The notion that you sometimes get from city folk that rural people get special treatment has always been rather irksome.
If anything, quite the opposite is true. And nowhere is that more evident than in the funding formula for local health care facilities that requires the community to raise 35 per cent of the capital costs before the government contributes the final 65 per cent.
Ask a city person what he would think of having to raise 35 per cent of the capital costs of a new hospital in Saskatoon or Regina through local taxes or private donations and you would likely get indigent outrage. You would be told that this is why we have a public health system and that all taxpayers need to contribute equally.
And all governments, left, right and centre, have defended this practice under the auspice that the big city hospitals in Regina and Saskatoon are there for everyone.
Sure, local contribution requirements are one way of regulating battles between local rivalling communities demanding that the government build a hospital or nursing home in their community.
But as a simply matter of fairness, is it justifiable that city residents get 100 per cent of their capital costs for hospitals paid for while rural residents only get 65 per cent?
To its credit, the Saskatchewan Party government seems willing to address this decades-old inequity. Health Minister Don McMorris told the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) that his government might be willing to move off the 65-35 split towards something fairer, perhaps an 80-20 split.
However, many communities question whether the government is going far enough. With increasing construction costs, other increasing municipal expenses and no formula in place obligating neighbouring communities to contribute to the local hospital even if that they equally benefit, this will still be a strain on local communities.
This lack of fairness was raised in a recent editorial in the Moosomin World Spectator. The editorial also said government should help pay for communities that have already paid their 35 per cent, noting that Moosomin still owes $2 million on the $12 million that had to be raised locally for the Â鶹ÊÓƵeast Integrated Care Centre because some neighbouring communities didn't contribute at all.
Yet when asked by reporters about these issues, McMorris insisted that communities usually work well together and specifically cited Moosomin as an example.
As for eliminating local contributions altogether, McMorris talked about "the community pride of paying off their share" and "sense of ownership" in the facilities they help pay for. The Health Minister even went as far as to suggest that some mayors would not be very happy "if any government went to 100 per cent after they've raised 35 per cent."
One gets how there might be sincerely frustrating if a community that already raised its 35 per cent was not compensated when the government changed the rules. But should we have such a policy in place because of the supposed sense of pride it gives a community?
If this is the case, some city residents are not be very proud. Or worse yet, another recent Sask. Party health care funding must be severely wounding their pride.
McMorris spent much of his time in the legislature in 2010 defending his government's decision to provide all kinds of special dispensation to a 100-bed, private nursing home being built for the Saskatoon Health Region by a subsidiary of the Catholic Health Ministry.
Not only is the facility being allowed to charge a higher per-bed rate to make it more economically feasible, but also the government is providing a loan guarantee for the capital expenditure.
McMorris has called this "funding innovation" for a facility that might not otherwise be built.
But what it really shows is rural folks aren't the ones getting any special considerations from government.
