This thesis applies the econometric projection approach to forecast the numbers of general practitioners (GPs) in Saskatchewan for the next 15 years at both provincial and the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) levels. The projection results will provide the estimated level of GPs up to 2021 for policy makers to adjust their decision on health professionals planning.<p> Three hypothesized scenarios, which include the changes in population proportion, average income for GPs and a combination of both, are used for projections based on the regression results. The projections suggest a 4.34% expected annual increase of GPs if the proportions of children and seniors increase or decrease according to prediction for the next 15 years for Saskatchewan. At the RHAs level, 4.5% to 10.7% expected annual rate of increase for numbers of GPs is projected for the northern RHAs and Saskatoon RHA, while the expected increase for other urban RHAs will experience less than 1.5% increases.<p> The predicted changes in average income for GPs show insignificant effect for the expected changes in numbers of GPs. However, the second and third scenarios are not extended to the RHAs level due to lack of information, which requires additional data for both Saskatchewan physicians and population for further projection analysis.

This ethnographic research examines how farmers survive agricultural crises by exploring reactions of Saskatchewan beef and dairy farmers to the Canadian BSE crisis. As this study unfolded it became clear that the BSE crisis is only one of many recent crises that have been changing the face of Saskatchewan rural communities and family farms. Producers see a crisis in their inability to achieve their own measures of success in both the life and business of farming. This includes a greater need for off-farm work, a decline in rural community life and values, and a shift away from farming as a desirable livelihood.<p> The BSE crisis has highlighted the risky nature of the contemporary agriculture industry, both for farmers' livelihoods and for food safety. Farmers' initial strategies to address the BSE crisis were precautionary and conservative in nature: minimal enterprise adaptation while waiting out markets. As the crisis continued, producers worked to bring their experience and understanding to bear on changing the structure of the agricultural system. Attempts at change were not often successful. This was attributed to a lack of initiative by government and powerful players, such as the multi-national packing industry that profited from the crisis situation and used the crisis to consolidate power within the value chain. Producers felt that they were paying too much for risks that were beyond their control. The government support they needed was not in line with their structural concerns; risky pre-BSE structures have not been appreciably changed. Uncertainty and risk remain high for the average farmer.<p> There appears to be a growing distrust in powerful institutions that farmers depend on, and a consequent disengagement from government surveillance and regulatory policies. This foreshadows possible serious repercussions in food security and food safety, issues that are still unsettled regarding BSE in Canada. This research indicates a need for greater transparency and public knowledge pathways to reduce uncertainty and allow individuals to better understand and manage emerging risk complexes. Increased democratic space within food and agricultural systems for participation by producer and rural publics would help to balance out government rationalities that may not fully account for culturally mediated understandings of risk and action at the farm level.

As Aboriginal peoples relocated to urban areas in the 1950s and 1960s they often found that the services they were offered did not suit their needs, to address this issue Aboriginal peoples began advocating for organizations of their own. Two such organizations include the Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre and the Community Liaison Committee. This thesis will explore how Aboriginal peoples worked to create organizations that served their needs, rather than assimilating as was expected; how the status blind approach within organizations was resisted; and how these organizations had a strong desire and vision to become self-governing, often demonstrated by engaging in coproduction, even in the very early stages of organizational development. The data collected included archival documents and informant interviews and was analyzed using an adapted form of grounded theory. The research and analysis revealed waves of engagement in coproduction as a way to defy expectations that Aboriginal peoples would assimilate once moving to the city, and rather embrace Aboriginal cultures and practices in the city.

In 2003, the town of Craik initiated a unique renewable energy project with the dual goals of addressing both the environmental and the rural economic crisis. This Masters thesis provides an exploration of the factors that both facilitate and constrain the advancement of this project. The research focuses on the question: What are the cultural and social factors that inhibit the Craik project from meeting its environmental and economic goals? New social movement theory provides a theoretical framework for explaining contradictions within social movements, while a critical ethnographic methodology is used to uncover specific underlying contradictions that exist at Craik. This thesis analyzes the dynamics of facilitating and non-facilitating factors to make visible the deeper sources of conflict, to contribute to theoretical models of social change and understandings of community development. Furthermore, the thesis provides direction for the Craik eco-project that can further the implementation of practices that will facilitate both its economic and environmental goals. Finally, the study provides valuable insights to other communities working to facilitate similar eco-projects and influence public policy in response to global warming

The 1907 <i>University of Saskatchewan Act</i> stated that no women shall by reason of her sex be deprived of any advantage or privilege accorded to male students of the university . This study explores whether or not this piece of progressive and prescriptive legislation was adhered to by university administrators, male faculty, staff, and students. Using the ample primary source material available in the University Archives Special Collections, this thesis has examined the demographic, cultural, and lived experiences of the women at the university from 1909 to 1922 and concluded that although the administration employed many inclusive policies, the internal culture and experiences of the women who worked, learned, and lived at the university were far less egalitarian than that described in <i>University Act</i>. This study offers a new prairie perspective and as such constitutes an important addition to the discussion concerning the experience of the first generation of female university scholars in Canada.

