Tony Wakeham talks about election commitments like health care, cost of living, and safer communities

Wakeham says it’s both humbling and an honour to be given the responsibility of being Premier, something he doesn’t take lightly and wants to get down to work to make this a better place to live. 

NL’s Premier-designate left his Stephenville -Port au Port district on Wednesday after Tuesday’s election win to fly to St. John’s to get things started. The Progressive Conservatives will form a majority government after getting 1881 votes over the Liberals, who had been in power for the past decade. Tony Wakeham says it’s both humbling and an honour to be given the responsibility of being Premier, something he doesn’t take lightly and wants to get down to work to make this a better place to live. 

Wakeham says access to healthcare, lower taxes, and safer communities  became the focal point of the election campaign. He says it starts with a commitment to expand the nursing program, double the number of Nurse Practitioners, and increase the number of seats in the med school, but to also offer all first year medical programs students full time jobs. 

Wakeham says a commitment has already been made to ensure people will not have to pay out of pocket to see a Nurse Practitioner, and as well, costs of medical travel to St. John’s will be covered. He says there are 8,500 people on a two-year waitlist for an MRI, so the plan is to increase the number of MRI’s in the province. 

Meanwhile, with increases in the cost of living, Wakeham says changes are coming by putting in place a program so the first $15,000 of a person’s income is tax free, which is the highest basic personal exemption in Atlantic Canada. He says they’ll also increase the seniors' benefit by 20 percent and index that to inflation, as well as changes to the threshold to the child benefit making another 3,000 children eligible. The PC’s also committed to hire more RCMP and RNC officers, build safe roads,  safer drinking water, and mobile response teams for addictions and mental health.