SASKATOON — The Saskatchewan NDP has asked the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner to review the provincial government’s failure to release the records they requested in connection with the cost of the Administrative Information Management System (AIMS), a project that aims to centralize the finance and supply management of the province’s human resources health system, including payroll and staff scheduling.
Official opposition health critic Vicki Mowat said the situation is ongoing, and she continues to hear from health-care workers who informed her that many of their colleagues have encountered problems with payment.
“The onus is on the individual health-care worker to identify what those issues are with their payment, and it can be quite complicated because many health-care workers work within different contracts. It can be very complicated for them to piece out which portion of their pay is supposed to come from a specific contract and then a different contract,” said Mowat.
“Many health-care workers work in different facilities, for different departments that have different agreements, and so on. These are still ongoing issues that we have heard from health-care workers across the board. I've heard from a health-care worker who works in security recently. I've heard from a nurse. I've heard from doctors. The problems still exist across the board, and this is only one-third of the program that has been rolled out to this point.”
The opposition filed their access-to-information request, based on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, on July 4 to learn the total cost of the AIMS program. The Sask. Party filed a request for a 30-day extension on Aug. 12 to release the documents, extending the deadline to Sept. 11.
The government has yet to produce the document, despite the deadline lapsing over a week ago, and Mowat is calling out Premier Scott Moe’s Sask. Party-led government for failing to disclose the document, adding that they have already broken the law by hiding the cost of the AIMS program.
“Sask. Party could have nearly balanced the budget this year if not for the hundreds of millions poured into this failed IT project. To date, Sask. Party has spent more money on this failed IT software than on their health human resources action plan last year. This Sask. Party program has been such a disaster that they are willing to break their own laws to hide the costs from Saskatchewan taxpayers. If that wasn’t bad enough, this failed project has made the chaos in our hospitals worse,” said Mowat.
She challenged the Sask. Party government to disclose how much the AIMS project cost the people of Saskatchewan. Last year, AIMS cost an estimated $240 million, which was three times the original budget, and the program caused delays in health-care workers' salaries, scheduling errors, and medical supply shortages.
Mowat said the problem is Saskatchewan’s laws are weak in seeking truth and accessing information, and not much can be done to force a government to disclose any information.
“We've seen a pattern of lack of disclosure from this government in the past. My colleague Meara Conway [MLA for Regina Elphinstone-Centre, opposition critic for social services, housing, human rights, and community-based organizations] has been drawing attention to these issues for the past year. But we have seen a government that fails to disclose the information in a timely manner, and also provides excessively redacted information when it is provided. The whole document is blacked out, which provides really no information to the public. I think, in particular, the details around this project are of public interest, and people want to know before the election how much money this government has wasted on this program. We definitely need to look at what other provinces are doing and see how we stack up. For me though, what it points to the most is just the lack of transparency from this government,” said Mowat.
The Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner is an independent office at the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly that oversees access to information and privacy rights of the province’s residents.
