Opposition leader Ryan Meili says it was a strong fall session for the Saskatchewan NDP in the legislature.
“We were really happy with the way things went,” said Meili of the NDP’s performance in a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon.
He said his NDP team had worked well together, and the Sask. Party government had given them “lots of opportunities to criticize.”
Meili pointed to four key issues the NDP focused on during the session.
One was the economy and the way in which it had slowed down. The opposition leader pointed to how some provincial decisions including the “addition of the PST on construction labour and on restaurant meals had really exacerbated that slowdown.”
Meili also said they focused on access to health care and how “health outcomes in Saskatchewan are not what they should be – we have the worst health outcomes in the country, in fact, tied with Nova Scotia, and when people are needing care it’s just not here in a way it should be.”
Meili also spoke of the challenges in education, with “classrooms that are more complicated and more crowded, with students struggling.”
The other focus was accountability and transparency, regarding the GTH, eHealth, and “vendor-sponsored junkets” that were connected to contracts.
“It was really important that we point out those issues to make sure that the government is accountable both for their decisions as well as their ethics as for how they run their day-to-day operations.”
Among the issues raised during the conference call was the crime issue. It was top of mind again in North Battleford due to the airing of the W5 documentary on the topic, as well as continued high crime statistics within the RCMP detachment.
Meili noted that while much has been talked about regarding rural crime, crime rates have been going up in the smaller cities such as North Battleford and Prince Albert, and also in the big cities Saskatoon and Regina.
Meili said what he was concerned about was that the majority of the response from the government was “on the policing end of things.” He cited an interview that day with the Saskatoon chief of police talking about how to deal with crime, who noted policing is only a very small element and about “how much more of the focus to decrease crime and keep people safe happens upstream from addressing the criminal behavior itself.”
He noted that with the crime rate in North Battleford, “you’re really talking about poverty” – people not getting the education they should and finding themselves in desperate situations and activity.
“You need to be looking at how do we make sure more people have a chance to succeed, fewer people are in poverty, as well as reducing the prevalence of addictions through addictions support and decent policing to decrease the availability of crystal meth and opioids and other drugs,” said Meili.
Meili also expressed concerns about the province’s introduction of trespassing legislation, which “has pretty significant impacts” on the lives of First Nations, he said. He accused the government of not discussing the issue with First Nations and Métis before tabling the legislation.
To Meili, it “sends a signal this government doesn’t have the interests of everyone in the province in mind, and that they’re even in some ways dividing the province and positioning people as against each other rather than trying to improve the lives of everyone.”
Meili was also asked about the recent flap involving Nutrien, under fire over the location of a number of its top executives outside the province.
Meili said Nutrien is under a legislative requirement to have its head office in Saskatchewan under the terms of the sale of PotashCorp.
“But we have seen a lack of head office jobs in Saskatoon. It’s a head office in name only, and the real leaders of the company are situated elsewhere,” said Meili.
Not only was legislation not being followed, but there were significant tax credits going to Nutrien to maintain head office jobs in the province.
“We don’t know how much we are paying per job to keep people here, and the government has refused to release that information. That is perhaps the most frustrating part.”
Meili called it a “questionable policy with a questionable result” and accused the government of not refusing to be transparent on how much it is costing taxpayers.
Finally, Meili also questioned the decision by the province to hold both a provincial election and a municipal vote in a span of a couple of weeks in the fall of 2020.
He called it “really a bad decision on the part of the government” and said they could have scheduled the provincial election for the spring of 2020 instead.
Holding the two votes so close to one another is going to “cause confusion” and “cause difficulties for provincial and municipal campaigns to organize themselves,” and called it a “real backward step.”
Meili also criticized the two Saskatchewan Party MLAs who have accepted Conservative nominations to run for federal seats. Meili noted they will be stepping down from their seats next August to run federally, and that their seats will then sit vacant for the next 14 months.
“That is a real dereliction of duty on the part of the Sask. Party,” said Meili. “We should have a commitment to by-elections to replace those members as soon as they step down.”
