PRINCE ALBERT – Opposition New Democrats are in Prince Albert today holding a series of meetings and knocking on doors in the community to spread their message.
According to the party, leader Carla Beck had meetings with childcare providers and advocates on looming changes to childcare funding in the province.
Beck also blasted the government again on Thursday for its handling of the wildfire situation last year, in the wake of last Friday’s MNP report that was critical of the response.
In a statement, Beck accused Premier Scott Moe of failing to be accountable for the response to last year’s wildfires, which saw devastation in communities like Denare Beach and East Trout Lake.
Beck particularly slammed failures to properly support evacuees in communities such as Prince Albert, which was an important evacuation centre during the height of the situation. The NDP particularly pointed to page 62 of the MNP report which stated that, “…host communities frequently received little notice of incoming evacuees, leaving these communities underprepared and forced into reactive decision-making."
“Let’s be clear, people fled horrifying chaos as fires ripped through their communities — and what they found down the highway was more chaos as a direct result of failings by Scott Moe, his Minister and the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency they oversee,” Beck said in a statement. “The report into this mess makes it clear that the province was ill-prepared on many fronts despite obvious warning signs of increasing fire activity in years prior.”
Beck added that people in Prince Albert “stepped up to help their neighbours and there were incredible people on the frontlines that did all they could to protect communities — this was a failure by senior SPSA leadership, the Minister and Scott Moe himself.”
Health care is also a main focus of the visit. Also scheduled for Thursday evening was a Your Care, Your Say town hall with Prince Albert residents, which included Beck as well as Health critic Meara Conway and Rural & Remote Health critic Jared Clarke.
