REGINA — Opposition Leader Carla Beck stuck to familiar NDP themes in her address to delegates at the Saskatchewan Rural Municipalities Association convention in Regina.
Beck focused on issues that have come up at the legislature and elsewhere, including affordability, SaskPower rate hikes, the Your Care Your Say health-care tour, calls for a public inquiry into the wildfire response and foreign farmland ownership.
Beck told reporters that at the convention she and her party heard a “lot of concerns around health care, a lot of concerns around illegal farm ownership, a lot of concerns about, some folks in this province feeling taken for granted.”
She said their goal was to “show the people of this province that they have a choice, that we will fulfill our role as the official opposition, but we also are being propositional, and that we have taken all of the concerns and the feedback that we've heard from rooms like this, being out in communities, and we're building those solutions with them.”
One of the concerns raised by SARM President Bill Huber was the need for money by rural municipalities. Beck agreed that is an issue.
“Whether it's here at SARM or at SUMA as well, concerns about … federal downloading to provinces and provincial downloading to municipalities. The cost of everything is going up.”
She pointed to concerns raised about emergency services in rural communities. “The demands for those services are going up, and the support that they're getting from other levels of government isn't keeping pace with that increased cost, with that increased demand, with that increased responsibility.”
The NDP continues to have problems winning seats in rural Saskatchewan, winning only the two northern ridings in the 2024 election. Beck pointed to the importance of continuing to reach out to rural communities and rural leaders.
“This is a room where you don't go in expecting you're going to say some words and people are going to be under your spell,” said Beck.
"You have to build trust in communities. The whole team has been consistently working to build that trust in the way that you do in rural Saskatchewan. Table to table, coffee row to coffee row, rink to rink, and talking about the concerns that people in rural communities are talking about. As I said today, power rates, number one thing, affordability that we hear.”
Beck also spoke about the transportation consultations the party is doing to look into filling the void left by the closure of STC. Beck said she continues to be “a little bit surprised how often this comes up particularly with seniors and particularly in rural communities, how the gaps that were left when STC was shuttered in 2017 still exist for some folks.”
She said it’s meant that they don't get to see their grandkids enough, and pointed to missed medical appointments. “And outside of the Regina to Saskatoon route, there really isn't a consistent, reliable way to get from point A to point B.”
Beck did not have a lot to say in the immediate aftermath of Premier Scott Moe’s announcement that they would issue certificates to firearms owners to allow them to store firearms and protect them from the gun buyback. She did say the NDP were “not in favour of seizure of firearms in the province.”
“It's an important part of culture here in the province. I know growing up in a hunting family with folks who have an outfitting business, it's an important part of this province.”
Beck also spoke about Premier Moe’s comments to delegates about the upcoming budget, in which he made clear a deficit is coming.
When asked if there was a particular number she was expecting from that budget, Beck replied that “it's been a long time since I trusted the budget numbers.”
“Last year, we heard a $12 million surplus. That was fiction from day one… It's almost 10 years since I was first elected, and year over year over year, I've seen less and less transparency, less and less accountability, less and less warning when it comes to those groups in the province who are going to be impacted by what's in that budget… Honestly, transparency would shock me at this point, sadly.”
