Saskatchewan Party leader Scott Moe, left, and Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck look on before a televised leaders’ debate in Regina, on Wednesday, October 16, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu

By Nick Nielsen

Provincial election

Provincial party leaders speak in Prince Albert ahead of final vote on Monday

Oct 24, 2024 | 5:15 PM

With the provincial election set to wrap up on Monday, both the SaskParty and the NDP have had a heavy presence in Prince Albert. Scott Moe addressed his supporters at the SaskParty campaign office in the city on Wednesday, and Carla Beck addressed the NDP campaign office Thursday.

Both parties showed their commitment to a stronger future in Saskatchewan, but Beck’s message to NDP supporters in the city began with a reminder of just how important this year’s election is going to be.

“I have an important message for voters this morning. Saskatchewan, we’re standing at a crossroads just moments away, just days away from a moment that will define our beautiful province for the next four years and beyond. It will define our healthcare, our kids, classrooms and our community.”

For Moe and the SaskParty, he also urged his SaskParty supporters to get out and vote with his message outlining the choice between the two parties. Moe was quick to show how much the SaskParty has helped create growth in the province’s economy while .

“We have more jobs and we have more opportunities for that next generation, for our children. In fact, this last year over 17,000 jobs were created. What a benchmark to be proud of. That is one new job being created right here in our province each and every 30 minutes, and we have the choice to keep that record going or we have the choice to go back to what it was like under the NDP when there was also a job created every 30 minutes, but unfortunately that job was created in Alberta and our children needed to move there to get that job.”

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While Moe is proud of the record that the SaskParty has in job creation, Beck’s message to the NDP supporters challenged that by comparing the job growth in the province to the rest of the country. Beck sited a decision made earlier this spring by the SaskParty on tire-recycling in the province. With Saskatchewan based Shercom Industries having their contract with the province expire, the province awarded the new contract to a company based out of California, and Shercom announced today that they will be laying off 79 employees come December 2.

“Scott Moe likes to talk about a strong economy. His record is something very, very different. We have the second worst full time job creation record in the country. He’s the only Premier who has shrunk the economy of this province before, during and after a pandemic. He is presiding over loss in six crucial sectors of our economy, this is another instance of Scott Moe focused on his own priorities instead of the priorities of Saskatchewan people.”

During Moe’s address, he spoke about the issues of policing and drug addiction in the province. Moe criticized the NDP’s plan which would scrap the Marshal Service currently planned by the SaskParty and offer tax rebates for small businesses that buy security equipment, and maintained that the SaskParty’s plan of a recovery-focused approach to addiction in the province will help clean up the drugs in the province.

“You have a choice between the Saskatchewan Party that wants to grow the economy in our province, or the NDP who simply just want to grow government. Between the Saskatchewan Party, who want to give a hand up to those in our communities that are facing a life of addictions with access to a recovery bed, or the NDP who simply just want to hand out drugs on the streets of our communities. It’s a choice between the Saskatchewan Party, who is hiring more police officers to keep communities safe across this province, or the NDP who are going to cut the number of police officers and buy you a doorbell camera.”

On the other hand, Beck pointed out that she thinks the SaskParty’s Marshal service is not addressing the route cause of crime and addictions in the province. The NDP’s plan would take the funding from the Marshals service and use it towards existing police services such as the RCMP, and create programs in the province that focus on reducing the causes of crime such as poverty, homelessness, mental health, addictions, and more.

“Two years ago, instead of working with municipalities working with the RCMP, existing police forces, when we saw rising crime rates, Scott Moe chose to announce a Marshals service that wouldn’t see a single boot on the ground for four years. We’ve already spent $14 million and counting at a time when people can’t wait. When people call 911, they need to be sure that we have the police officers available to respond to those calls. That’s not happening right now. Our plan is to take that money set aside for the Marshals service, invest in 100 frontline workers today and take half of that money and invest in the root causes of crime because also we are never going to have enough police officers if we don’t start to address the root causes of crime, something Scott Moe’s party have simply ignored and watched worsen in this province.”

In closing, the Moe finished by reminding SaskParty supporters of the record they have over the last 17 years providing growth in this province, while the NDP have a record of closing things down through their last tenure.

“That’s why you’re seeing this party, your party, our Saskatchewan party, running on the very record that we have over the last decade and a half, and that’s why we see the NDP, who is running away from their record. They want you to forget that they closed hospitals and then fired the doctors and nurses that were working in the hospital, including one in this city. They want you to forget that they closed 176 schools in this province. That’s one school closed for every single month that they had the honour to form government, and then they fired the teachers that worked in those schools. They want you to forget the very tooth jarring experience that we had when we attempted to drive down the highways from corner to corner in this province, they want you to forget the fact that in Saskatchewan under the NDP we had a nine percent PST. We had higher income taxes and we had threats of property tax revolts year after they year.”

For Beck and her closing statements during the NDP’s press conference, she outlined the recent record of the SaskParty combined with their campaign focused on fear mongering of the NDP’s proposed changes should be enough for undecided voters to make their decision with the NDP.

“Saskatchewan people are tired of a government, a leader who frankly has spent a lot of the campaign lying, distracting from his own record, refusing to put forward a plan to actually address the issues that Saskatchewan people are facing. We’re saying to all Saskatchewan people, no matter where you live, you don’t have to settle for this. We want to be a government for all people, in all corners of this province. We want to work together to tackle the hard things. That’s how we’ve always done things in this province. People can vote for change.”

The latest polls from Insightrix show that about 50% of decided voters in the province are going towards the NDP while 45% are voting SaskParty, but the way the constituencies are mapped in the province it still shows a SaskParty majority by the end of the election.

The final day for early voting is Saturday, October 26, and the election will wrap up with the final day of voting on October 28.

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Nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com