Leader of the Opposition Ryan Meili was in the Battlefords Thursday. Early in the day, he met with potential candidates looking at running in the Battlefords constituency. That was followed up with a tour of the new Saskatchewan Hospital, where patients are in the process of moving in.
In the afternoon, Meili was scheduled to meet with North Battleford civic officials, including Mayor Ryan Bater and council. He was set to end the day by participating in the fourth annual Walking With Our Sisters memorial round dance at the Don Ross Centre.
In meeting with the News-Optimist, Meili said he was happy to be back in the Battlefords and impressed with what he saw at the new Saskatchewan Hospital.
“It’s getting close to fully running, it’s got lots of patients in there,” said Meili. A few sections were not yet full, he noted, such as the corrections portion.
“I was really impressed with Linda [Shynkaruk], the director there. She’s doing good work.”
Meili was also impressed with the natural lighting and new equipment.
Still, he did point out that “as New Democrats we would have built it not as a P3, we would have built it as a traditional build with more Saskatchewan builders. But that’s a political discussion on the side.”
Meili said he was also encouraged by the interest expressed by potential NDP candidates in this area. While some NDP candidates – mostly incumbents – have been nominated already in other ridings, the NDP leader emphasized it is still early. A date is not yet known for when a candidate will be selected here.
“It does depend a little bit on both who steps up, and the local constituency is actually who decides when they want to have a nomination,” said Meili.
“We do have quite a few people looking at this seat as a real potential for the New Democrats to win the next election, so I’m expecting some exciting candidates to come forward. Those conversations are happening.”
As for his pending visit with North Battleford city officials, Meili said there were a few issues he wanted to hear about from them.
“The last time we were talking about some of the key issues. One is economic activity. There’s a pretty significant slowdown across the province.”
Meili noted the issues with PST imposed on construction, and that he would be asking officials questions about that.
The other issue he wanted to hear more about was “poverty and how that contributes to social issues, crime, etc., and trying to work with local leaders to look at how, working under a New Democrat government hopefully in 2020, addressing some of the root causes and local challenges instead of doing the after-the-fact response.”
Meili will also be addressing the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention next week.
As for the provincial scene, there have been a number of hot issues lately. Perhaps the biggest is China and the telecommunications company Huawei and the controversy surrounding allegations their technology is being used to access private information of Canadians.
Meili reiterated concerns his party has had about Huawei’s contracts with SaskTel.
“New Democrats started asking questions shortly after SaskTel connected with Huawei, because it’s been an ongoing story,” said Meili.
“What we’ve been saying since the beginning is, ‘Hey, have a really close look at this and be careful,’” said Meili.
“The Sask. Party ignored that caution and we’ve now spent $200 million through SaskTel with Huawei. Now we don’t know what that’s going to mean going forward. We don’t really have an understanding of the extent of the partnership, what measures have been taken to protect Saskatchewan people, and what it would cost us if the federal government says ‘no, you can’t go working with Huawei anymore.’”
Another issue that has made the news is the NDP’s support for reviewing potash royalties. A University of Regina report on the average rate of return to provincial coffers from potash royalties indicates it was eight to 10 per cent in the 90s and early 2000s, but now it is down to 6.9 percent.
“That one or two per cent difference has amounted to $40 to $100 million a year less that we’re getting in provincial revenues,” said Meili. He said the NDP would “have a good look at the existing incentives” and try and find the right balance so Saskatchewan people would “get their fair share.”
Meili’s visit also coincided with the week of news from Melfort of the sentencing hearing for the semi driver involved in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. That has sparked calls for tougher regulations for semi drivers as well as intersection safety. When asked about those issues, Meili was careful in his response.
“It’s obviously a horrible tragedy that touched us all, and it’s something I think we should be really careful about how we talk about it and respect the families and their grieving.”
Meili said the NDP was continuing to ask questions about the particular intersection where the Broncos collision occurred. But Meili adds that isn’t the only one, pointing to another intersection where a fatal crash happened where a stop sign was down at the time.
The NDP leader called on the province to do more about unsafe intersections in the province.
“I want to see this government step up and say safety is a priority for us, and do the work to identify and be really clear with the public which are the most dangerous intersections, and come up with a clear plan for how they’re going to remediate those intersections and protect people on the roads.”
