A columnist recently called Rosalie Longmore the most powerful politician in the province. To be sure, the head of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) has the government and much of the public convinced that whatever is good for her 8000 nurses is good for the province. Longmore, who landed nurses a 13.7 percent raise after an illegal strike in 1999, is emphasizing recruitment and retention as her union's current contract is due for renewal at the end of this month. Taxpayers should take her case with a grain of salt.

The nursing shortage, though real, needs some context. Saskatchewan is short of workers in all sectors-about 18,000 short by some estimates. Public dollars cannot fill them all. Besides, SAHO demonstrates that our 1172 nurses per 100,000 residents is actually better than every province, save Manitoba.

"But aren't our nurses overworked " some ask. In some regions, yes, but many nurses also fight to pick up shifts. The existing SUN contract gives veteran nurses dibs on overtime shifts-one more reason some younger casuals haven't stuck around. And, if SUN nurses work three weekends in a row, the second, third, and every consecutive weekend thereafter qualifies for time-and-a-half. Reportedly, some "overworked" nurses ask schedulers for even a four-hour shift simply to keep the streak alive.

This rhetoric itself may be overworked. In 1999, Longmore said she wouldn't oppose the illegal strike, adding, "I cannot ask nurses to go back to the working conditions they have left."

Recent moves by the province may alleviate the situation. For one, $18 million for equipment and training has been dedicated to make the nurses' job easier. Second, and more importantly, Health Minister Don McMorris agreed to create a recruitment and retention fund to hire 800 nurses. Under the agreement, every dollar that would have paid a nurse, but does not because the position could not be filled, will now go into a recruitment and retention fund. Unfortunately, this means taxpayers will pay into the fund for all vacancies back to November 1, 2007 and for all unfilled positions through to March 31, 2011.

But SUN's demands don't end with recruitment and retentions funds; they are also demanding higher wages. The union insists that because Alberta is the greatest poacher of our nurses, we should pay our RNs at Alberta levels, factoring in a lower cost of living.

SAHO has a few reasons to question the logic. For one, the recruitment rates in Alberta and Saskatchewan have very closely paralleled the population changes in each province. Now that many are coming flooding back to Saskatchewan, there's no reason to think nurses will be any different. Besides, our starting wages have been within three dollars of Alberta wages since 2005.

Interestingly, Manitoba has had success with recruitment and they have done so with lower wages than ours. The secret to their success seems to be Manitoba's own recruitment and retention fund. Should SAHO accept its obligations under the recruitment plan, it can counter SUN with the argument that such a fund, and not Alberta wages, represent a better solution to the nursing shortage SUN has made a priority.

Besides, unlike the Manitoba recruitment fund, the Saskatchewan version calls for RNs, not licenced practical nurses (LPNs), to fill the void. This means lower-paid LPNs, formerly represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, will be retrained as RNs-and, lo and behold, pay union dues to SUN. Isn't that enough