The fall sitting of the Legislature is now complete and our government was able to move forward on several efforts to build and protect Saskatchewan’s families, economy, industries and interests.
Saskatchewan is growing at its fastest pace in more than a century, and our government is committed to building and protecting it for generations to come. With nation-leading economic growth, strong job creation and maintaining our reputation as the most affordable place to live in Canada, Saskatchewan is showing no signs of slowing down.
During this fall sitting, the Legislative Assembly unanimously passed The SaskEnergy (Carbon Tax Fairness for Families) Amendment Act. This legislation builds on our government’s previous announcement that SaskEnergy will stop collecting the carbon tax on natural gas bills for residential customers. To ensure fairness for families, our government also recently announced SaskPower will stop collecting the federal carbon tax on electrical home heating.
These decisions come in response to the federal government’s removal of the carbon tax from home heating oil earlier this fall. Our government’s policies will help protect Saskatchewan families from the harmful impacts of the federal government’s unfair and unaffordable carbon tax. While we continue to call on the federal government to remove the carbon tax on everything for everyone, Saskatchewan now have measures in place to ensure affordability for families to heat their homes this winter.
To further assist families with affordability, a new employment incentive introduced by our government will make life more affordable for working families with low incomes. To assist with the affordability and availability of housing, a new Provincial Sales Tax Rebate for New Home Construction and Secondary Suite Incentive were created. These programs will provide up to 42 per cent of PST paid on a newly constructed home, and 35 per cent of the cost to build a secondary suite within the owners' primary residence.
During this session, our government also focused on assisting Saskatchewan’s most vulnerable. A new provincial approach to homelessness will create 155 new supportive housing spaces, 120 new permanent emergency shelter spaces, and 30 new complex needs emergency shelter spaces. Five hundred new addictions treatment spaces, along with a new central intake system, were allocated to help those struggling with addictions to be able to access treatment.
In our health care system, significant progress is being made to address staffing challenges and ensure people have access to the health care they need. The Saskatchewan Health Authority has hired 877 new nursing graduates since December 2022 and nearly 80 applications have been approved for the enhanced Rural Physician Incentive Program. From April 1 to September 30, Saskatchewan's surgical system performed 47,748 procedures, the most ever recorded for the first six months of the year. To ensure patients have access to urgent breast cancer diagnostic procedures, while ongoing work continues to improve current service levels closer to home, patients on an urgent wait list will now be able to receive procedures out-of-province at a private medical facility in Calgary.
Our government continues to support students pursuing careers in health care with several programs and initiatives. The Student Loan Forgiveness Program for Nurses and Nurse Practitioners for rural and remote communities is being expanded to five additional mid-sized communities to help retain graduates to stay and work in Saskatchewan, and a new physician assistant training program was announced to train physician assistants. These investments in our health care system are key to not only strengthening the system, but also ensuring that Saskatchewan people can receive the care they need.
In education, a new Provincial Education Plan was released to guide the sector’s work. Mandatory holocaust education was announced and will become a provincial graduation requirement. A new K-12 school was opened in Blaine Lake, a new joint-use school was opened in Regina, and ground was officially broken on another new joint-use school in Regina, as well as several other ongoing renovations and new school projects across the province.
These investments are made possible by our strong and growing provincial economy. Saskatchewan has recently seen nation-leading GDP growth of 6.0 per cent, retail trade up 3.0 per cent year-over-year, the second-lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 5.1 per cent, and an increase of 19,300 jobs over last year. Mining world leader BHP recently announced a $6.4 billion investment in stage two of the Jansen potash project; with a total investment of nearly $15 billion, this project is the largest private sector investment in Saskatchewan’s history.
To maintain this momentum, Premier Scott Moe has led a delegation to the Council of Parties COP28 conference in Dubai. Joined by over 55 companies and organizations, the delegation is sharing Saskatchewan’s story on sustainability, innovations in environmental stewardship, and most importantly, how Saskatchewan has the food, fuel, fertilizer, and critical minerals to supply a growing world.
With the fall session now complete, I will be back at events and gatherings in the constituency and look forward to connecting with constituents. As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, you are welcome to reach out to my constituency office at 306-692-8884 or mjnorthmla@sasktel.net.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
