Saskatchewan NDP leader responds to provincial economic update

On Friday, the provincial government announced that the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to decrease the province’s revenues by $1.3 to $3.3 billion, depending on how long it lasts.

Later that same day, Saskatchewan NDP Leader, Ryan Meili held a press conference on Zoom to respond to the government’s update and call for increased collaboration in the province’s planning process.

“Government is here to help people, to improve our lives and this is a time when government needs to step up and do exactly that. These are extraordinary times, this is something none of us have lived through before and certainly nothing that is in the playbook of what we’re used to from legislative affairs and politics in the province and it requires extraordinary responses as well,” said Meili.

“And that’s why we have been consistently encouraging the premier to bring together a task force with leaders and business and and labour, First Nations and Métis leaders, municipal, all the major sectors coming together to come up with the best plan. The more we have people’s on the ground understanding of their own sectors, of their own communities, the better the plan that we will come up with.”

According to Meili, Premier Scott Moe, has rejected this request despite it falling in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization.

“We are missing key voices at the table to have the best response so I hope that he changes his mind,” he said.

“We saw recommendations just this week from the World Health Organization saying we should have a cross-partisan, multi-sector response to pandemic and New Democrats are 100 per cent here to do that work the moment we are called upon to do so.”

Meili says he doesn’t want to point fingers or place blame. He says his request for more collaboration is to avoid the finger pointing that could take place when the pandemic is over.

“If we wind up down this road and we look back and think, here is the things the government could have done to make this less impactful and they weren’t done, that’s where the blame comes in,” he said.

“And that’s why I am encouraging a different approach, to bring everyone together and come up with the best plan now. So that the impact of the pandemic, and the current economic situation is the least that it possibly can be. That’s my focus rather than trying to figure out who is going to be blamed down the road.”

However, there is one aspect, in particular, of the government’s response to the pandemic that Meili would like to see addressed immediately. And that’s the inclusion of the province’s First Nation’s and Métis leaders.

“I’m also really concerned because we are talking about First Nations communities and communities that are more remote, that are further from care and communities with high density in their housing. This is something that we have raised now on a number of occasions and we have still yet to see any meaningful interaction between provincial leadership and their inviting First Nations leadership to be part of the solution,” he said.

“This to me is a massive oversight and one of the big risks to us as a province. We have not yet seen the actions taken from this government that are necessary for their full protection and we haven’t seen them engaging in those communities the way they should.”