Saskatchewan Minute: Issue 121

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

📅 This Week In Saskatchewan: 📅

• A shift in how Saskatchewan approves new child care spaces is drawing criticism after a Saskatoon operator was told the Ministry of Education would not license her home-based daycare. In a letter dated June 23rd, the Ministry said it is moving from rapid expansion toward stabilization and long-term sustainability, prioritizing new spaces in areas of greatest need such as communities without $10-a-day child care and rural or northern areas. The operator, who had run a licensed daycare in the River Heights neighbourhood for about a year, said 15 families in her area will now have to look elsewhere. NDP education critic Matt Love said the decision is at odds with the growing waitlists that families and providers report in Saskatoon, and he is calling on the Government to release the data behind its assessments of local need. The Province says the application has not been rejected but is being held for further assessment of the number and use of child care spaces in the area. It added that as of May 31st it had created 93% of the 28,000 child care spaces targeted under its 2023 agreement with the federal government.
  
  
• The Government of Saskatchewan has announced changes to its Provincial Disaster Assistance Program following an unusually costly year for storm and flood damage. Community Safety Minister Michael Weger said the updated regulations will increase assistance and expand eligibility for individuals, small businesses, and other claimants, while improving recovery supports and mitigation incentives for municipalities. The changes align the program more closely with the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements and apply retroactively to April 1st, so that claimants from this spring's flooding can be assessed under the new framework. The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said it had approved 107 disaster designations as of July 10th, well above the 10-year average of 43, and that claim volumes are expected to be high. The program reimburses uninsurable essential losses, cleanup, repairs and temporary relocation, and is not designed to replace insurance or fully restore claimants to their pre-disaster state. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities welcomed the changes, with President Bill Huber saying rural Councils have faced significant challenges after this year's flooding.
  
  
• Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck is calling on the provincial government to waive more than $8,000 in fees that SaskPower wants the Official Opposition to pay for two engineering reports on the province's plan to refurbish its coal-fired power plants. The NDP requested the reports, prepared for SaskPower by Rockford Engineering and Hatch Engineering, under freedom-of-information law, and SaskPower quoted a fee of $8,011.50, which Beck described as putting "a cover charge on accountability". SaskPower says the estimate reflects the staff time needed to redact the two reports, which run to 1,503 and 4,791 pages, billed at $15 per half-hour. Beck argues the public is effectively paying twice, because the reports were commissioned and paid for by a Crown corporation the public owns, while the Opposition's fees are also publicly funded. The Government did not directly address the concerns, saying only that an applicant who considers a fee estimate unreasonable can request a review by the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
  
  
• SaskEnergy crews will inspect roughly 20,000 kilometers of natural gas lines across Saskatchewan this summer and fall as part of the Crown corporation's annual safety and system integrity program. The work covers part of the province's nearly 88,000-kilometer distribution network and includes leak surveys carried out on foot, by vehicle, and by air. Alana Johnson, SaskEnergy's director of strategic communications, said the utility invests about $100 million a year in inspection and integrity programs, an amount that rose to $135 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year. She said the annual inspections have been a feature of the utility's operations since it was established about 70 years ago and help keep the system running at 99.99% reliability. Johnson noted the spending comes from customers' monthly natural gas bills and is aimed at finding minor issues before they cause service disruptions.
  
  
• Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation has signed a benefit agreement with Denison Mines for the company's Wheeler River uranium project in northern Saskatchewan, giving its formal consent and ending its legal challenge to the development. The agreement means the First Nation will no longer seek a judicial review it had filed against the Province over concerns it was not properly consulted on the environmental assessment. The confidential deal includes financial benefits along with employment, training and business opportunities, and a community-based environmental monitoring program run by the First Nation rather than the company or the Province. The Wheeler River project, which the provincial government approved in August 2025, includes the Phoenix mine and could become the first uranium operation in the province to dissolve the ore underground using an acidic solution rather than conventional mining. Denison plans to operate the mine for about 10 years and estimates it holds 56.7 million pounds of proven and probable uranium reserves. The company had already reached agreements with several other First Nations and Metis groups before regulatory hearings on the project.

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