Saskatchewan Minute: Issue 135

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

📅 This Week In Saskatchewan: 📅

• The Saskatchewan Legislature returns tomorrow, when the Lieutenant Governor will open the Third Session of the Thirtieth Legislature at 2:00 pm. MLAs will also sit on Wednesday and Thursday. The Assembly's sitting calendar has the fall period running to December 10th, with the House sitting four days a week through most of November and early December. The spring period is scheduled to begin on March 8th, 2027, with Budget Day set for March 24th, a date that may vary at the Government's discretion.
  
  
• Premier Scott Moe says Alberta's vote to remain in Canada sent a strong message, but that governments must keep working to give the roughly one in four Albertans who backed the separation process a reason to think differently. Moe said Saskatchewan has similar sentiments and has felt similar frustrations with federal policies, and urged Ottawa to go further on things like Bill C-5, the Major Projects Office, and progress on pipeline proposals. He credited Prime Minister Mark Carney with a more co-operative approach than his predecessor, pointing to the pipeline agreement with Alberta and to more than $100 billion in private-sector capital he said has been earmarked for projects in Saskatchewan. Asked about a referendum like Alberta's, Moe said his government has not discussed one, although the province has plebiscite legislation in place, and he said that while he does not support abolishing the Senate, Senate reform is a worthwhile discussion. Canada's Premiers are set to meet with the Prime Minister in Ottawa in the coming days, and Moe believes immigration will be on the agenda.
  
  
• The Saskatchewan government has made progress toward setting up an artificial intelligence office, a year after promising to create one. Blake Fleischhaker, Executive Director of Architecture and Planning with the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement, says the office will build out the government's governance, strategy, and roadmaps for AI and enable it to use the technology responsibly. AI was among the topics at a recent government procurement forum in Regina, where companies showcased technology and services they hope to sell to the Province, and the Buy Saskatchewan procurement policy is expected to extend to AI-related purchases. SaskBuilds and Procurement Minister Sean Wilson says 99% of last year's procurement was Canadian, and 94% of that went to Saskatchewan companies. Unions are raising concerns about job losses and are urging workers to negotiate strict guardrails, arguing that AI's abilities are oversold but that companies can use it to lay people off. The provincial government says it has no intention of using AI to replace jobs, an issue that could get more attention in future contract bargaining.
  
  
• Environment Minister Darlene Rowden reversed the provincial government's decision to end chronic wasting disease testing on Thursday, announcing that the program will run in the 2026-27 hunting season as it did in 2025-26, with mandatory testing in designated wildlife management zones and voluntary testing elsewhere. The Province had announced on October 13th that it was ending the program, citing low uptake from hunters, and Premier Scott Moe had called it a budgetary decision. Rowden apologized, telling reporters that the government "made a mistake and we are sorry", and acknowledged that hunters, conservation officers, the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, and other stakeholders were not consulted before a decision she said was made in a day. The Federation, which says the program costs about $450,000 a year, more than $300,000 of it from a fund that receives a portion of hunting and angling licence revenues, welcomed the reinstatement. The Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre also welcomed it, saying it could not accept donations of untested wild game without the program. Rowden says testing in future seasons will depend on conversations with hunters and stakeholders, and the ministry says hunters will be notified of the updated requirements by the end of the month.
  
  
• British Columbia voters have elected a Conservative majority government, ending nine years of NDP government in Saturday's snap provincial election. Election-night counts had the Conservatives winning about 63 of the Legislature's 93 seats, well past the 47 needed for a majority, and the party had 51% of the popular vote to 36.3% for the NDP. It is the party's first win since 1928, and it makes interim Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson Premier just five weeks after he took over a party in disarray. The Conservatives campaigned on cutting income taxes, approving new home building with less red tape, repealing the province's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and expanding natural gas and LNG development. NDP Leader David Eby, who called the election two years early, conceded on Saturday night and resigned as party leader.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

Premier Scott Moe says Alberta’s vote to remain in Canada should be a signal to Ottawa that more needs to be done to address Western Canadians’ concerns.

What do you think Ottawa needs to do to address the concerns Albertans and Saskatchewanians have raised? Reply and let us know.

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