The leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party of Saskatchewan stopped in Estevan for a meet and greet last Friday.
Ken Grey spent a few hours discussing the Progressive Conservative’s main focuses and talking about the topics that are of the most concern for several people that joined the event. The meeting took place at the residence of Linda Sopp, who recently announced that she will be running for the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan in the upcoming provincial election in the Estevan constituency.
In the beginning, Sopp spoke a bit about why she decided to step forward and run for the party.
"I just don’t like what’s happening around here with mines, oil. All our energy sources are gone. You drive around Estevan, and it is so sad because there is nothing. The hotels are empty, restaurants are empty, the bars, the only time they are busy now is Wing Wednesdays,” said Sopp.
Replying to that, Grey recalled the time a few years ago when he used to do a lot of travelling to the Estevan area for work, and he and his colleagues would bring tents with them because there were zero vacancies.
“What a difference. Commodity prices have fallen and that’s it,” said Grey.
He talked a bit about his background and the current state of the party. It has about 30 candidates, which almost doubled since 2016, and is getting everything organized for the upcoming elections.
After the introduction, Grey started off by expressing his opinion about the current government’s money management abilities.
“The government is spending a lot of money on some really big vanity projects … Just in the last few days, they’ve made more announcements about big shiny projects they want to build in the province, which, in my opinion, just put taxpayers’ money at risk,” said Grey.
“When you start putting money at risk, that means that the things that we really need and we really want in this province, like education for our kids, like hospitals for people that are sick, those all become at risk as well. We need to really be able to conserve what we have, conserve the money that we have, not spend it foolishly, just like everybody in their own budgets has to do, just watch your finances so you can pay for the things that you need. And then if we have money left over, then we should look at ways that we could save that money and prepare for the days that are ahead.”
He added that every family goes through that, so he doesn’t see why the government that’s already living on a line of credit should be any different.
“In the 2020 budget this government actually budgeted $718 million just to service the debt. Can you imagine what that $718 million could do if it was actually put to the use of people of Saskatchewan?” asked Grey.
He said that the SaskParty government is high spending and now is high taxing, which concerns him, especially keeping in mind that the accumulated budget deficit was already at $25 billion before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it only keeps growing and will require more resources in the near future. Grey added that he believes the PC Party can offer other ways for the province.
“That’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m looking for good people like Linda to help us out in the fight and try to get Progressive Conservative MLAs into the legislature and to hold this government to account."
Grey also touched on the state of the current opposition, stating that the Saskatchewan’s NDP “is ineffective and fails to hold the SaskParty mega spending check.”
He turned attention towards one of the main topics on the PC party’s agenda – the elimination of the New West Partnership Trade Agreement (NWTPA). He talked to the disadvantages of the NWTPA for Saskatchewan.
“We want to build Saskatchewan up, and one of the things that we want to do is take away a multi-government agreement that the Saskatchewan Party signed onto in 2010, which forces the provincial government, Crown corporations, municipalities, school boards, universities, anybody that receives funding from the provincial government must by virtue of this trade agreement contract the jobs out to the four western provinces,” said Grey.
He went on to explain that quite often Saskatchewan companies are left out of jobs because of this legislation, and he believes that the choice to tender the contracts out to other provinces or keep the jobs local should be left up to employers.
“It’s huge in this day and age, because our economy took such a big hit just in the last three months, last five years down here for sure. And we need every opportunity for industries to come back. And wouldn’t it be great if an Estevan company can qualify for some of the jobs around here or even a Saskatchewan company,” said Grey. “If we have a skill here, it shouldn’t be mandated (to tender it to other provinces).”
Grey also touched on the PC Party’s back-to-school plan that they published in early June. While masks weren’t mentioned in that plan, Grey said he believes they shouldn’t be mandatory.
“If people feel that they should wear one, they should. It’s one tool that people can use to break that circle of infection,” said Grey.
The healthcare system and the problem of recruiting and keeping the medical specialists in Estevan were also touched upon during the meeting.
