REGINA — As the Legislature’s fall sitting has begun to wind down, tariffs, trade and nation building projects continue to be a focus of attention.
Premier Scott Moe has spent a lot of time this fall holding trade talks with officials from various countries on markets access issues. Last week Moe took part in more talks as he welcomed the High Commissioner to India to the Legislature.
“Great meeting with India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, on how Canada and India can move forward on energy and food security for our two nations,” Moe posted on the X platform.
These latest talks with India follow previous meetings with Indian officials in recent weeks in Niagara, as Premier Moe looks to have Indian tariffs on yellow peas lifted.
This past week also saw considerable reaction after the news broke that Nutrien had selected Longview, Washington as the location for their West Coast terminal – and not the BC coast.
Minister of Trade and Export Development Warren Kaeding was grilled by reporters Monday about it soon after the news broke.
“Well, I’m going to talk about the positive stuff first,” Kaeding said, saying it was good news that “a major potash mining company has the expectation that potash sales are going to be that much greater that they’re concerned about export capacity.”
The unfortunate part, he said, was that “they decided that they need to build outside of Canada. Any investment inside Canada is something that this government supports, but this is a business decision that they’ve made based on their business requirement.”
The minister also hinted that perhaps Premier David Eby's NDP government policies might have had a role. Kaeding said that Nutrien was looking at port capacity, and that it was “no secret that we have had some concerns with the NDP BC government’s position on really not supporting development on their ports… we have concerns they have literally stonewalled or delayed any opportunity to expand those facilities.
NDP critic Sally Housser blamed “successive failures of the federal governments and Sask Party government who simply do not have the export infrastructure required in this country to get the job done.” She also blamed the Sask Party government for failing to advocate for the province.
“Sometimes, Minister Kaeding of the Premier and the government, I think they forget that they’re the government and who should actually be advocating here for Saskatchewan.”
By Wednesday, attention shifted towards a pending MOU between Alberta and the federal government on a pipeline to the West Coast. Housser was demanding in Question Period to know what the Sask Party’s plan was “to ensure a new pipeline to the West Coast gets built with Saskatchewan steel.” In response to Housser’s questions Kaeding reiterated that Premier Moe “has advocated for national infrastructure to be implemented from coast to coast, East to West, North to South,” he said.
SaskPower losses raise fears of rate hikes
By midweek the NDP were pointing to the latest financials from SaskPower, which reported that a surplus of $126 million had now turned into a $165 million loss.
The NDP accused the government of getting set to raise power bills.
“Mr. Speaker, is the Premier really going to make families in this province pay more on their power bills to cover up for his government’s incompetence?” said Beck in Question Period Wednesday.
In response, Premier Moe pointed to power bills having gone down in the province because “Saskatchewan families don’t pay the carbon tax on their power bill.”
Moe also claimed the NDP “would quickly put that carbon tax back on the bills of Saskatchewan families.”He also pointed to measures his government had taken on affordability.
“Whether it is the lowest utility bundle in the nation, the most affordable province in Canada to live, it’s this province here, Mr. Speaker, much in part due to two and a half billion dollars in each and every budget in affordability measures, measures that we campaigned on.”
On Thursday, the provincial government passed in three readings The Cyberstalking and Coercive Control Act, with all members expediting passage of the bill.
The Opposition also had returned to the issue of health-care closures. On Thursday, Mayor Patricia Jackson of Kipling was at the Legislature, where she stood alongside the NDP in calling out closures to her town’s local emergency emergency room during the month of November.
The NDP also once again raised concerns about the closure of Gardens Community Health Centre in Regina at the end of the month. At a news conference Friday, Health Critic Meara Conway was joined by local resident Tammy Hellend who was one of 5,000 patients at that clinic now in need of a new family doctor.
Last week saw other major announcements including the midyear financial update in which the province reported a $427 million deficit on Tuesday, as well as the announcement Friday of a new child care agreement between the province and federal government to extend $10 a day child care for another five years.
This coming week marks the final full week at the Legislature before the session goes into its winter break. The final day for Legislature fall sitting is this Friday.
