adding that she thought the centre's advertising efforts could've been more effective. 'Major campaigns' Smith said the transition meant additional staff were hired or contracted to executive council, and part of the $12 million the centre was spending on advertising was added to her budget last year, with the remaining amount being accounted for under this year's increase to her office budget. "What we will be doing with those dollars would be the energy advocacy that the original energy centre had been doing," she said. "There's been a couple of major campaigns we discovered that we needed to do." One of the staff contracted to executive council after the energy centre was shut down, Steve Rennick, is being paid a total of nearly $430,000 over two years, according to the government's sole source contracts database. Calgary-based Jaremko Energy Consulting was also given the same contract, and both expire in the spring of 2026. Another staff member, Cody Ciona, was given a two-year contract that will pay him just over $100,000. The Alberta government's new budget tabled last month forecasts a $5.2-billion deficit, largely attributed to declining oil revenue and the uncertainty of tariffs south of the border. Out of the $79 billion set to be spent across government, about $67.4 million is designated for Smith's office and executive council, her duties as intergovernmental relations minister and the annual operating grant given to the Invest Alberta Crown corporation. About $25.7 million, up from the $20.9 million forecasted to be spent in the fiscal year ending this month, is for Smith's office and executive council. It covers staffing expenses for Smith and executive council, such as the government's new top bureaucrat — former Edmonton police chief Dale McFee — as well as government employees tasked with drafting and co-ordinating policy across all government ministries. Smith said Tuesday that the Intergovernmental Relations Ministry will be renamed Intergovernmental and International Relations as of next month. The nearly $5-million budget hike planned for Smith's office continues the trend of increases given to her office and intergovernmental relations work since she took office in 2022. The government's new budget includes a roughly $70,000 increase for intergovernmental relations from the forecasted spending in the current fiscal year, bringing the total to $23.6 million. Smith told the committee she plans to continue making trips to the United States to meet with government officials about President Donald Trump's tariffs as uncertainty continues to loom over the relationship between Canada and its southern neighbour.
