REGINA — Premier Scott Moe and the Sask Party government are turning the page on 2025 and focusing on a number of priorities in 2026.
In Part 1 of our year-end interview with Moe we looked back at some of the challenges the government faced head-on in 2025. In Part 2, we look ahead at 2026 and at the government priorities going into the new year – which the premier says will revolve around their messaging with the tagline Strong, Safe and Secure.
Priorities going into 2026
"Well, I'd come back to the ‘strong, safe, secure’ message — that we have a strong economy, safe communities, and securing our future is very much going to guide the decisions of this government as we head into the next year. And first and foremost is those tariff challenges that we have not just in those three largest markets in the world — the U.S., China and India — but continuing to do our level best so that Canada, thus Saskatchewan, can have free and unhindered access to as many markets around the world as possible.
"I would provide some credit to the current prime minister as he is elevating Canada's stature in that international trade-related space, and that's something we've been pushing for and asking for for over a decade now and we're happy to see it starting to happen. But what'll be a priority is opening up the markets that we traditionally have not for the most part had access to, and that is going to increase the bottom line of not only producers but the mining sector and virtually all of the industries that are creating wealth and jobs in our province.
"Second to that, we do have a focus in the health-care space not only on attracting health-care workers, but showing real results to patients and to families a service industry – an industry that's providing a service that is putting patients at the very center of that service and putting patients first in the service that we are providing across this province. And there's going to be, I think, some very public and some very innovative discussions about how we are going to deliver health care into the future — not ‘privatized’ versus ‘public’ health care, but how we are going to deliver health care in the best interest of the patients, which are our family and friends and communities across this province, moving forward.
"And then last but not least is going to be that community safety piece and the recovery-oriented system of care and the enforcement. And again I think it's time to break the shackles on what has been a traditional discussion in the recovery-based space and the enforcement space, because the drugs that we're dealing with today are very different. They're much more addictive and they're literally killing our friends and family members right before our eyes in our own communities. We need to have a much more pertinent discussion with respect to building out that recovery capacity, the access points into it, and then using the enforcement officers that we have of all stripes across this province to take the drugs away. It is our aspiration as a government to remove these poisonous drugs that are killing people from our province and from every community within. And some may say that's aspirational, but it is the goal of the government and we are not going to rest until we find our path or find our way to that goal."
On the rationale for the compassionate care legislation introduced this fall
"That is another access point to a recovery lifestyle. As we build out those recovery beds and the capacity, you need to meet people where they are and provide access points into that capacity. An urgent care centre is an access point. The complex needs facilities that we piloted in Saskatoon and Regina, those are an access point to a recovery lifestyle. The compassionate care legislation is an access point that has been asked for and driven by families where they can have a say in a loved one that unfortunately maybe have fallen into a life of living with addictions, where the family can step in and say we need to work together to provide the opportunity for our loved one to enter that recovery lifestyle.
"That is the goal. That is the single goal of this province. It is not to enable the ability for addictions to continue. It's to point and to urge and to put the tools in place so that families, police officers, physicians, and our medical system can all have the opportunity to provide that access point for someone to enter a recovery lifestyle so that they can aspire to things that they would have been able to think about aspiring to prior to their life with addictions.
"The Compassionate Care Act is simply another access point into that recovery life.
"It's an access point that is largely being introduced by requests of families that we have talked to across this province who have either lost a loved one to addictions or through that addictions have lost their loved one and their life altogether. And this is about doing things different and putting a recovery at the very center of the addictions challenge that we're dealing with as Saskatchewan and Canadian residents."
What’s ahead in addressing health care challenges, including ER closures and staffing shortages
"I'm very much looking forward to the next number of months in the health-care space, and I would say there's two pieces, two focuses that this government has. I mentioned the outcomes that we're looking for, so individuals can have access to a primary health-care provider and individuals can have access to a timely surgery.
"How do you get there? Two ways: we need more health-care providers to deal with the more people that we have in the province; but also the increasing complexity in health care that we see as patients come through the front door of a health-care complex. [This] would bring me to the focus, which is to put patients first in all the care that is delivered. So we need more health-care workers, and we are starting to turn the corner on with our Health Human Resource Action Plan on hiring close to 250 more physicians net just this past year.
"We need more, but I would say now as we start to see those numbers climbing whether it be physicians, nurses or other health-care professionals across the system, it allows us to have … a very public and open discussion about using today's new innovative ways to deliver health care, putting that patient first, ensuring that our health-care service providers, our health-care workers, wherever they are in this province, have the ability and the resources to put those patients first in the care that they deliver.
"Here's an example of delivering care in a little different way – the Urgent Care Centre here in Regina. (An) urgent care centre that is pulling people off the waitlists in our emergency rooms that were really becoming far too common here in the city, but also pulling people out of the physician's office that may have an urgent issue that can't wait 10 days or two weeks until they can see their physician or nurse practitioner. They can go to an urgent care centre and have that looked at.
"A new and innovative way that is only possible with additional health-care staff available to staff these urgent care centres, and that's why you're going to see the building of another one here in Regina. One under construction in a partnership with Ahtahkakoop Cree Developments in Saskatoon and a second one in Saskatoon. One in Prince Albert, one in Moose Jaw and one in North Battleford.
"In the months ahead we can look at a significant scope expansion on all of our health-care workers. Do we have the opportunity to think in a much more innovative and expansive way about things like virtual care, for example? You order many things online. There's no reason, not all, but for some of our health care visits, that you're not able to do that in a virtual setting. So there's real opportunities for us if we are courageous, I think, not as a government but as people to have a very open discussion about the innovation and opportunities that we have today that maybe weren't available yesterday, and using them and how we deliver health care to ensure that the patient is always at the center, and the patient's care is being put first throughout the entirety of that conversation."
Crafting a 2026 budget, and the financial pressures facing the government
"I think much like you'll see in the federal space or any other provincial space, there're some challenging decisions that we're being faced with. I talked about the economy and the short-term choppy waters that's showing up in the revenue lines of provincial and federal budgets across the nation.
"So I would start with this: Saskatchewan is very much coming at those choppy waters from a position of strength. First, we have the second lowest debt to GDP ratio across the nation. … Although we had an increased deficit, it's the lowest deficit per capita of any province across the nation, and so relative to the other provinces or the federal government Saskatchewan very much is coming at this conversation from a fiscal position of strength.
"That being said, our goal is to balance the budget. In order for that to happen with the investments that I talked about in health care and education and in community safety, … it means there's going to have to be some difficult decisions that are made not just at the provincial level — we're seeing that discussion at the municipal level as we speak — but you're also going to see it at the federal level as we see a significant deficit federally, and that's on each of us as Canadians.
"So I think the next year is going to bring some very stark discussions to all levels of government on what are our wants and needs and what are our priorities of the people that we represent moving forward, because with the challenges that we have in the revenue line, there's only one way to bring the positives and negatives back … to a closer equilibrium, and that is to adjust the expense line. And that is going to be a tough discussion, and it's not one that Saskatchewan is going to be able to evade in any way."
