Bus crash whispers to us what our Sask. budget really needs
Even if you haven’t had much sympathy for Finance Minister Donna Harpauer before, pause for a moment and consider how tough today will be for the Humboldt-Watrous MLA.
It would be difficult enough to stand up and deliver what will be a lot of bad news in today’s 2018-19 austerity budget, but to have to do it under the horrific circumstances of the aftermath of Friday’s Humboldt Broncos bus crash that killed 15 people is hard to imagine.
Harpauer is a kind and goodhearted person, who is grieving like everyone else in Saskatchewan. Hers will be a heavy heart.
But as incomprehensible as this hometown tragedy is for Harpauer and everyone else, it may also be an opportunity to set our sights on a grander challenge long ignored.
Maybe the first step toward healing right now is the one Harpauer takes to the podium and unveils a budget that will offer more mental health support.
In these trying financial circumstances, such commitments aren’t easy.
According to the third-quarter update of the 2017-18 budget released last month, we were still dealing with a $679-million deficit made more challenging by the provincial government walking back on everything from library cuts to funeral costs for the indigent to the Hearing Aid Plan.
Add to this the wake of Scott Moe’s selection as Saskatchewan Party leader and premier, his commitment to reinstate the provincial sales tax exemptions on insurance (adding $65 million to the 2017-18 budget and a further a $120-million cost in today’s 2018-19 Saskatchewan budget) and restoring $30 million of $50 million in education cuts a year ago.
Those supporting former premier Brad Wall/Premier Moe’s determination to get back to balance in three years with minimal tax increases don’t favour such retreats. Some have been downright giddy at the prospects of more Saskatchewan public sector job cuts that would need to be in the neighbourhood of 1,250 just to offset restoration of the PST exemption.
Austerity budgets like the one we are expecting for 2018-19 are bully budgets. Maybe now would be a good time to be less of a bully. After all, we cannot forget other cuts in 2017-18 like money supporting pastoral care in hospitals — something that might have been helpful to the grieving families at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital (RUH) this weekend awaiting news. Sadly, non-governmental agencies and social workers are often the first to feel the pinch of austerity budgets.
In fact, now may be time to consider public workers beyond the heroic initial contributions of first responders, air ambulance and RCMP, or the nurses, doctors and entire medical care teams at RUH.
Let’s also consider the ongoing needs.
We now have 15 grieving extended families and 14 others living with all that surviving this horrific grief means.
Perhaps nothing takes a toll on mental health like a tragic death, so imagine the strain this one event will now put on our mental health support system when grief counsellors and social workers also have to deal with extending that support to friends and classmates. Let us hope that Harpauer’s budget unveils the long-awaited bolstering of the mental health budget.
Her hometown of Humboldt needs it. The bereaved 15 families need it. And young men recovering from horrific injuries need it.
But we all need it sometime. We need it every day.
We are only beginning to understand the importance of grieving and the need for support structures to get through tough times. This translates into dollars for mental health.
While that surely applies to a sensational event like the Humboldt bus crash, it equally applies to the more mundane — struggling with losses due to cancer, heart attacks, strokes, suicide, drug overdoses or fatalities. We need to think about those boys on the bus, but we also must think about the little old lady whose husband fell off a ladder and now finds herself alone and helpless.
Let us stand behind Donna Harpauer today in the hope today’s budget takes a big step forward in addressing mental health needs.