This thesis explores notions of community and Aboriginality within the histories of two Aboriginal communities: the primarily Métis town of Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan and the Stó:lõ reserve of Seabird Island, British Columbia. By reading community members oral histories in terms of these two concepts, it historicises the accounts, giving temporal context to academics writings and local histories that at times act as snapshots of a small span of time.<p/> Considering Île-à-la-Crosse and Seabird Island in terms of their communal and Aboriginal components also complicates definitions of community and Aboriginality or indigeneity as they relate to these two places, thereby reinforcing the links between histories and the places and people from which they originated. Thus, the first part of this thesis situates Seabird Island and Île-à-la-Crosse historically and physically, and demonstrates how local oral histories introduce broader historical themes. The second part focuses on the community aspect of these places: the Aboriginal component to both Seabird Islands and Île-à-la-Crosses existence is what has tended to attract outside academic research and attention, yet an Aboriginal community exists as such because of influences that make and sustain a community as well as its Aboriginal components.<p/> While each category draws on understandings of the other in order to create a cohesive definition of the whole, a community does not become a community simply by being Aboriginal, nor is it Aboriginal simply as a result of Aboriginal people living together. Therefore, diverse definitions and histories of Aboriginality are also significant in maintaining historical links among inhabitants of Île-à-la-Crosse and Seabird Island.<p/> There exists a historiography in these communities that, while sometimes unintentional or implicit, links community members accounts of their community and its Aboriginal features with outside observations. This connection places these interpretations of historical events into a historiographical context of ways these Aboriginal communities have been both, and alternately, communities and Aboriginal places.

Watersheds in Canada are under increasing threats due to the cumulative environmental effects from natural and anthropogenic sources. Cumulative effect assessment (CEA), however, if done at all is typically done on a project-by-project basis. This project-based approach to CEA is not sufficient to address the cumulative effects of multiple stressors in a watershed or a region. As a result, there is now a general consensus that CEA must extend from the project to the more regional scale. The problem, however, is that while the science of how to do watershed CEA (W-CEA) is progressing, the appropriate institutional arrangements to sustain W-CEA have not been addressed. Based on a case study of the South Saskatchewan Watershed (SSW), this research is aimed to identify the institutional requirements necessary to support and sustain W-CEA.<p> The research methods include document reviews and semi-structured interviews with regulators, administrators, watershed coordinators, practitioners, and academics knowledgeable on cumulative effect assessment and project-based environmental assessments (EAs). The findings from this research are presented thematically. First, participants perspectives on cumulative effects, the current state of CEA practice, and general challenges to project-based approaches to CEA are presented. The concept of WCEA is then examined, with a discussion on the need for linking project-based CEA and W-CEA. This is followed by the institutional requirements for W-CEA. The Chapter concludes with foreseeable challenges to implementing W-CEA, as identified by research participants.<p> The key findings include that cumulative effect assessments under project-based EAs are rarely undertaken in the SSW, and the project-based EA approach is faced with considerable challenges. The project-based EA challenges suggested by interview participants are similar to the ones discussed in the literature, and are primarily related to the lack of guidance to proponents regarding boundaries of assessments and thresholds, the lack of data from other project EAs, and the lack of capacity of both proponents and regulators to achieve a good CEA under project EA. These challenges could be addressed by establishing regional objectives at a broader scale, which could provide better context to project-based approaches. Further, interview results revealed several opportunities for the government to take the lead in implementing and sustaining W-CEA, but a multistakeholder approach is essential to W-CEA success. The results also suggest that the establishments of thresholds and data management are necessary components of W-CEA, but that the need for legislation concerning such thresholds and W-CEA initiatives is not agreed upon. At the same time, research results emphasize that the coordination and education among various stakeholders will be difficult to achieve. The lack of financial commitment, political will, and difficulties in establishing cause-effect relationships currently impede the implementation of W-CEA.

