Year in review: Meili calls whistleblower promise a highlight of 2019

Looking back on 2019 Ryan Meili and his NDP had a few fights they brought to the Sask. Party government again and again, and Meili feels he has at least one checkmark to put down.

Meili said he feels the whistleblower legislation promised by the government this fall is an accomplishment for his party.

They brought up a memo from the Saskatchewan Health Authority which told employees, including doctors and nurses, not to bring up or talk about their concerns with the health system publicly or even with the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The Health Minister said he didn’t think the memo was worded very well and he wanted to make sure this wasn’t actually the case in the system, but in the same session, the government made a promise to bring up legislation to include healthcare workers under legislation protecting whistleblowers.

“It’s not anywhere near the protections that should be there, but it’s at least some progress towards people being able to feel like they can comfortably come out and say ‘I’m not able to provide the care my patients need because of the problems in our system’, and know that they can safely do so,” said the NDP leader.

The healthcare system and Saskatchewan classrooms are two of the topics the NDP kept coming back in 2019 — saying there are crises in both.

Meili said the troubles in those two sectors became really clear this year —from overcrowded and complicated classrooms to health struggles like hallway medicine and overcrowded emergency rooms.

“It’s been interesting to see how those issues that have been brewing for a long time have really come to the forefront and become front and centre for people,” said Meili.

The NDP focused on those two topics in the fall and spring sessions, but if there’s anything Meili wishes he could have done, it’s talking more about other things, like the problems the NDP sees with the Regina Bypass.

“When you’re in opposition there’s so much to talk about and the balance between, for example getting some focus on healthcare and education, which I think we’ve been able to do really well— when you do that it means you can’t explore every other issue in as much detail as you’d like,” said Meili.

While it’s soon the end of 2019, it’s also the end of the decade, and when Meili compares 2009 to 2019 he says it’s hard not to acknowledge the province was in a boom at the beginning of the decade.

“It was an easy time for a government. And now we’ve got a government that’s having to make tougher decisions and not necessarily getting those right. It’s a government that’s used to be able to throw money at problems, and now has to actually think about where to invest wisely,” said Meili.

For him personally, a lot has changed in the past ten years. He went from being a doctor in Saskatoon to winning a provincial byelection, to becoming the leader of the NDP and Official Opposition.

“I miss the practice of medicine, I miss seeing patients every day, but I really feel like I’m in a position now where, hopefully, we’ll be able to make a real difference in people’s lives. It’s what drove me to make the change — I wanted to be addressing the root causes of people’s illness by being part of the big decisions at the provincial level and I’m excited to be able to do that,” said Meili.