Race for Saskatchewan: Week of Oct. 12-18

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As we get closer to the provincial election, new data this week from pollster Janet Brown suggests the gap between the Saskatchewan Party and Saskatchewan NDP is narrowing.

While the Sask. Party remains ahead, support has dropped since the 2020 election to 45 per cent. At the same time, support for the NDP has increased to 40 per cent, according to a recent poll commissioned by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

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Brown, who’s also a political commentator, runs a Calgary-based company called Janet Brown Opinion Research, which specializes in public opinion polling and market research.

Her margin of error on the upcoming Saskatchewan election is 3.5 per cent.

Since before the campaign period officially kicked off Oct. 1, we’ve been rounding up the parties’ promises and platforms in what was first called Race to the Writ and has since been renamed Race for Saskatchewan.

Catch up on what you may have missed this week with our latest compilation of announcements and developments that may have gone under the radar.

NDP

At a Tuesday news conference, NDP Leader Carla Beck said she would hire 800 health-care workers in areas that need it the most if she becomes premier on Oct. 28.

She previously announced an NDP government would spend $1.1 billion on health care over four years, with much of those dollars dedicated to hiring and improving working conditions. More than 4,000 professionals left the health-care field last year in Saskatchewan, the highest rate in any province, she said.

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“This has led to emergency room closures, service blackouts and, in the most severe cases, instances of patients dying in our province before they get the care that they need,” Beck said.

Beck made the commitment alongside Kayla Deics, a Regina woman recently diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. Deics said she had to go to Calgary to get a biopsy to confirm the cancer because wait times were too long in Saskatchewan. She paid $2,000 out of pocket, Deics added.

“If I would have trusted the Saskatchewan health-care system and waited until 2025 for my original biopsy in Regina, I’ll be frank in saying this, I wouldn’t be alive to make that appointment,” she said. “This is not how health care should be.”

The NDP is promising a Grow Your Own Strategy to help keep health-care workers on the front line of their local communities and reduce turnover. The party says it’s a pillar of its $1.1-billion plan to improve the province’s health-care system.

Also this week, Beck reiterated a pledge to invest $2 billion to hire teachers, reduce class sizes and improve learning supports for students. She promised to fund classrooms as well as playgrounds.

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Sask. Party

In a news release Tuesday, Moe said he would continue withholding federal carbon levy payments to Ottawa on home heating if elected premier on Oct. 28.

By not remitting the levy, Moe said the average household would save $480 next year.

Earlier this year, the Saskatchewan government stopped paying the federal carbon charge on natural gas after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals exempted home-heating oil (which is used mainly in Atlantic Canada).

Moe called Trudeau’s decision unfair, saying all forms of home heating should be exempt.

Ottawa and Saskatchewan later reached an agreement, with the federal government securing half of what was owed until the dispute could be resolved.

Beck has said she would be prepared to withhold carbon levy payments but that the province should still secure an exemption.

This week, the Sask. Party also blasted former rapper and current NDP candidate Phil Smith (Estevan-Big Muddy) for what it called “misogynistic,” pro-drug and pro-crime song lyrics.

“I said things in my 20s that I don’t believe now whatsoever,” Smith said after issuing an apology, adding that he is now “committed to social action to bring an end to gender-based discrimination.”

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The apology comes on the heels of another made by Sask. Part candidate David Buckingham, who came under fire for using a racial slur last year to reference a Black person. He said the slur was spoken while recounting a story of someone else using it.

PC Party

Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan Leader Rose Buscholl made several campaign stops this week, including in Colonsay, Humboldt and Watrous.

Buscholl joined calls to disband the Saskatchewan Marshals Service (SMS), according to a news release issued by the party Wednesday.

“There has been growing opposition to the Service,” stated the release. “Citing its redundancy to the overlapping of functions of the RCMP, many are referring to it as a waste of money at best, and a power grab” by the Sask. Party and its leader Scott Moe “at worst.”

Buscholl raised concerns over accountability and oversight if the SMS reports “only to the government.”

“This is unacceptable and runs counter to separation of powers,” she said in the release. “Why does this government think it needs its own police force answering only to them? We should be genuinely concerned.”

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More information regarding party policies and candidates can be found at www.pcsask.ca.

Green Party

In a news release issued Tuesday, the Saskatchewan Green Party said it is committed to eliminating poverty and strengthening the Saskatchewan economy through a number of steps, if elected.

“Saskatchewan is an immensely wealthy province, but most Saskatchewan people do not receive their fair share,” states the release.

The party says a “positive first step” would be the implementation of a living wage and argued it’s time to explore a guaranteed livable income. The party has also committed to implementing a housing-first program to end homelessness, a cap on rent increases, enhanced tenant rights, a supplement to “low” Canada Pension Plan and disability payments, and more.

On Wednesday, the Green Party said in a news release that it would “tear down barriers and ensure a strong economy for many generations to come by improving the public education system and providing tuition-free, post-secondary education.”

Recognizing that to be a long-term goal, the party went on to say, in the short term, “we must reduce the cost of post-secondary education so young adults are not burdened with insupportable debt when they leave school.”

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The party’s full platform, as well as information on its candidates, can be found at www.saskgreen.ca.

To find out who’s running in your riding, see our constituency list here.

We’ve also compiled need-to-know information about how to vote here.

Check out our complete election coverage here.

— with files from The Canadian Press 

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