The Canadian Council of Churches has written to three of the largest church bodies in the United States – the National Council of Churches, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Association of Evangelicals – to share experiences in similar debates on health care that have taken place in Canada.
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Le Conseil canadien des Églises a écrit à trois des plus grands organismes religieux des États-Unis, soit au National Council of Churches, à la United States Conference of Catholic Bishops et à la National Association of Evangelicalism pour partager avec eux son expérience de débats sur les soins de santé analogues à ceux qui ont eu lieu au Canada.
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As the Executive Director of an inter-church agency working in Saskatchewan to promote inter-church cooperation, I am writing to express my surprise and grave concern about the decision to cut $8 million of promised and committed provincial funding to the Station 20 West project. At a time of healthy budget surpluses, I cannot understand the provincial government’s reasoning and assume it must be based on lack of reliable information about the project.

This is no “throw-more-money-at-the-inner-city-quick-fix” solution, but rather a very well planned partnership between local community based organizations, social service providers, the Saskatoon Health Region, the University of Saskatchewan, the city of Saskatoon and local businesses. Its purpose is to address the very well documented discrepancies in social and health care provision between different areas of Saskatoon.

As last year’s Saskatoon health outcomes study showed, people in the core neighbourhoods have greatly increased likelihoods of serious illness and a much lower life expectancy. The main reason is poverty and the things that go with poverty, like no access to transport, lack of education and poor nutrition. The poor cannot easily travel for services, and a subsidized bus pass is of little use to a single parent hauling several young children around in the cold of winter.

Station 20 West is designed to address these issues, providing a free or low-cost dental clinic (through the U of S department of dentistry), a not-for-profit grocery store featuring good food at affordable prices (in an area where there hasn’t been a grocery store for 10 years), a library and other valuable facilities, along with much-needed affordable housing. The project will offer people living in the core neighbourhoods a chance to help themselves and raise themselves out of poverty. The long-term savings to the government in social service and health care costs, emergency room visits, welfare and corrections facility costs would far outstrip the promised and committed $8 million government investment.

Thousands of volunteer hours have been expended on this worthwhile project by community groups, businesses, church groups and the university. It has widespread community support and credibility. This project is far too important to be made into a political football.

My understanding of the Saskatchewan Party is that it is a grass-roots party which encourages community engagement and the promotion of self-sufficiency. Thus supporting Station 20 West fits with the Sask Party’s core values. It would put tools in the hands of the poor to help them to help themselves.

The Saskatchewan Party also, I think, believes in fairness and integrity. A decision to cut funding which has been promised and committed, and on the basis of which so many organizations and businesses have expended time and resources, appears to lack both fairness and integrity.

I urge the provincial government to reconsider.

Yours sincerely

Rev. Dr. Jan Bigland-Pritchard
Director, Prairie Centre for Ecumenism
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Community Walk for Station 20 West

All-Community Walk: Lets Keep Building Our Community
Support and Celebrate Station 20 West

Bring friends, family, and neighbours!!

Saturday April 5th, gather at 10am
Station 20 West Site, 20th Street West and Avenue L South

Station 20 West is a Community Enterprise Centre being constructed in the heart of Saskatoon’s core neighbourhoods.

The project will strengthen the economy and create skills and employment, provide much needed services and amenities, reduce poverty and health disparities, use LEED environmental design, and help revitalize the Westside core neighbourhoods.

The Provincial government has pulled their $8 million in promised and committed funding from the project, effectively stopping construction.

We will walk together to show community support to reinstate funding and let this innovative and much-needed community-building project reach its full potential.

Resources:
• Community Walk Poster – download, print, and post in a public location
• Join the Station 20 West Facebook Group – for the latest information on the campaign to reinstate funding
• Community Walk invitation on Facebook – send invitations to your friends
• Sign the online petition to reinstate funding
• Visit the Station 20 West website to read about the project, see artistic renderings, and contribute to the capital campaign
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The Ecumenical Health Care Network of the Canadian Council of Churches invites every congregation and community across the country to join in a time of celebration and renewal of Canada’s commitment to ensuring the preservation and strengthening of its universal public health care system, better known as Medicare. To this end, we have named the week of November 18th “Celebrate Medicare Week.”

In the past, Canada’s churches have played an invaluable role in defending access to care based on need not on ability to pay, and as a living statement of how we care for one another in Canadian society. In the words of a former vice-president of the Canadian Council of Churches, Karen MacKay-Llewellyn, “Defending public health care in a system that promises accessibility to all Canadians at the same level of quality, is a matter at the heart of our Christian confession, and this must rest at the heart of our public witness.”
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