The recent Chair’s Luncheon, held virtually by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce, marked one of the first public appearance opportunities for Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill since his election last fall.
Cockrill appeared at the event Tuesday to speak about the latest happenings involving the provincial government and its policies.
As expected the economy was a major focus of Cockrill’s remarks. Cockrill pointed to some programs available from the province including the Small Business Emergency Payment Program, which were highly subscribed. But he said the Strong Recovery Adaptation Rebate has been less subscribed and he encouraged chamber members to look into it.
Cockrill also addressed the fight against COVID-19.
Cockrill acknowledged there had been bad news recently. On COVID-19, Cockrill said “we’ve had difficulty getting COVID cases under control recently, and the supply of vaccines has been rather disappointing thus far.”
But Cockrell added they have a plan in place, and said the SHA has done a “pretty fantastic job” with the doses they did have. Later that afternoon, the province unveiled their plans for Phase Two of the vaccine rollout, primarily based on age, at a news conference in Regina.
Despite the discouraging times, Cockrill said, there was much to be hopeful about doing business in the province.
“Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, we have the most open provincial economy and this has been the case for most of the pandemic.”
He said as of January, 76 per cent of businesses in Saskatchewan had reopened and that was second highest among provinces and well above the national average of 47 per cent.
“We do believe that’s one of the factors that will allow us to emerge from COVID-19 at a faster rate than other jurisdictions in Canada.”
He also pointed to the latest labour force numbers of 200,000 job losses across Canada. Saskatchewan actually added over 2,000 jobs and had the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, he said.
Other metrics that were encouraging to Cockrill were the wholesale trade and export numbers. The province were up seven per cent on merchandise exports from December 2019 and up 20 per cent on wholesale trade from Nov. 2019.
“This tells us that the world continues to buy what Saskatchewan is selling and producing,” said Cockrill. “There is significant demand for the food, fuel and fertilizer that Saskatchewan produces.”
Cockrill concluded by speaking on the Battlefords in particular and acknowledged some of the difficulties facing businesses in the community.
He recognized in particular Craig and Co., which is closing after several decades of operations. “I can imagine the decision to close wasn’t arrived at easily.”
On the other hand he also noted several businesses in the Battlefords had strong years despite the pandemic.
“As a business community I would challenge you to celebrate the success. Having businesses in our community succeed it’s going to help attract entrepreneurs an investment to the Battlefords.”
