By Geoff Smith

Cox not expecting “total upheaval” in health, education

May 18, 2016 | 6:00 AM

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.

Cox also said while the government can’t control resource revenues, it can control its spending, and that’s what it’s doing

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“Every single ministry has been very cognizant of the fact that we need to make sure we’re spending money where our programs are best needed and used, and we’ve cut down on any excess that we didn’t need to spend,” Cox said.

The government also intends to make a legislative change that will allow for the privatization of 40 liquor stores, as well as the opening of 12 new stores. The list of existing locations intended for privatization includes the store in Battleford.

The speech also pledged a $70 million “surge” in spending on highway repairs and maintenance. Cox said he and other area MLAs are working to ensure a “fair share” of that is earmarked for the Battlefords region.

MLAs are scheduled to spend the next two weeks debating the Throne Speech, with the budget to follow June 1.

gsmith@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @smithco