REGINA — Premier Scott Moe touted a number of accomplishments as the 2025-26 legislative session wrapped on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters, Moe reiterated the government’s messaging this session of “Protecting Saskatchewan.” He said the session had “very much been focused on just that, on delivering on that commitment that we have made by ensuring that Saskatchewan is the most affordable place in the nation and Canada to live, by delivering on the fact that we can continue to strengthen our Saskatchewan community, improving our health care access through the Patient First Initiative and ensuring that we are taking concrete steps to keep our community safe from corner to corner in this province.”
When asked about what was the most important thing the government had done this sitting, Moe immediately pointed to the Patients First Healthcare Initiative.
“The Patients First Healthcare Initiative is bringing in 50 concrete action items to support — bringing in today's innovation and tools to support our health-care workers so that they can improve outcomes in facility after facility, community after community, right across this province. It includes initiatives in health, human resource recruitment, retention, training, increasing the training spaces. It sets targets around diagnostics and sets targets around time that we will have to access a surgery in this province.”
He added that it is a “living document.”
“We're going to continue to bring in those tools and innovation as they become available to ensure that we can continue to improve our health-care initiative.”
Moe was also asked about another major item of the spring sitting, the budget. He was particularly asked about how the projected $819-million deficit is looking given how high WTI oil prices are right now.
Moe said there will be some costs and “pressures each way.” He pointed in particular to pressures in hiring more health-care professionals and the costs of flooding.
He said the government would have a more accurate update as it gets to Q1, but acknowledged the “positive impacts on the budget would be the WTI.”
“We're seeing some increases in the potash space as well, and we can be very thankful that we have those resources and that we've been able to develop them to the degree that we have today. But we look to develop them even more into the future to impact, yes, the provincial bottom line, the national bottom line, but the bottom line for families across this province.”
Moe also pointed to “concrete action to keep Saskatchewan strong and affordable,” noting Saskatchewan people pay among the lowest taxes in the nation and have the second-lowest utility bundle available. He also pointed to continuing to deliver targeted affordability measures while growing the economy.
Moe also pointed to introducing and advancing measures that will “give law enforcement and community stronger tools to address crime, to protect families and to respond to concerns with respect to public safety.”
He also highlighted strong exports and “strong private-sector investment, major projects that are moving ahead in agriculture, in mining, in energy and in manufacturing.” Moe said there are more than 60 projects moving forward representing over $62 billion in private-sector investment.
Moe said companies are “choosing Saskatchewan because of our stable economy, stable regulatory environment, because of the resources that we possess, but I would say most importantly because of the hard-working, innovative people who call this province home.”
SaskPower remains hot issue as session wraps
But the issue of SaskPower and the extension of coal generation in the province continued to be a hot issue throughout the final week. On Thursday, Opposition Leader Carla Beck held a news conference to demand Moe fire SaskPower Minister Jeremy Harrison.
Beck claimed Harrison got “caught secretly planning to spend $26 billion of Saskatchewan peoples’ money with no accountability. What we seen are coverups, and lies stacked on lies.”
In response, Moe told reporters there is “one call for the removal of one individual in this legislature as we speak, and that's the leader of the Opposition, by her very own party supporters.”
He also pointed to a second call a number of weeks ago to remove NDP chief of staff Jeremy Nolais for “sending out fundraising emails that were inspiring people and asking people to hate husbands and fathers that have chosen to put their name forward and serve in public office and were duly elected by their very constituents.”
“So to answer your question, no, that is not going to happen,” Moe said about firing Harrison.
“And I would ask what for? For recommending to the government of Saskatchewan that we adopt and move forward with the most affordable electricity plan that is available to us. We have a choice as a government with respect to power, which I think is the basis of this question. We have a choice as a government to ensure that we are making those decisions that ensure that we have affordable power rates today for families across this province, and we have affordable and reliable power rates into the future for generations to come. That's the recommendations that this minister has brought forward, and that's the recommendations that the government is making.”
During his news conference, Moe further criticized the NDP, saying that all too often they “focus on political games and their own internal division.”
“The NDP spent much of this spring session focused on themselves rather than Saskatchewan people. In fact, they couldn't even hold their own caucus together, losing one of their own MLAs to go citizen independent. That's not stability and that is not providing sound leadership.”
Moe said while the Opposition focused on “division and personal attacks and negativity,” the government “remains focused on solutions and results” on behalf of Saskatchewan families.
