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Wall also called for performing all surgeries within three months (a goal Saskatchewan is on track to achieve partly due to private medical clinics), connecting all people to a health-care team that includes a family physician, ensuring that all patients have access to a specialist and diagnoses within one week, and no waits for anyone in emergency rooms.

Details and timelines will be laid out "soon," he said.

There aren’t enough nursing home beds to accommodate the surge of seniors needing care, so home care may be the solution, said Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.

The working group, which Ghiz and Wall both lead, is also making progress on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, they said.

Several provinces and territories reached a deal in January to team up when purchasing six widely used generic drugs, which will collectively save them about $100 million a year, Wall said.

They’re also looking at brand-name drugs and will have more to say about it in July at the Council of the Federation meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake

The provinces have agreements for seven brand-name drugs and they’re negotiating prices for 13 others, said Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews.

The working group also talked about “appropriateness of care” — ways to make the health-care system more efficient and cut down on soaring costs. “The radiologists in this country have said 10 to 20 per cent of diagnostic imaging is probably not required,” Wall said.

There might be other suggestions from providers, in terms of cataracts

Wall wants to talk about reforms being made to improve care in Saskatchewan, including the delivery of publicly funded services by private surgical clinics.

lean management techniques

The premier has repeatedly used the word "innovation" in health care since December

we're going to be going there to talk about better health care, not just wrangle over dollars."

Saskatchewan will be pushing for Ottawa to pony up money for a so-called Innovation Fund.

He joked that he and Ghiz won't employ a good-cop-bad-cop routine

The working group will focus on saving dollars while providing the best and most up-to-date health services to Canadians.

"We're going to do our work," said Wall. "The federal government is not needed for this work. They don't deliver health care. The expertise is in the provinces and the territories."

Wall told reporters in Saskatchewan following the meetings he was disappointed that Ottawa hasn't backed health innovation with federal dollars.He said federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq expressed support for an innovation fund, but that appears to have dried up.

other types of federal financial support for health care, particularly innovative initiatives, might be possible.

there are opportunities for Saskatchewan to negotiate some additional funding for innovation ... That's what we'll be working toward."

The Saskatchewan government is preparing its own proposal around extra funding for innovation in health care, he noted, pointing out "we've seen flexibility from the federal government on other files." That's partly why he isn't joining other premiers in sounding the alarm, he said.

Such settlements clearly indicate that even its friends in the unions don't think the NDP will be back anytime soon, meaning that they will have to contend with the Wall government's P3/privatization agenda. Contracting out is already hammering laundry workers in SEIU-West, which also represents LPNs, janitorial, clerical and foodservices staff in hospitals.

The thing is, though, the Saskatchewan Party government opposed such "tax increases" in boom times as well, leaving one to wonder whether this government ever sees a time when low-salaried workers or the self-employed should get additional government support for their retirements. At a time of minimal wage increases, rising unemployment and growing part-time and service sector jobs found necessary by many trying to make ends meet, it does cause one to wonder whether now might be a time to set aside one's philosophical opposition to an improved CPP. In a somewhat similar vein, Doherty said he does support the Liberals' campaign promise to double infrastructure spending, but under the caveat that the Saskatchewan government be able to spend its share on P3 highways, water treatment facilities and even bypass projects and not on transit projects as the federal government would prefer.

It's common sense that Doherty should advocate Saskatchewan deciding for itself how best to spend infrastructure dollars. Furthermore, he has a point that while public transit may be more important for cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal or even Regina and Saskatoon, "transit's not the top of our list" in Saskatchewan. But what Doherty and the Sask. Party seem to really be defending is the old federal government system under Stephen Harper's Conservatives that rewarded/subsidized governments for simply using P3 models (see: Regina sewage treatment plant) - whether the concept made any practical sense or not.

Doherty denies his government is "stuck" on P3s for ideological reasons, but the lengths his government has gone to demonstrate P3s work suggests quite the opposite. In fact, Premier Brad Wall seems to be swinging the Sask. Party hard to the right, just months before the April 4 vote. Be it his government's push for liquor store privatization or his recent caution on federal Liberal plans to quickly bring thousands of Syrian refugees to Canada (after being among the first leaders last summer to call on Ottawa to do more) or his hard line oil-sector support before and during the Paris climate summit, or Doherty's pronouncements on P3s and the CPP, this is a government marking its right-wing territory. It's odd timing for any government, given that in the months before an election most governing parties go out of their way to demonstrate how inclusive they are. Making it even odder is the fact that elections across the country this year - including that national vote we had on Oct. 19 - suggest an electorate that's moving to the left.

Wall and the Sask. Party's defence of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) dictates on the CPP, Harper's view on P3s or even pandering to the right's view on Syria at a time when the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way is a curious political strategy. We'll know about four months from now whether it was the right approach - or the one that gives the NDP the opening it has needed. Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post.

"We are in frequent contact and continue to co-operate" with U.S. authorities, Valeant said in a written statement. "We do not comment on rumours about investigations, and cannot comment on or speculate about the possible course of any ongoing investigation. Valeant takes these matters seriously and intends to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct." A Pearson lawyer, Bruce Yannett, declined to comment. Dan K. Webb, a lawyer for Schiller, didn't immediately comment. Spokespeople for the FBI and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, declined to comment. Jonathan Rosen, a lawyer for Philidor, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors are examining the actions of J. Michael Pearson, Valeant's former CEO, and Howard Schiller, the ex-CFO who became interim CEO during a medical leave by Pearson, according to the people, who discussed the confidential proceedings on the condition of anonymity. Prosecution of individual executives could go beyond just those two, one person said, adding that Philidor executives could also be charged.

While the precise contours of the government's case against Valeant aren't clear, allegations of questionable company practices have emerged in the past year as lawsuits and government investigations mounted. Pearson, the former CEO, was a key architect of Valeant's growth over the years. He stepped down from his role last spring and continues to work as a consultant to the company from a Valeant office near his home, according to the people familiar with the matter. Schiller was blamed by Valeant for "improper conduct" that led the company to restate its earnings for 2014 and 2015, an assertion disputed by Schiller. He stepped down as CFO in 2015 and left the company board this year.

U.S. prosecutors in Boston and Philadelphia are also said to be conducting separate inquiries of Valeant. Boston's investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter, focuses on Valeant's payments to charities that then helped patients make co-payments for the soaring cost of Valeant drugs, some of the most expensive on the market. The Philadelphia case is examining Valeant's billing of government health-care programs for the company's drugs, another person said. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston didn't respond to a request for comment. Michele Mucellin, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, declined to comment. Valeant said in October 2015 that federal prosecutors in New York had issued subpoenas seeking information on the company's drug distribution and pricing decisions. It later disclosed an investigation by the SEC. Judy Burns, an SEC spokesperson, declined to comment. Short-sellers first raised questions about Valeant's accounting practices and relationship with Philidor a year ago. As it turned out, Valeant had offered Philidor executives tens of millions of dollars in incentives to sell its products at a time when the relationship between the companies was still secret, according to hundreds of pages of evidence released by U.S. Senate investigators this year. Though they were nominally separate companies, Valeant was Philidor's only client, a class-action lawsuit in New Jersey alleges. Valeant ultimately acknowledged its financial control of Philidor.

In February, Valeant restated its results for 2014 and 2015, disclosing it recorded $58 million in revenue from Philidor earlier than it should have.

In October of 2008, while the economy was in the early stages of what the IMF called “the worst recession since World War II,” The Washington Post reported that the “stock market’s prolonged tumble has wiped out about $2 trillion in Americans’ retirement savings in the past 15 months, a blow that could force workers to stay on the job longer than planned.”