Saskatchewan Minute: Issue 125

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

📅 This Week In Saskatchewan: 📅

• Residents of Moose Jaw are collecting signatures for a petition that would force a referendum on a moratorium on approving, building, expanding or operating any data centre in the city. Volunteers need signatures from at least 10% of the city's population by the end of September to file the petition at city hall. A recent proposal from Aztec AI Health would convert buildings at the former Valley View Centre into a $485-million data centre that the company says could require up to 150 megawatts of power, and SaskPower estimates one megawatt supplies about 1,000 homes. Moose Jaw city council has not yet approved the project and has instead asked city staff for a deeper review of its impacts, including servicing needs for the property. NDP MLAs Aleana Young and Brittney Senger met residents in Moose Jaw on August 11th and are pressing the provincial government for more information, saying residents deserve transparency. The Government of Saskatchewan told CTV News it has already confirmed the data centre is not proceeding, that no application is before government and no approval is being considered, and that it therefore has no information to provide.
  
  
• The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, meanwhile, is calling on the Government of Saskatchewan to cut the provincial gas tax and on Ottawa to extend its pause on the federal fuel excise tax. Prairie Director Gage Haubrich told reporters on August 11th that removing the provincial tax, currently 15 cents per litre, would save drivers about $11 on filling a minivan and about $15 on filling a pick-up truck. The federal government suspended its excise tax of 10 cents per litre on April 20th, and that pause is set to expire on September 7th. The average price of gas in Saskatchewan was around $1.63 per litre on August 12th, up from an average of $1.21 in March. The Government of Saskatchewan defended the tax in a statement, maintaining that all of the revenue goes to provincial highways and related infrastructure and that it does not plan to cut revenues that keep people safe on the roads. Haubrich countered that no legislation requires fuel tax revenue to be spent on roads because the money flows into general revenue, and argued that higher oil and gas revenues give the province room to provide relief.
  
  
• The Government of Saskatchewan and the Opposition drew opposite conclusions from Statistics Canada's July labour force figures. The Government pointed to an unemployment rate of 6%, third lowest among the provinces and below the national rate of 6.4%, along with 10,300 private sector jobs added since July 2025 and construction employment up 4,600 or 9.1%. Immigration and Career Training Minister Eric Schmalz said in a news release that the numbers show the province's economy is strong. The NDP pointed instead to 2,900 full-time jobs lost in July, youth unemployment of 12.4%, and employment declines of 3,400 in Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan, 2,900 in Yorkton-Melville and 400 in Swift Current-Moose Jaw. Energy and Resources critic Sally Housser said rising youth unemployment in the summer months is particularly worrying, since retail, restaurants, parks and community centres normally do their summer hiring then. The two sides also clashed on youth employment itself, with the Government noting 1,500 more youth jobs than in July 2025, a rise of 1.6%.
  
  
• Construction has begun on a new underground uranium mine in the southern Athabasca Basin, about 130 kilometres north of La Loche. NexGen Energy expects to spend $2.2 billion over a four-year construction phase on what it calls one of the world's largest new sources of uranium. Premier Scott Moe and former prime minister Stephen Harper both spoke at Thursday's groundbreaking, alongside Metis Nation-Saskatchewan leaders and the local Member of Parliament. Work has started on surface infrastructure, shaft development is expected to begin in 2027, and the site's airstrip is being extended from 914 metres to 1,780 metres. The company first drilled the area in 2012, found nothing across 13 holes and left, then hit mineralization on its first hole when it returned in January 2014. 
  
  
• Lotteries and Gaming Saskatchewan has paid out nearly $1.7 million in charitable gaming grants for the first quarter of the 2026-27 year, spread across about 260 communities and roughly 1,000 charitable and non-profit groups. Groups in Regina received more than $164,000 and groups in Saskatoon more than $139,000, with the Prince Albert, Humboldt and Meadow Lake areas each receiving between $60,000 and $82,000. These are not discretionary awards. Each group gets back 25% of the net revenue raised by its own licensed gaming events, such as bingos, raffles and poker tournaments, to an annual maximum of $100,000 per group. The amounts are calculated by the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority from financial reports the groups themselves file. Jeremy Harrison, the minister responsible, said the grants go to organizations working in arts, culture and sport, as well as hospital foundations and service clubs.

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