SHA My Voice Workbook: Saskatchewan Advance Care Planning Resources

The Saskatchewan Health Authority's My Voice workbook is the most widely distributed advance care planning resource in the province, available free through SHA facilities, cancer centres, and home care offices. It's genuinely useful — but it covers only part of what Saskatchewan families actually need, and understanding its boundaries saves you from the false confidence of thinking you're fully planned when you're not.

What My Voice Does Well

The workbook is a reflection tool. It walks you through questions about your values, beliefs, and preferences for medical care — what quality of life means to you, how you feel about life-sustaining treatment, what kind of care environment you'd want, and who you trust to speak for you.

It includes templates for appointing a proxy (SHA form 0326) and a proxy wallet card (form 0304). These are legitimate, usable forms that align with The Health Care Directives and Substitute Health Care Decision Makers Act, 2015.

The values-based reflection sections are strong. They prompt conversations that many families wouldn't have unprompted — questions about CPR, mechanical ventilation, feeding tubes, comfort-only care, and what "being kept alive" means to you personally. The workbook was designed by clinical teams who understand what questions matter at the bedside.

What My Voice Doesn't Cover

The workbook is entirely clinical. It operates within the healthcare system and stops at the hospital door. Here's what's missing:

No financial planning. My Voice doesn't address Enduring Powers of Attorney, bank account access, bill payments, property management, or any financial decisions that need to be made when someone loses capacity. It doesn't explain the signing and witnessing requirements for an Enduring POA (Form D lawyer certificate or Form E non-lawyer certificate), which are completely different from health care directive signing rules.

No Homesteads Act coverage. One of the biggest financial traps for Saskatchewan families — the Section 6(4) ban on an attorney using a POA to sign spousal consent for the sale of a homestead — is entirely absent from My Voice. Families who only use the workbook can end up with valid medical directives but no plan for a property lockup that costs tens of thousands of dollars to resolve through the Court of King's Bench.

No estate administration. If the person passes away, My Voice provides no guidance on probate filing, executor duties, land title transfers through ISC, or the mandatory six-month holding period before assets can be distributed.

No agricultural land planning. For rural Saskatchewan families — and agricultural land makes up over 34 million acres of the province — the workbook doesn't address farm succession, The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act, non-resident ownership restrictions, or the five-year divestment period for inherited farmland.

No funeral or bereavement benefit coordination. There's no information about the CPP death benefit ($2,500 base plus the $2,500 top-up for eligible contributors), Saskatchewan Income Support funeral benefits, or the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan Funeral and Bereavement Support program.

Using My Voice as a Starting Point

The workbook is strongest as a preparation tool — it helps you think through your values and medical preferences before you draft the legal document. Going through its reflection questions makes the actual directive-writing process faster and more specific because you've already confronted the hard questions.

But treat it as step one, not the whole plan. After working through My Voice:

1. Draft your Health Care Directive using the preferences you identified. Make it specific — don't just say "no extraordinary measures." Specify what interventions you accept or refuse in concrete terms.
2. Set up your Enduring Power of Attorney to cover financial decisions, with the correct witness certificates (Form D or Form E). This requires different documentation than the directive.
3. Upload your directive to MySaskHealthRecord and enable eHR Viewer sharing.
4. Set up the Yellow Sleeve on your fridge for EMS access.
5. Talk to your proxy about what they'll actually need to do — the workbook's conversation prompts help here, but the conversation itself is what matters.

The Coordination Problem

The core limitation of My Voice is that it treats medical planning and financial planning as separate domains. In reality, a capacity crisis hits both simultaneously. A stroke that makes someone unable to communicate their medical wishes also makes them unable to manage their bank accounts, sign property documents, or pay their bills. The family needs access to both medical decision-making (through the health care directive and proxy) and financial management (through the Enduring POA) — and the two documents have different signing rules, different witness requirements, and different legal frameworks.

The Saskatchewan Advance Directive & Living Will Kit bridges this gap with a coordinated planning system that covers the health care directive, Enduring POA, emergency action plans, and the financial and property protections that My Voice doesn't address.

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