The Saskatchewan Green Party has new solutions to Saskatchewan’s old problems.

We’ll tackle the housing crisis, address climate change, and improve our healthcare system. No more half-measures. It’s time to act now. 

 
The past two years have revealed cracks in the systems we rely on, from climate-ready jobs to mental health to housing.

We need new solutions to decades-long problems that the old-line parties have simply failed to solve, and indeed, in many cases, have caused. Saskatchewan Greens have a plan to build the Saskatchewan you want and dream of. We can achieve this by Doing Politics Differently, together.

Climate Action

Inevitably, jobs in fossil fuel sectors will disappear. The Saskatchewan Green Party is committed to a fair and caring transition of workers from these sectors into new ones. This will include measures such as income protection, job guarantees, retraining and resettlement. The detailed programs would be developed in partnership with workers and their unions.

A Green government will create a just transition framework for oil, gas and coal sector workers that reflects the unique conditions of each community. This would be modelled on the recommendations of the Task Force on Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities, which we would implement in full for Saskatchewan. They are (adapted to all three sectors):

• Embed Just transition principles in planning, legislative, regulatory and advisory processes to ensure ongoing and concrete actions throughout the fossil-fuel phase-out transition, including:
• Meeting directly with affected communities to learn about their local priorities, and to connect them with federal programs that could support their goals.
• Establishing a dedicated, comprehensive, inclusive and flexible just transition funding program for affected communities.
• Developing and implementing a just transition plan for workers in fossil fuel sectors, championed by a lead minister who oversees and reports on progress.
• Integrating provisions for just transition in provincial environmental and labour legislation and regulations, as well as relevant inter-governmental agreements.
• Establishing a targeted, long-term research fund for studying the impact of the sector phase-out and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
• Ensure locally available support, including funding the establishment and operation of locally-driven transition centres in affected communities.
• Identify and fund local infrastructure projects in affected communities.
• Provide a pathway to retirement by creating a pension bridging program for workers who will retire earlier than planned due to the phase-out.
• Transition workers to sustainable employment by:
  • Creating a detailed and publicly available inventory with labour market information pertaining to oil, coal and gas workers, such as skills profiles, demographics, locations, and current and potential employers.
  • Creating a comprehensive funding program for workers staying in the labour market to address their needs across the stages of securing a new job, including income support, education and skills building, re-employment, and mobility.
  • Investing in comprehensive retraining and apprenticeship programs for industrial trades workers for jobs in the transition to a zero-carbon economy, especially the renewable and energy efficiency sectors.

Healthcare

In Saskatchewan, we are justly proud of our healthcare system. Compared to the for-profit, private insurer system south of the border, we have far better health outcomes at far less cost.

But there’s still a lot of work to do. Truly universal health care doesn’t simply start and end in a hospital or clinic. It attends to physical, mental and social well-being.

The opioid epidemic, technology-based models of care and the widening service gap in mental health are all signs that we have allowed the steady degradation of single-payer universal health care. The slashing of hospital beds in the early 1990s and the creeping presence of two-tier health care must be pushed back.

We need to expand our public services. Canada is the only industrialized nation with universal health care that doesn’t have publicly funded prescription drug coverage, also known as Pharmacare. Canadians pay the second-highest rate among developed countries for pharmaceuticals.

Saskatchewan can lead the way toward universal Pharmacare as we did for Medicare over 50 years ago.

Privatized prescription drug coverage, dental benefits, and addiction prevention and rehabilitation programs have created a two-tier health system where wealth opens the door to a full range of care.

Greens will:

• Expand public health care to include Pharmacare, establishing a Crown corporation to bulk purchase and dispense prescription drugs and providing much-needed coverage.
• Include basic dental care in our coverage.
• Extend dental care to low-income children.
• Fund non-institutionalized, community-based support for substance abuse prevention and rehabilitation programs.
• Create a drug reduction strategy and develop more safe injection sites.
• Regulate the distribution of pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors to track and prevent dangerous levels of over-medication and prevent opioid addiction.
• Develop healthcare guidelines that incentivize active lifestyles as well as healthy diets and choices.
• Treat drug addiction as a public health issue, not a felony.

Ending Poverty

The Saskatchewan Green Party sees the rising costs of living and housing as an urgent issue that is causing mounting social and economic costs. The cost of living has Saskatchewan residents struggling to pay rent, feed their families or escape abusive relationships. This is leaving voters in our province facing increased risks of health challenges, homelessness, addiction, productivity and job loss, criminal activity and violence. A Green government would take decisive action to put in place wholistic solutions to these problems.

• Green Party MLAs will work to end welfare in Saskatchewan by advocating for the social safety net of a Basic Income Guarantee, one that is income contingent and incorporates incentives to work.
• A Basic Income Guarantee would provide a well-designed, efficient, response to the climate emergency, emerging infectious diseases, and the threat of AI causing rapid and unpredictable disruptions in our economies.
• A Basic Income Guarantee would reflect Saskatchewan people’s shared value system in which we all deserve the dignity of being housed and fed. The Green Party will build a system that fosters a culture of helping people in need rather than erecting barriers. Housing First for our province! The Saskatchewan Greens commit to ending homelessness.