From tax policy to some personal history, the three candidates for Swift Current MLA shared their viewpoints at a provincial election public forum Thursday night.
Hosted by the Swift Current and District Chamber of Commerce, the forum was a conversation and a chance for the candidates to answer questions.
The NDP candidate highlighted his concerns about the state of the provincial economy.
"I am a small business owner and a father of three," said NDP candidate Jay Kimball. "We chose to make Swift Current our home, and every single day I worry about the economic direction this province is taking. After six years of Scott Moe, we have an economy in last place. We're not seeing job creation and we're not even seeing people get by.
"Every day I hear from people struggling to get ahead or even just struggling to put food on the table. Small businesses in Swift Current and across the province have identified that doing business is harder than ever. We've lost over 40,000 jobs in rural Saskatchewan. We've lost almost 1000 businesses outside of the two major cities since Scott Moe took office."
Incumbent MLA Everett Hindley pointed out some funding the provincial government has done in Swift Current.
"The Saskatchewan Party has a plan for growing our economy, creating jobs, building our province and keeping life affordable," Hindley said. "As the local MLA I have been fortunate to be involved in a number of key initiatives important to our community.
"Such as securing funding for Dorie's House, our youth treatment center here in this city. Funding to help build the new Canadian Mental Health Association building right here in Swift Current. Funding for the free mental health walk-in clinic at Fresh Start, which is one of several at dozens of these walk-in mental health clinics across the province. Permanent annual operating funding for the Family Resource Center in Swift Current, which allows them to do great work, supporting families and kids in this community so they're spending more time doing that and less time having to apply for grants so they can keep the lights on."
Recently announced Buffalo Party candidate Constance Maffenbeier is concerned about debt and taxation levels.
"I'm honoured to join the Buffalo Party as a candidate for Swift Current," Maffenbeir said. "We need to build on a future that is not crippled in debt while providing a future for our children and our grandchildren. We need to take care of the people who toiled and built our province, including those that protected our freedoms. We are a province of hard-working people, generous to evolve, but stoic. We get things done by doing. We keep forging ahead with the intent of positive outcomes. Together we can build a new healthy, strong and debt free Saskatchewan, and let's do it together."
The conversation eventually turned to healthcare and worker shortages.
"I was in nursing program in 2000," Maffenbaier said. "We were short nurses all the time. And I'm going where's all the nurses? They're off the floor in management.
"When we're talking about rural health, we have an abundance of really good hospitals out in our rural areas. Why should people from the rural areas be forced to go into the cities for things like dialysis or MRIs? If we could start those hospitals with things like MRIs and dialysis machines that would take the pressure off the city hospitals, so the nurses might have a little bit more time to do the job that they're hired to do."
Kimball expressed concerns about the employment status of nurses in rural communities and disruptions in services.
"We have a lot of part-time nurses in rural communities," Kimball said. "Because we have part time nurses in rural communities, our ER's are constantly at a shortage. If you do live in the rural that you've tried to drive to a hospital and it's closed, and that's because there's not enough staffing there. You get moved bypassed onto the next community and bypassed onto the next community.
"There is a shortage of full-time nurses, and we want to migrate those positions from part time to full time. If you're living in a little village and you've been moved to a town, you want to have full time work. You want to have a reason to move. The Sask NDP our first thing that we're going to do is form that task force that's been called for years and years and years, and a real task force that's an integrated task force with all healthcare workers, and not just the ones we want to hear from, to create the very best healthcare system that we can."
Hindley has been serving as the Minister of Health. They're in the process of a Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan trying to deal with a shortage of healthcare workers.
"So the stats are this: 1000 more physicians, net physicians since 2007," Hindley said. "6400 more nurses, net nurses since 2007. Those are the stats and that factors nurses who have left, that have retired, that moved to other provinces, you name it.
"I think it's important to talk about some of the very, very significant investments we've made as a government over the past number of years. Particularly in the last two years as part of the Health Human Resources Action Plan that we launched in September of 2022 and that has been a very significant program. $300 million been invested into that program to recruit, training, incentivized, retain healthcare workers right across this province. That includes right here in Swift Current. 250 new permanent full time enhanced positions in rural Saskatchewan. Nearly all of those have been filled."
The controversial policy on pronouns in school and an obligation to inform parents stirred up some conversation between the candidates.
"The Saskatchewan Party believes that parents have the right to be involved in their children's education," Hindley said. "Simple as that, and I do support the policy. We believe that parents are the most important people in a child's life, and they need to be involved in in all of those decisions, whether they happen in school or other areas. That's why we introduced the parental inclusion and consent policy.
"We are committed to making sure that there are supports in place for when there are kids who feel that there might be danger when it comes to obtaining parental consent. We know that there are those situations and cases out there."
Maffenbaier's stance seemed to dismiss the need to respect pronouns at all.
"I don't feel that the schools have the right to implement things or help students become pronoun proficient," she said. "I don't quite understand the need to be called they and them. In my generation we had two sexes, male and a female. A he and a she. We survived all of this time with that.
"This is completely new for me, and I don't quite understand the direction that this is going to go and the end result. But I still stand strong that parents should be involved with their students, with their children on huge decisions such as this."
The NDP's candidate saw the bill as an effort to divide people.
"This bill was to draw divisions," Kimball said. "To pander to certain voters, and if anything, it has created more division and more risk for students that are transitioning than ever before.
"We need to be inclusive. We need to acknowledge that there is a diversity of people that are in our education system. We cannot draw divisions between people and parents do deserve to be parts of their children's education. How far does that go? Like how far does the parent involvement go? Does that mean that if the coach is calling a kid a nickname, do we have to report that to the parents? How blurry is this?"
They touched on a number of other topics, and you can watch the whole provincial election forum on the video linked to this page. Voting day is October 28th.