REGINA — Premier Scott Moe says Saskatchewan is in a better position than other provinces in his comments about the provincial budget presented March 18.
“The new provincial budget is about protecting Saskatchewan,” Moe told reporters Wednesday, pointing to a “time of incredible economic and geopolitical turmoil.”
“We have tariffs, we have trade wars, actual wars that are occurring as we speak, and they are impacting our global economy and the Canadian economy, and I would say that our province of Saskatchewan certainly is not immune.”
Despite this global uncertainty, “Saskatchewan is in a much stronger position than many other provinces,” said Moe, adding that the need was to focus on protecting Saskatchewan.
“We need to focus on controlling what we can control,” Moe said. He repeated the message that the government had a choice to make: “To not raise taxes, to not cut services, but to protect Saskatchewan services and protect the way of life in our province… This budget is truly about protecting Saskatchewan. Controlling what we can control.”
But it is a budget with an $819-million deficit. When asked how comfortable he is that the budget doesn’t return to balance until 2030-31, Moe said he had wanted “the budget back to balance this year.”
“We’re unable to do that while we protect our health care investments, our community safety investments, those types of things in what is a very uncertain world.”
He again pointed to the choice they had to make in this budget and in subsequent budgets.
“Are we going to back up in some of the initiatives that we had in affordability, health care, community safety, and try to balance that budget immediately, knowing full well that the revenue lines in Saskatchewan and across Canada are going to fluctuate and probably fluctuate quickly throughout the year and fluctuate potentially even for years to come?” Moe said.
“And so the decision that we made was one to protect those Saskatchewan services, but understanding that relative to other provinces and many other areas of the world, Saskatchewan is in a position of strength, so to speak, from a relative perspective. We have a far greater diversity of products that we market, produce, and mine relative to virtually any other province across Canada. And I would say that we have a diversity of markets, over 160 countries that we then provide that energy food security to.”
But there is a reduction coming in the budget to the public service. Moe was asked about the three per cent reduction of the workforce at Crowns and within executive, to be done through attrition.
“I think that’s the work that Saskatchewan people expect, not just the Saskatchewan government to do, but every provincial government and national government to do is to be prudent with their dollars and to always look for the ability to not just control the growth in the size of government, but to ensure that we’re doing our level best to provide the services people expect with an appropriate workforce. And all too often the, you know, the criticism across Canada and in this province is government’s become too large and maybe some would even say bloated.”
No pink slips
Moe said the three per cent reduction over two years will “not be frontline employees and it certainly will not result in a pink slip to anyone in the government. This is going to be controlled through retirements, through attrition, through vacancy management and those types of things.”
Moe said the government is looking to increase frontline health-care workers and police officers across the province.
On health care, Moe was asked about hospital projects across the province and, in particular, the Yorkton hospital, with criticism being directed at the government for the project not being advanced beyond pre-design.
“We will build Yorkton,” Moe pledged, as he defended a $4.3-billion overall capital plan in the budget.
“It’s a significant capital plan, I think if I’m not mistaken, it’s the third or fourth highest capital plan that this government has ever had in our history. That’s building our schools, that’s building our hospitals, that’s building our highways, and certainly part of that is the Crown capital plan, ensuring that we have a reliable, affordable power system, access to our cellular network, those types of things, and so it’s a significant capital outbuild across the board.”
As for hospitals, he pointed to the Prince Albert Victoria Hospital build that is still ongoing. Moe said that may be the “largest hospital build by dollars, due to inflation, that we have undertaken.”
“We’re well into that project. As we see that project fall off, we’re going to be able to advance some of the other, not specifically health-care projects, but that capital will then free up for other projects across government,” said Moe. “The same goes with the 20 or 23 schools that we have in the queue to build as well.”
As for criticism from the NDP about the Yorkton hospital being in pre-design, Moe pointed out that all major hospital projects “all went through a pre-design stage.”
“They all went through a needs assessment stage. Quite often what we’ve found, as we find our way through that pre-design and needs assessment, is that with additional people living in Saskatchewan, health-care needs changing over the last number of years, that the services that we are offering need to be expanded. And that’s exactly what we found in the case of Prince Albert. A significant, about a 40 or 45 per cent expansion to the number of acute care beds there.”
Moe also pointed to the Saskatchewan Health Authority looking to hire and add a staff complement of 500 additional health-care staff who will be working out of the new facility in Prince Albert.
“And so that’s an example of why the pre-design and the needs assessment is so very important, whether it’s Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Regina, or Yorkton, is you might find that the service needs today actually are somewhat different from what the existing facility is.”
Moe added that the Yorkton hospital remains a commitment of the government.
