Former NDP minister named chair of Investment Saskatchewan!

This is from the CBC. MacKinnon is not a fan of universal healthcare but does
want co-pays and targetted health care funding. It seems that if a minister is right wing enough it is possible to fit nicely as a minister either in the NDP or a Sask. Party government. It is not that surprising that Wall could easily find a former NDP minister whose philosophy fits in with his own reactionary views. Janice MacKinnon is a perfect fit. Her views on the NDP drug plan are well known. This is from canada.com.
NDP drug plan misuse of health dollars: MacKinnon
Pamela Cowan, Saskatchewan News Network, James Wood, The StarPhoenix, Saskatchewan News Network; The StarPhoenix; Regina Leader-PostPublished: Tuesday, October 16, 2007
REGINA -- Former NDP finance minister Janice MacKinnon says a new NDP drug plan for rich and poor alike isn't a financially sound way to spend health dollars.
"If you're going to provide everybody, including rich people, with prescription drugs for $15, why would you do that?" she asked Monday. "Why wouldn't you use that money for something that is going to be more beneficial in terms of the overall health of people?"
According to NDP estimates, a universal drug plan would cost $96 million annually in addition to $53 million for the current seniors' plan, for a total of about $150 million a year.


MacKinnon questions how the NDP arrived at the cost for its proposed drug plan.
"But if you look into the future, the population is aging and so the cost is going to accelerate because of that and every year new and expensive drugs come on the market. . . . As a former finance minister, my view is that if this were implemented, some government in the future during an economic downturn would either have to curtail this program, cut spending in some another area or raise taxes to finance it," she said.
NDP Leader Lorne Calvert said MacKinnon has raised doubts about medicare in the past.
"You'll recall that Ms. MacKinnon once sat in government and on occasion she was wrong then and she can still be wrong," Calvert told reporters Monday. "I have debated with Ms. MacKinnon in the past the role of publicly funded medicare, the sustainability of publicly funded medicare. She apparently takes the view that publicly funded medicare is not sustainable -- I take the view it is. You're wrong once; you can be wrong twice."
The Saskatchewan Party has proposed that the $15 per prescription cap on drug costs now available to seniors be extended to all children age 14 and under, but no longer be available to higher-income seniors.
But MacKinnon noted many children already benefit from drug coverage under existing programs.
The Family Health Benefits Program provides benefits to families who either receive the Saskatchewan child benefit and-or the Saskatchewan employment supplement. Under the program, comprehensive supplementary health benefits are available to children under the age of 18, including prescription drugs covered in the Saskatchewan formulary.
"I'm not sure that I understand why the Sask. Party said that all children would be covered because children under a certain income level would be covered now," MacKinnon said.
Drug costs account for about 6.2 per cent of the total health budget.
According to Saskatchewan Health's annual Drug Plan and Extended Benefits Branch report, in 2005-06 the province spent slightly more than $5 million for children aged 0 to 14 years of the total $181 million prescription drug budget. The largest expenditure, just over $34 million, was spent on prescription drugs for the 75- to 84-year-old group. That was followed by $33 million spent on those who were 65 to 74 years old.
In 2004, MacKinnon wrote a paper proposing a system that would involve billing people a specific percentage of their income (an amount that would be capped) toward their health-care costs."

This is from the CBC.

Former NDP minister named head of Investment Saskatchewan
Last Updated: Friday, January 25, 2008 6:32 PM CT
CBC News
The Saskatchewan Party has named former NDP cabinet minister Janice MacKinnon to chair the Crown corporation in charge of investments, as part of a flurry of appointments and firings in the provincial civil service.
Deputy premier Ken Krawetz, who's in charge of the government's transition process, named MacKinnon head of Investment Saskatchewan on Friday.
Investment Saskatchewan is a Crown corporation responsible for about $452 million of provincially owned assets, according to its last annual report.
MacKinnon, a public policy professor at the University of Saskatchewan, held a number of cabinet portfolios in the New Democrat government, including finance minister in former premier Roy Romanow's cabinet.
She was among a number of people appointed to chair provincial Crown corporations.
The Saskatchewan Party government is in the midst of a series of firings, involving about 70 people, that were happening Thursday and Friday.
The MacKinnon appointment may serve to blunt criticisms by the NDP that the Saskatchewan Party is trying to purge the civil service of people who don't hold the same philosophy as Premier Brad Wall. On the other hand, in recent years, MacKinnon herself had been critical of some of the policies of the previous NDP government under Lorne Calvert.
Krawetz said Friday that the presidents of all the major Crown corporations would keep their jobs.
He said the government was making a number of changes to Crown boards to carry out "the new direction and vision of our new government."
Critics say no need to fire experienced public servants
Krawetz said this is what new governments do, noting the NDP did the same after it took over in 1991.
However, an expert in public policy said it doesn't have to be that way.
'Many of the names that I've heard, they have no connection, no connection, to the New Democratic Party. Some of them have 30 years plus in the public service.'—Lorne Calvert
Ken Rasmussen, director of the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Regina, said large numbers of civil servants aren't fired when there's a change of government federally or in many other provinces.
He said he wishes the new Saskatchewan Party government would have put a stop to it as well.
"This is really sending a message that everybody better get on board: 'Why not sign up and join the party?'" he said. "You're all expected to row in one direction."
Rasmussen said it makes for bad advice. Civil servants must feel free to tell the truth, so they can tell politicians when their ideas are bad, he said.
NDP Leader Lorne Calvert also criticized the Saskatchewan Party firings, saying many of the people being let go are professional, experienced public servants with no links to the New Democrats.
"Many of the names that I've heard, they have no connection, no connection, to the New Democratic Party," Calvert said. "Some of them have 30 years plus in the public service. They have served a variety of governments