After a very close provincial election in October, the newly-formed Sask. Party government and the opposition NDP have spent the last few weeks in the legislative building getting to work.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and his government have the slimmest majority since the party first won in 2007, with 34 seats to the NDP’s 27.
On Tuesday, the first sitting came to a close.
The shortened fall sitting began with a word of caution from the newly-elected house speaker, Todd Goudy.
“If we’re going to be out of control in this place, that won’t go well,” Goudy said on Nov. 25. “I would ask that the decorum and the honourable members of this institution will be grown up and adult.”
Throughout the sitting, things were noticeably more civil as many new MLAs get their feet wet in politics.
Over the last two weeks, the Sask. Party have checked off some of their election promises.
For example, Moe’s government introduced its promised legislation to lower personal income taxes as well as continue to exempt residents from paying federal carbon levies for home heating.
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Some other amendments the government made also include updating the employment act for more balanced employment laws and expanding the workers compensation act for cancer coverage.
Moe feels his party has done well to set a new tone.
“We had shifted to some degree as well with respect to what we heard during the campaign, and you saw that shift in our speech from the throne with a renewed focus,” Moe said Tuesday.
Moe said his government is also working hard to make significant investments in health care and education.
While the NDP supported the Sask. Party’s affordability legislation, they are still trying to push its own tax breaks on the fuel tax and PST on children’s clothing.
“We continue to believe Saskatchewan people that they need relief but also that they need relief immediately,” NDP Leader Carla Beck said.
The NDP came out swinging early in the sitting, after opposition member Jared Clarke said his transgender children were targeted in an election campaign promise about school change rooms.
Clarke said he wants an apology from Moe.
“The premier put a target on the backs of my two 12-year-old kids,” Clarke said in the House.
Moe had touted the proposal as his first order of business, but it was not in his party’s campaign platform.
“The premier owes my children an apology,” Clarke said. “He owes all transgender people in this province, especially kids, an apology for how he has made them feel so unsafe over the last year.”
Moe’s office said in an emailed statement the premier and former education minister Jeremy Cockrill at no point identified the children.
The NDP also continually called on the government to enact some form of punishment to former MLA Gary Grewal for profiting off government contracts through his hotels.
Moe says his government is not interested in having Grewal appear before a committee and answer questions about breaching conflict of interest rules.
“I don’t know the last time, under any government, that a private citizen has been summoned to appear before a committee or the legislature,” Moe said.
There is no date yet for when the spring sitting will begin, but Moe said his government will be fully focused on the budget.
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