REGINA – The Official Opposition’s hopes to make child poverty a focal point of the first day of the spring sitting went down the tubes, as did the general decorum in the Legislative Assembly.
NDP Deputy House Leader Kim Breckner failed to get leave to move an emergency motion to “take urgent action to eliminate child poverty in Saskatchewan by reducing costs for families and making life more affordable,” with members of the government side saying no.
Afterwards, speaking to reporters, it was an outraged Opposition Leader Carla Beck who blasted the government for “basically dismissing the concerns about almost 80,000 children in this province, the highest rate in the entire country” for child poverty.
Beck was most upset with the government’s responses on the issue during Question Period. Deputy Premier Jim Reiter said the NDP’s questions really spoke to the issue of affordability, and he indicated that this was the issue the last election was fought on.
“The last election was very much fought on the issue of affordability, Mr. Speaker,” Reiter told the Assembly. The party on this side of the House put our platform forward. The party on that side of the House put their platform forward. Mr. Speaker, we were successful in that election. We’ve been implementing those promises we made…”
Beck had this to say to reporters about that comment:
“Saying to that question something like ‘well we won the election so there it is, people like our plan better’… I do not believe that there are, the majority of people in this province think that 80,000 children in this province living in poverty is just okay.
“So for the minister to stand up and shrug that off, um, well I think it was quite a look. And as I said to him today, if he doesn’t like the questions about that or so many of the other, uh, things that people have been coming to us with since we last were in session, he better buckle up because he’s going to have a bumpy session.”
The comments by Beck to reporters followed what was a fiery Question Period in which Speaker Todd Goudy had to interject a number of times as MLAs hurled accusations at each other.
At one point, MLA Breckner had grilled Minister of Trade and Export Development Warren Kaeding in demanding the government release the transcripts of their discussions with the U.S. on trade.
Breckner said the “US Department of Justice is more transparent about Howard Lutnick’s meetings with Epstein than this government is with, supposedly, our Premier meeting with Howard Lutnick on trade.”
In response, Kaeding called the NDP “a disingenuous, I would say a dangerous opposition that we’re talking about here.”
At another point, another NDP MLA loudly used the word “snowflake” to describe the reaction of the government.
“I think they were all clutching their pearls a bit over there today,” said Beck to reporters afterwards about the government’s responses. “They all seemed a bit testy.”
Kaeding told reporters his concern with the Opposition was that they “spend an awful a lot of time downplaying the economy, whereas what’s actually happening here is totally contrary to how they’re projecting it, and that is dangerous. That’s dangerous to the capital investment that’s coming into this province. They want to know and feel reassured that there is a positive environment that they’re coming to.”
He also dismissed accusations that the government was testy.
“We have a lot of positive things to talk about here compared to other jurisdictions across Canada. We are in a pretty positive situation here… we’ve got the provinces’ second best unemployment rate, we’ve got GDP per capita here is the best in the country. We’ve seen some great numbers on private sector capital investment, on housing starts.”
As for whether the government could release briefing notes related to trade talks with the US, Kaeding said: “if they’re held in confidence, no, you can’t release those briefings. It’s up to our officials, and certainly with the freedom of information folks to determine what is ultimately non-releasable or not available and those that are. We will certainly leave it up to their judgement to be able to provide the right information.”
Deputy Premier Reiter acknowledged to reporters that things “got a little animated on both sides of the House, frankly.” He added that he hoped “decorum is better in there tomorrow.
As for the child poverty motion, Reiter said that one of the reasons emergency debates happen is to raise awareness of an issue. But he said in this case “we’re aware this is a very serious issue. That’s why we’ve been taking the actions that I spoke to during Question Period.”
During Question Period Reiter had pointed to actions such as removing over 165,000 low-income people from the tax roll, increasing the minimum wage by almost 30 per cent over three years, increasing the low-income tax credit by 20 per cent over four years, and signing on to the school food program.
“So certainly it’s the NDP’s prerogative if they want to call emergency motions — as you know, they’ll do that from time to time in the House. They can focus on that, we’re going to focus on taking action.”
