Healthcare is the burning issue leading up to Sask. election: poll

New polling data available Wednesday shows the top priority for Saskatchewan voters in the provincial election is healthcare.

A survey of 800 Saskatchewan adults conducted by Janet Brown Opinion Research between Sept. 23 and Oct. 3 showed healthcare, inflation and education are the three leading issues for voters ahead of voting week.

In the survey, released Wednesday by CUPE, 46 per cent of respondents mentioned healthcare as one of their concerns, 28 per cent mentioned inflation and 26 per cent mentioned education.

When asked on an open-ended basis what was the single most important issue facing Saskatchewan today, 27 per cent said health care and 16 per cent said inflation. All other top-of-mind issues — including education, housing and taxes — were only mentioned by seven per cent of respondents or less.

"This election is neck and neck, and health care is on the ballot," Kent Peterson, the president of CUPE Saskatchewan, said Wednesday outside the Saskatoon cabinet office.

"Vote like your healthcare depends on it."

The survey data shows healthcare has become more of a concern in recent years.

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According to Janet Brown, the number of Saskatchewan residents who cite healthcare as a concern increased 14 points since 2023, from 32 per cent to 46 per cent. In that same period, inflation has decreased from 34 per cent to 28 per cent.

Peterson was joined by national CUPE president Mark Hancock, who said he’s heard from CUPE membership about Saskatchewan falling behind in many categories.

Improvements to healthcare need to come quickly, Hancock said.

“It's unacceptable that the health care system is plagued these days with shutdowns, with ballooning waiting times and service disruptions,” he said.

“Enough is enough.”

Daniel Westlake, a political scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, said healthcare is usually a dominant topic in any election.

“I’m more surprised when healthcare is not an issue in a provincial election than when it is,” Westlake said.

But, he says the current state of the system — with less immediate access, a dearth of family doctors, hospital overcapacity and long wait times — makes it even more impactful this year.

“This is the kind of thing that regardless of whether you see news stories about it, regardless of whether politicians talk about it, it's something you see in your day-to-day life. And those issues are always going to be things that end up mattering to voters.”

The survey period concluded shortly before the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses revealed Saskatoon's Royal University Hospital was at 350 per cent capacity after running out of stretchers and oxygen, and patients outnumbering nursing staff 14 to one.

In the survey, 61 per cent of respondents rated the government’s handling of healthcare as poor, with 36 per cent rating it as very poor and 25 per cent rating it somewhat poor.

Just over one-third — or 36 per cent — rate the government’s performance as good. Five per cent rated it very good, and 32 per cent rated it somewhat good.

Westlake said no matter the issue, when things are perceived as being unsuccessful, the incumbent party will be criticized.

“An incumbent government is probably going to be blamed for poor health care outcomes, regardless of whether they put policies forward that have led to those poor health care outcomes or poor access to health care or not,” Westlake said.

“It's easier for voters to make the connection between government in power and something bad happening.”Peterson says the data validates what CUPE has been saying for months.

“And it shows that people are paying attention here in this election. And the ballot box question is: who will fix this broken system?”

Respondents to the survey were contacted at random by live telephone interviews from Trend Research based out of Edmonton from a sample list containing about 40 per cent landlines and 60 per cent cell phones, according to CUPE. The 800-person survey provided an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.