Minister acknowledges only 17 more CCAs are working in the province after promising to add 300 new positions.

Despite promising to hire hundreds of Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) as part of their 2020 re-election campaign, numbers revealed by the Minister for Seniors show that the Sask. Party government has made almost no progress on hiring in nearly three years.

During the 2020 provincial election, the Sask. Party committed to hiring 300 more CCAs, promising one new care assistant for every 50 residents of long-term care facilities across the province. When questioned by the Official Opposition during legislative proceedings earlier this week, Minister Everett Hindley acknowledged that there were only 17 more full-time CCAs working in the province from the 2019-20 to 2021-22 fiscal years.

Dear Valued Member:

Our collective agreement expires March 31, 2023. We have been preparing for the past year and are READY to bargain on your behalf.

On January 23, 2023, we sent the required formal notice to the employer of our intent to negotiate revisions to our collective bargaining agreement. We subsequently provided a selection of dates in March for the employer to choose for this process to begin. The employer did not respond. When we reminded them of our request, they responded to say they were not yet prepared for bargaining and would get back to us. We are still waiting to hear from them.

We are disappointed that the employer is not prepared to come to the table right now, but we will continue to pressure the employer to come to the bargaining table in a timely manner.

The Sask. Party government has signed a $6 million agreement with a Calgary based for-profit corporation, Canadian Surgery Solutions, to provide an undisclosed number of surgeries to Saskatchewan residents. Canadian Surgery Solutions is part of a national network of for-profit private surgical clinics owned by Kensington Capital Partners Limited, an investment firm with $2.6 billion in assets under management.

“Contracting out surgeries is not a magic silver bullet for wait times. It is a costly scheme with little evidence it will reduce overall wait times,” said Bashir Jalloh, president of CUPE 5430. “If the Sask. Party government can afford to ship people out of province for surgeries, they can afford to invest in public solutions.”

Documents compiled by CUPE show that the provincial government is contracting out work to private “staffing solution” companies in health care – including more than $730,000 for Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) in just one region of the province.

“This is the completely wrong approach to dealing with the staffing crisis in healthcare,” said Bashir Jalloh, President of CUPE 5430. “This issue is a mess of the government’s own making, and it’s only one example of the contracting out of healthcare workers that is becoming more widespread across the province. The hiring of private contractors is not only costly, it’s a temporary band aid solution that will do nothing to solve the issues that are causing a shortage of healthcare workers in Saskatchewan.”