This thesis explores the utility of the conflated term “colonial medicine” by drawing on events during an historical outbreak of amebic dysentery that occurred on several Indian Reservations near Loon Lake, Saskatchewan, during the 1960s and ‘70s, including a series of government-sponsored drug trials conducted to stem the outbreak. Largely devoid of the racialized notions characterizing primary documents used by previous scholars of ‘colonial medicine’, the medical journal articles, government memorandums, and letters written by physicians in connection with the outbreak and trials reveal their immersion in ‘la clinique’, or an anatomo-clinical discourse similar to what theorist Michel Foucault described in Birth of the Clinic. Conversely, conversations with Loon Lake area community members on the subjects of the outbreak and trials reveal their multiplex and nuanced reactions to medical and colonial discourses. Arguably, then, when writing about past events, historians should weigh ‘medicine’ and colonial discourse separately. Essential methodological consideration was given to the Foucauldian concept of ‘disinterring’ popular knowledge. Drawing on Foucault’s edited works Power/Knowledge and I, Pierre Riviére, the subjugated knowledges of Aboriginal community members, physicians, sanitation workers, and government employees gleaned through interviews and text are contrasted as per his example in these works with the false functionalism of ‘scientificity’. Moreover, when considered in tandem, these subjugated knowledges illustrate a ‘structural violence’, following anthropologist Paul Farmer’s methodology for describing such phenomena in Pathologies of Power. Overarchingly, they obscure the paradigmatic dichotomies (‘doctor’/‘patient’, ‘patient’/the healthy person, ‘colonizer’/‘colonized’, ‘oppressor’/‘oppressed’) espoused in medical, colonial, and even post-colonial discourses. This understanding forces the reflexive recognition that–if we accept rhetorician Christopher Bracken’s assertion in Magical Criticism there is a recourse to savage philosophy within academia–what we say as historians has consequence beyond discourse, possibly creating new ‘subjects’ in a Foucauldian, disciplined society.

The application of Sustainability Assessment (SA) within Canadian municipalities is a recent notion, but is quickly becoming widespread. The Government of Saskatchewan alone has already released two SA checklists. However, such tools are normally aimed at communities of all sizes, ranging from rural municipalities to big cities, without considering differences in the capacity base, needs, and conditions among those types of communities. Additionally, practical implementation of SA often does not reflect the scope of scientifically established criteria for SA tools. This paper will present the analysis of the 2009 Saskatchewan Sustainability Checklist for Municipalities (comparing it to one of the most prominent frameworks for SA and other similar checklists developed in Canada and internationally) in order to identify possible areas for improvement so that the Checklist reflects established SA principles and is sensitive to a small town context. Based on the results of interviews with 16 small town administrators in Saskatchewan, this thesis demonstrates that, from a theoretical perspective, both of the existing SA tools are deficient in a number of important ways. The tools mainly focus on evaluating the municipal and service provision, rather than evaluating the sustainability of a community as a whole, including such areas as environmental conditions; social equity; livelihood sufficiency; resource maintenance; and intragenerational and intergenerational equity. However, the research reveals even if all of the above-mentioned criteria are integrated within the existing tools, it will be challenging for municipalities to perform a full sustainability assessment, since small towns’ administrations often have limited financial and human capacity to perform such exercises. Additionally, there is a lack of understanding on how to integrate the results of an assessment into decision-making, and a perceived inability to change some of the existing economic or social conditions in a town, due to the limited scope of influence that local municipalities have. There is a need for an alternative approach to sustainability assessment in the case of small towns; one that is sensitive to their unique pressures, circumstances, and capacities to enact change.

Time-since-fire data are used to describe wildfire disturbances, the major disturbance type in the Boreal forest, over a landscape. These data can be used to calculate various parameters about wildfire disturbances, such as size, shape and severity. Collecting time-since-fire data is expensive and time consuming; the ability to derive it from existing forest inventory data would result in availability of fire data over larger areas. The objective of this thesis was to explore the use of forest inventory information for the prediction of time-since-fire data in the mixedwood boreal forests of Saskatchewan. Regression models were used to predict time-since-fire from forest inventory variables for each inventory polygon with a stand age. Non-water polygons with no stand age value were assigned values from neighbouring polygons, after splitting long polygons that potentially crossed many historic fire boundaries. This procedure filled gaps that prevented polygons from being grouped together in latter analysis. The predicted time-since-fire ages were used to generate wildfire parameters such as age-class distributions and fire cycle. Three methods were examined to group forest inventory polygons together to predict fire event polygons: simple partitions, hierarchical clustering, and spatially constrained clustering. The predicted fire event polygons were used to generate polygon size distribution wildfire metrics. I found that there was a relationship between time-since-fire and forest inventory variables at this study site, although the relationship was not strong. As expected, the strongest relationship was between the age of trees in a stand as indicated by the inventory and the time-since-fire. This relationship was moderately improved by including tree species composition, harvest modification value, and the ages of the surrounding polygons. Assigning no-age polygons neighbouring values and grouping the forest inventory polygons improved the predicted time-since-fire results when compared spatially to the observed time-since-fire data. However, a satisfactory method of comparing polygon shapes was not found, and the map outputs were highly dependent on the grouping method and parameters used. Overall it was found that forest inventory data did not have sufficient detail and accuracy to be used to derive high quality time-since-fire information.