The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association is calling for the province to address rural health care as well as the cost to decommission landfills.
“While health is a provincial responsibility, hospitals, health centres and long-term care homes are located in our hometowns — Saskatchewan’s cities, towns and villages — and they impact the well-being of our residents,” Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) president Randy Goulden said.
“You should not have to worry about how long it will take for an ambulance to get to you. In an emergency, minutes matter. You also should not have to travel well outside your community to receive basic care when you have a hospital or clinic in your own community but the doors are shuttered due to lack of staffing.”
The organization said the province has been working through the Health Human Resources Action Plan to recruit and retain workers for hospitals and health centres, but said more needs to be done, adding that regular service interruptions are visible in clinic hours and ambulatory care.
SUMA said low fee-for-service rates are pushing family doctors out of the profession.
In terms of landfill decommissioning, SUMA said some funding was made available to help with the transition, but the cost is still a barrier for small communities.
“Communities with less than 500 people do not have the tax base to pay $300,000 to $500,000 to decommission their landfill,” Goulden said.
Money was made available through the Canada Infrastructure Program, but municipalities were responsible for paying a portion of it.
“To help the province meet its goal of reducing the number of landfills, and help municipalities cover the costs of decommissioning their local landfill to ensure compliance with environmental guidelines, Saskatchewan’s hometowns are asking for the government of Saskatchewan to provide 25-year, interest-free loans to smaller communities,” Goulden said.
Bryan Matheson, mayor of Lumsden and chair of the environment committee for SUMA said the fees are especially devastating for smaller municipalities, but they negatively affects them all.
“I know the smaller communities are really being hit because it’s an immediate requirement, it’s not something they had a chance to prepare for,” Matheson said.
He said drumming up those kinds of funds can be difficult for some communities.
Matheson said there hasn’t been proper consultation with municipalities, noting that he had originally thought the Lumsden landfill could run for another 50-70 years, until they were told to shut it down in 2021.
He said an interest-free loan offered to municipalities would help, adding that they could pay off the money owed over a number of years rather than a lump sum.
“It would certainly help immensely.”
The Government of Saskatchewan said municipalities are responsible for providing safe infrastructure to their ratepayers including waste management.
They added that it is up to the municipalities to make sure their plans and budgets should consider both short- and long-term- investment needs.
“Government already provides financial support to municipalities in a number of ways to assist with necessary infrastructure,” read a statement from the Saskatchewan Government.
They said the ministry of government already administers the municipal revenue sharing program, infrastructure programs for landfills, and the Canada community building fund.