Cox not expecting “total upheaval” in health, education
The provincial government may be looking at all of its options to find savings in the delivery of health and education. But the MLA for the Battlefords doesn’t feel that’s necessarily as severe as some of the language being used.
In the Speech from the Throne delivered by Lieutenant Gov. Vaughn Solomon Schofield, the newly re-elected Saskatchewan Party government said it was starting “a government-wide exercise of transformational change to ensure the sustainability of high quality public services delivered in the most effective, efficient way possible.”
“We’re just looking at all possibilities. But ‘transformational change’ doesn’t necessarily mean a total upheaval of the system,” Herb Cox said. “If we find some efficiencies, we think some things could be done better, to provide better service, that’s what we’ll look at. We’re going to explore it, we’ll do extensive consultations, and we’ll listen to what people tell us.”
Cox, who serves as environment minister, said the speech is consistent with the promises made during the Saskatchewan Party’s campaign, including a balanced budget by the 2017-18 fiscal year. One priority was to cut $7.5 million from health care administration to put into the front line.