Sask. NDP Leader Carla Beck addressed the crowd at the Coronet Hotel. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Local politics

Health care, crime and education dominate discussion during NDP Town Hall meeting in Prince Albert

Jan 24, 2024 | 12:18 PM

While the next provincial election is still more than seven months away, the provincial NDP is making it very clear the two seats in Prince Albert matter a lot to them.

Speaking with paNOW ahead of Tuesday night’s town hall meeting at the Coronet Hotel, the party’s leader Carla Beck said she doesn’t take anything for granted.

“We’re knocking on doors, we’re taking meetings, we’re looking for those solutions,” she explained.

Noting she’s been to Prince Albert several times in recent months, Beck said she has full confidence in their two candidates Nicole Rancourt and Carolyn Brost Strom but added her party’s goal is to simply build trust one door at a time and one community at a time

“I’m excited about [the election] but I was taught not to count my chickens before they hatch on anything, especially electorally, but we are gonna continue to do the work,” she said.

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Tuesday night’s event lasted roughly two hours and attracted a crowd of more than 50 people. Attendees included business owners and agency representatives. Each was provided the opportunity to raise concerns and ask questions to not only Beck, but also Justice Critic Nicole Sarauer, First Nations and Métis Relations Critic Betty Nippi-Albright, and Environment Critic Jared Clarke.

Among the issues raised were recruitment ot health care professionals, rising crime rates, and a lack of supports for community programs. Dawn Robbins, representing the Bernice Sayese Centre, described the impact of losing amenities related to a nurse practitioner program, addictions services and seniors foot clinic. The immunization program has also been reduced to one day a week.

Beck replied by stating too many decisions are being made in Regina without evidence and without proper consultation.

Another question posed to Beck was what the party would to address staffing shortages in the health care field. In addition to reaching out to recently retirees and suggesting advertisement in smaller communities of more full time positions, Beck expressed the need to listen and to have a round table meeting with the nurses, adding they are the ones with the answers.

Betty Nippi-Albright listens intently to a question from the crowd. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

On the education issues

Prior to being named the NDP’s leader in 2022, Beck was the education critic and has a background in social work.

Referencing the break down in negotiations between the teachers’ union and the province, Beck said issues related to cuts and underfunding go back over a decade.

“We’ve seen school boards have to make decisions to cut programs that they know were effective for students but they simply didn’t have the funding to be able to continue,” she said, citing Indigenous advocates and food programs as examples.

The term complexity has also been used frequently in recent weeks and Beck, noted the classrooms that herself and others grew up in, look a lot different now.

“You have more kids that don’t have English as their first language, you have kids coming to school who perhaps don’t have a first language and have not been read to or don’t know how to read a book,” she said.

A view of Prince Albert teachers on strike last Monday. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

Beck also cited challenges related to a lack of speech and language pathologists, kindergarten classrooms with 30 or more kids and even aggressive kids who are acting out in a crowded classroom.

Calling on the province to get back to the bargaining table and get a deal signed, Beck suggested the government and education minister have acted in bad faith, citing a billboard campaign that suggested everything was fine with the education system and referenced increases to teacher salaries. Beck called on the minister to sit down and take questions from school boards and teachers.

“Because that might play on billboards and it might play in the media but if he had to sit down and listen to the reality schools are facing every year when then try to make inadequate funding stretch across increasingly complex, often crowded classrooms, I don’t think those are realities he’d be able to refute.”

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @nigelmaxwell