Invitations and jurisdictions: Fall sitting ends at Legislature

Many Saskatchewan MLAs are heading home this week after the fall sitting came to an end Wednesday.

Looking back, the seven weeks began with a splash when convicted murderer, and former MLA, Colin Thatcher was invited to the Speech from the Throne by Saskatchewan Party MLA Lyle Stewart.

Shock and outrage ensued. It took to the following Monday for Premier Scott Moe to apologize. On Wednesday, Deputy Premier Donna Harpauer addressed the incident.

“It was a mistake, one that the premier addressed on behalf of all of us, but we are very focused on the government agenda and got back to our agenda very quickly,” she said.

But Harpauer didn’t list the invitation as something that surprised her; in fact, she said nothing had surprised her this sitting.

“I’ve been here a long time, so it takes a lot to surprise me now,” Harpauer said with a chuckle in her voice.

NDP Leader Carla Beck, on the other hand, said it certainly caught her by surprise.

“As a member of this assembly, as a citizen of the province, and as someone who worked in domestic violence for a large part of my career, I think that was a shocking decision,” said Beck.

It was high on the list of topics for the NDP in those first few days and continued to be brought up during Question Period throughout the sitting.

“It sent a terrible message in a province that has twice the rate of domestic violence in the country. From the very first day, it was a misstep and I think there were a number of those missteps from this government,” Beck said.

Harpauer said the government managed to get back to its agenda fairly quickly and was busy, introducing several bills.

That included the controversial Saskatchewan First Act, introducing the framework to put together a marshal’s service in Saskatchewan, and the recently introduced act that would allow the province to create a new Crown to collect its own corporate income tax.

“I think we were quite busy and accomplished a lot,” said Harpauer. “There’s always legislation that people may or may not agree with but we think this is a priority.”

The Sask. NDP was busy as well, constantly going back to what Beck said were its focus: Good jobs, affordability and what she called the health-care crisis.

“Those were the priorities that we connected with that people described to us as being their main priorities as we were out meeting with people the months prior to session,” said Beck.

The opposition frequently brought people from around the province to the Legislative Building to speak to their personal experiences and put a face to the problems the NDP was talking about.

“Our focus coming into session was to really root what we brought into session in the things that people told us were important to them,” said Beck.

The NDP leader characterized this sitting as being about priorities.

“There’s a very big distinction between the priorities that we brought forward, the priorities brought forward because these are concerns that people in the province have, and the legislative agenda of this government,” said Beck.

This was also the first sitting for Beck since she was elected the party leader over the summer.

“This is an important day, I’m very proud of the work that our team, that our staff have done,” she said.

There are still a few committee meetings on the books for the coming weeks and then things get going again in the Legislative Assembly in March.