REGINA – With less than a week to go before the return of the Legislature session and less than a month before the budget, Opposition Leader Carla Beck is taking aim at the government over what the contents of that budget could be.
Beck held a news conference at the Legislature on Tuesday alongside several NDP MLAs. There, she pointed to a radio interview by Premier Scott Moe on Monday in which he spoke about what to expect in that address.
“Yesterday we heard Scott Moe say that we can expect a very difficult budget,” said Beck.
“If they're actually admitting that before the budget this year, I think people have reason to be worried.”
Beck then went on to roast the government for various failures over their previous years in government, including the GTH, mammograms in Calgary, failures in IT and the recent legal settlement with Shercom, among others.
Beck claimed Moe will “look to blame someone else for all of this financial failure.” She pointed to last week’s pre-budget televised address in Alberta by Premier Danielle Smith.
In that address, Smith had pointed to the federal government’s open-door policy on immigration as having putting a strain on Alberta’s finances.
“Now, next door in Alberta we recently saw his pal, Premier Smith, blame immigrants,” Beck said.
“Put a target on the back of immigrants in her province to distract from her failures and from what's going to be a very difficult budget in that province.”
Beck said that in Saskatchewan it is immigrants “who are helping keep our hospitals open in this province, who are investing, who are an important part of the growth in this province. What we saw in Alberta, the willingness to target and make life more difficult, blame immigrants, it's not who we are. Not in this province and not in this country.”
Beck called on Premier Scott Moe to “commit that he's not going to pursue the same path as Danielle Smith — something we often see him do. I'm calling on him to take responsibility for his own financial failures and not point fingers or inflame divisions at a time when that is the absolute last thing that we need in this province or this country.”
The Opposition leader also demanded Moe and Finance MinisterJim Reiter present a “full financial picture” of Saskatchewan's financial state.
“We've yet to see that third quarter financial statement,” Beck said. “We'd like to see that before the budget's tabled as well.”
Beck also noted Saskatchewan people were “promised a surplus last year at budget time” which has “turned into a billion dollar deficit at least.”
Beck’s comments came just one day before Premier Moe was set to meet the media on Wednesday to discuss his upcoming trip to India.
Prime Minister Mark Carney had announced a trade mission to India, Australia, and Japan, from Feb. 26 to March 7, which the PMO states will focus on “elevating and expanding the Canada-India relationship, with ambitious new partnerships in trade, energy, technology and artificial intelligence (AI), talent and culture, and defence.”
Carney is set to visit Mumbai and then New Delhi where he is meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Moe confirmed earlier this week that he, too, would be going to India as part of that mission as well.
In her remarks Beck hoped to see results for Saskatchewan from that trade mission.
.”I hope that they, sincerely, I hope that they come back with a deal and get the tariffs off of peas,” said Beck.
“I also hope that while he has time to be sitting with the Prime Minister, that we see some big announcements in this province about infrastructure. We see other provinces really making a lot of announcements, proposals about federal dollars used to fund big infrastructure projects, things that we desperately need and can benefit from here in this province. I hope that they come back with news about a deal on tariffs, and I hope that they have time to talk, and we see some investment here in this province when it comes to that big infrastructure money that the federal government is talking about.”
