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“I was aware that, once in awhile, this does happen,” she said.

Photo by Averil Hall - McPhedran Phocus

Janice MacKinnon, former social services minister under NDP premier Roy Romanow and a public health professor at the University of Saskatchewan, said it’s impossible to deduce whether the government acted appropriately because social workers are bound by confidentiality restrictions and cannot comment on cases, even to clarify facts.

“There is no government policy to provide people with bus tickets out of the province, but in specific situations helping people travel to where they have family or better opportunities might be a reasonable approach if the social worker thinks such action is in the best interests of the client,” she said in an email.

Glencross, who has worked with the westbound men for months, said she believes the moves are not in their best interests.

NDP leader Cam Broten said the ministry’s two one-way tickets to British Columbia appear to be an example of recent “short-sighted” cuts to emergency shelters in Saskatchewan.

“You don’t just send someone who is desperate, with no supports, on a Greyhound to Vancouver where they have no supports or are on the streets and can’t get the help that they need there,” he said. “Instead of having a housing first approach, the Sask Party has a Greyhound first approach.”

Roy and Curly were among the many people staying at the North Battlefords Lighthouse without funding.

“I’m obviously concerned about these individuals. They’re going to go somewhere now that they have no supports because they couldn’t get supports in our province.” – North Battleford Lighthouse manager Caitlin Glencross

In November, Social Services cracked down on who was receiving emergency shelter per diems to stay at places such as the Lighthouse. Among those not getting provincial money are First Nations people, who the province says should be receiving federal government funding, and people who arrive at the shelter drunk. According to emails sent from the ministry to Lighthouse staff in December, the ministry’s “mandate is not to fund the lodging of publicly intoxicated individuals.”

The North Battleford Lighthouse received provincial funding for about 70 per cent of people who spent the night there when it opened last January. This January, just 11 per cent of people staying overnight were covered by provincial dollars.

“They wouldn’t fund them to be at the shelter at all, but they’re going to start shipping people off with bus tickets that cost the province money? It just doesn’t make any sense,” Glencross said.