Sask. pledges shorter wait times, driver texting ban

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is promising that no one will have to wait longer than three months for surgery — one of several initiatives in Wednesday's throne speech.

Wall told reporters the Saskatchewan Party government's wait list guarantee is a bold one that may require the use of private health care, but the basics of the public system will remain.

"There will not be queue-jumping. There will not be the chance for people to put down a credit card and pay for a surgeon in this system," Wall said.

"It will be a publicly paid system. But we may well use other partners as the health-care system currently does. Including, yes, those community-based partners and potentially private partners." 

The government is giving itself four years to make good on the three-month wait list promise.

Long waits for elective surgery — things like hip and knee replacements — have long been a thorn in the side of the Saskatchewan health-care system. Many people wait more than a year for surgery, according to provincial statistics.

NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter said he has no problem with the government spending more money to reduce wait times — however, that money should go into the public system, not the private one, he said.

The health-care pledge was one of several outlined in the speech read in the legislative chamber by Lt.-Gov. Gordon Barnhart.

Other promises and plans for the fall session include:

• The introduction of legislation to ban people from using handheld cellphones and texting while driving, something the government said earlier this year it intended to do.
• Consumer protection legislation to help people who buy concert tickets.
• New anti-tobacco legislation, the details of which were not revealed in the speech.
• Capping the number of needles given out under needle-exchange programs, as a public safety measure.
• Legislation to prevent members of a profession from avoiding discipline by quitting the profession.
• Changing the way provincial budgets are prepared to better handle wild fluctuations in resource prices, such as the situation this summer when potash revenues came in more than $1 billion below the spring budget projection.
• More money for wind power.

The throne speech launches the fall sitting. Saskatchewan MLAs will be in their seats in the legislature Thursday for the first question period.