Saskatchewan Minute: Issue 116

Saskatchewan Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Saskatchewan politics.

📅 This Week In Saskatchewan: 📅

• Premier Scott Moe is leading a trade mission to Europe aimed at promoting Saskatchewan exports in food and energy security, with stops in Czechia, Belgium, and Poland before the delegation heads to France for the Eurosatory defence show. Moe says the group will be looking at European capacity for agricultural products, and for potash in particular, as well as opportunities to export Saskatchewan uranium and Saskatchewan-based nuclear technology. He singled out Eastern Europe as a region where the province can promote its agricultural products. Moe argued that the companies servicing Saskatchewan's mining and oil and gas industries are among the best in the world at what they do, and that their expertise in areas like hydraulics, electric vehicles, and technology can cross over into Canada's growing defence spending.
  
  
• Also on the trade file, US President Donald Trump is again threatening to hit Canada with a 10% tariff on goods that do not comply with the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement, citing concerns about forced labour. The threat, one of similar warnings aimed at roughly 60 countries, comes as a July 1st review of the agreement approaches. Speaking at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn on June 3rd, Premier Scott Moe declined to respond to the daily pronouncements coming out of the White House, saying the goal is to keep preferential trade access to the US. He noted that Saskatchewan exports over 70% of what it produces and that its largest export to the US is oil. Mosaic, which sends about half the products from its Belle Plaine potash facility to the US, said it will continue advocating for fertilizer to move freely across North American borders. Saskatchewan Mining Association President Pam Schwann said almost 60% of the Province's potash and about 26% of its uranium go to American buyers. NDP energy critic Sally Housser said business has settled into "a new type of normal" and is now watching what the market is doing rather than the President's posts.
  
  
• NDP Justice and Community Safety Critic Nicole Sarauer is accusing the new Saskatchewan Marshals Service of poaching officers from municipal police departments and RCMP detachments, telling a news conference on June 9th that nearly every police force has vacancies. As evidence, she pointed to Community Safety Minister Michael Weger's statement to the Legislature during spring estimates on April 13th that, other than two officers currently going through police college, all of the existing marshals have been lateral hires. The service is eventually aiming to have 70 employees. Sarauer argued the approach makes no financial sense, since the provincial government covers only 70% of the cost of each new RCMP officer, with the federal government paying the rest, but bears the full cost of every new marshal. She said several municipalities have voiced concerns, though she declined to name them, and criticized the Government for creating the service first and only finding a purpose for it later. In a statement, Weger said the marshals service "supports and supplements existing police services", pointing to provincial budget funding, expanded training capacity at the province's police college, and an incoming police recruitment campaign, but he did not address the poaching claims.
  
  
• The Saskatchewan Prosperity Project, a separatist group advocating for Saskatchewan to become independent, has now held more than 40 town halls across the province, according to its president Brad Williams. The group, whose Facebook group counts 10,000 members, cites grievances including perceived federal overreach, taxation, and natural resource extraction. Williams says some members are interested in unifying with Alberta should voters there choose to separate, with Albertans set to vote on October 19th on whether to stay in Canada or begin a process toward a binding second referendum. Ken Coates, a political analyst and professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, said he takes the movement very seriously, calling it much stronger and angrier than past waves of western separatism. Premier Scott Moe called the project shortsighted, but said its concerns about Ottawa overstepping are not unfounded and are starting to be addressed under the Carney government. NDP Leader Carla Beck said losing recent progress on interprovincial cooperation to political division would be a tragedy. First Nations groups in Alberta and Saskatchewan say separatism encroaches on their treaty rights, since treaties were struck with the federal Crown rather than with individual provinces.
  
  
• The Regina Police Service's monthly crime dashboard recorded 415 overdoses in Regina in April, a sharp jump from 242 the month before, while the Saskatoon Fire Department responded to 680 overdoses that same month, putting the combined total for the two cities above 1,000. Regina reported another 100 overdoses in the first 10 days of June, triggering a drug alert from the provincial Ministry of Health that is scheduled to last until Wednesday. Two suspected overdose deaths were also reported in Regina over that period. At a news conference on June 10th, NDP mental health and addictions critic Leroy Laliberte said overdoses have continued to rise in recent months and called for immediate and urgent action from the Government. He also criticized the province's decision to cut funding to Prairie Harm Reduction, which operated Saskatoon's only supervised consumption site. A Ministry of Health spokesperson said the Government is concerned about the number of overdoses across the province, pointing to its multi-year action plan for mental health and addictions, a commitment to open 500 new treatment spaces, and the recently passed Compassionate Intervention Act, which allows for forced drug treatment.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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