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In May 2017, the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC), a 70-year-old bus company in Saskatchewan, Canada, was shut down through an austerity budget that saw several cuts. The government justified its decision on budgetary grounds although opponents cited possible negative impacts of the decision. A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) was employed to examine discourses used by different actors to explain the closure and the implications of these discourses for health and health equity. Data from 47 days of parliamentary debates, 751 newspaper articles, and 2 focus group discussions were imported into NVivo software for analysis. Discourses and counter-discourses surrounding the closure were explored and interpreted in the broader context of austerity and the politics of health. The evidence suggests that the closure of STC was facilitated by several contextual factors anchored around discourses of economic rationalization, minimization, government discretion, and the representation of the bus as a relic of a socialist past. Opponents of the closure defended the bus on the grounds of its utility and the possibility of marginalization/victimization of former bus users. A democratic and an evidence deficit as well as secondary discourses of human rights and environmental/climate impacts were used to argue against the STC closure. The research reveals the critical role of power in the creation of health inequities through austerity measures, particularly through discourses that negate the existence and associated rights of vulnerable users of public services such as public transportation.

Politics, transportation, and the people’s health: a socio-political autopsy of the demise of a 70-year-old bus company