Thank you sir, may I have another?

CSR rightly points out the absurdity of Con MP Gerry Ritz' attempt to paint a reduction in federal health-care funding for Saskatchewan as both a good-news story, and somehow a reversal of the Libs' historical social spending cuts. But while Ritz' statement may be the more ridiculous on its face, the provincial response may be even more telling:

Saskatchewan Health Minister Don McMorris says this total is actually less than the previous year’s total of $806 million...

Despite the slight decrease in funding, McMorris says the Saskatchewan government is pleased to know how much they will receive.

“It’s good to know that we can count on that money and it helps us a bit in our budgeting process … so we can count on that,” he said.

Let's consider what this means if one takes McMorris' statement at face value. Even the Con-friendly Sask Party government would then have so little trust in the Harper regime that it would have seen some real risk that it couldn't budget for federal funding at all - such that it's happy even to receive confirmation of a decrease if it means being able to plan for something.

Of course, it's more likely that the Sask Party simply lacks the spine to actually stand up for the province's interests in the face of federal cuts. Either way, though, there's plenty of reason for Saskatchewan residents to be concerned about how much worse off the province stands to become based on the current set of federal and provincial governing parties.