By Sarah Wallace

NDP MLA reacts to unemployment numbers in PA

Sep 9, 2013 | 6:33 AM

Statistics Canada has recently released their numbers of unemployment rates for the country.

Canada’s national unemployment rate hovered at 7.1 per cent in August. This makes Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate the lowest in the country for the eighth straight month at 4.2 per cent.

However, in Prince Albert and in northern Saskatchewan there was a loss of about 3,200 jobs in the area … meaning there were 3,200 fewer people working in last month than in August of 2012.

NDP MLA for Athabasca Buckley Belanger said the economy of Saskatchewan is still very strong and said the NDP applaud that.

“We look at the great partnership between multi-national corporations, local business people [and] great investors to strengthen this economy and we want to continue seeing Saskatchewan stay strong,” he said.

Event Centre funding

City may hire lobbyist for event centre money

5h ago

International honours

Raiders' Kubiesa to represent Czechia at IIHF U18 Men's World Championship

8h ago

Learn the signs

How often should you change your brakes?

12h ago

He said there are a few areas that are of concern to them including the Prince Albert northern region, which he said the government continues to monitor.

He said they are seeing the job loss numbers year over year.

“Certainly from our perspective we always talk about smart growth within the NDP and we believe that if we invest in training, invest in infrastructure, invest in the PA and northern region that they’ll be certainly a big part of the economy as local leaders always aspire to be,” Belanger said.

“This points out problems within the government of trying to make sure that they allow as much opportunity to as many regions as we can and we’re seeing some of the evidence are failing in some areas.”

One investment in the North would include training.

“We all have great people in northern Saskatchewan. PA North have a tremendous amount of qualified, hardworking people, they obviously need training. You see the job numbers, there’s more jobs needed in many sectors. We think the government has to invest into training to make sure people in the North and generally become very competitive for a lot of these jobs,” Belanger said.

Another investment would be infrastructure.

“Local leaders have always been inspired in Prince Albert to build the proper infrastructure; a good example was a second bridge. A lot of times the local leaders in Prince Albert, they know they have great people, Prince Albert is punching far above its weight in terms of contributing to the provincial economy,” he explained.

He said the city is very proud but “they’re not being listened to, to the extent that they should be.”

Belanger is hoping they can bring more opportunities to the North because “the area is vibrant.”

“We know that, as an example I indicated forestry, you look at the problems that they’ve had with highways in the Prince Albert area. We see evidence of the government’s inaction on some of the fronts the leaders have been pushing the government on … this is the net effect, despite the government not investing strategically and intelligently in the Prince Albert north area, you can certainly see that the people are ready,” he said.

“We ought to recognize that and certainly from our perspective, within the NDP, smart growth means investing in PA North, smart growth means putting the proper infrastructure in place, smart growth means to make sure that we have ability to expand our tourism opportunities, our forestry opportunities, our mining opportunities and PA is a big central part of that puzzle to make sure that we fully recognize our potential for PA North.”

Belanger recognizes people in the North are working very hard to say to the province and to the government, ‘look we can get even bigger and even stronger. We don’t have to see the negative 3,200 jobs.’

“The local leaders are right; they’re saying to people that we got the answer but the government’s not listening. We’re doing very well on our own, but imagine what we could do if we had a government that was responding respectful and aware of some of the challenges we have to make sure that the economy’s just as bright in all parts of Saskatchewan, not just in certain sectors,” he said.

He said moving forward, “We’re going to pay very close attention to what happens in some of the sectors and PA North is of significant interest to us. The NDP have always, and especially under our new leader, he’s always indicated to our caucus that we have to make sure that we understand people have to pay their mortgage, they have car payments, [etc.]… these are really important issues when you look at the working men and women in the province.”

He said smart growth is something they’ve always talked about and from their perspective smart growth is to make sure all sectors are moving.

Belanger said they want to make sure each sector and region is given the support they need.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid