Sask. Party keeps up with campaign promises addressing safter communities, affordability

Throughout the Sask. Party’s 27-day election campaign in October, they released a promise nearly every single day.

During the short fall sitting the past few weeks, the government has been making good on some of those promises.

On Wednesday, the government introduced an amendment to the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) Act to address challenges posed by abandoned properties.

“These amendments provide provincial SCAN officers the legal authority to identify and target nuisance properties in communities, while still following their current mandate of responding to public complaints about buildings involved in illegal activities,” the province said.

Under the new amendments, SCAN will be able to:

• Submit court applications for rehabilitation or forfeiture orders to address nuisance properties.
• Address graffiti and trafficking of stolen property through the community safety order process.

“Allowing SCAN officers to actively respond to nuisance or dilapidated properties, rather than waiting for a complaint to be submitted, will address immediate safety concerns and enable SCAN to assist municipalities in creating safe, thriving communities across Saskatchewan,” Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod said.

To support the effective implementation of these amendments, government will invest $2.7 million in 2025-26 to hire additional SCAN personnel.

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On Tuesday, legislation was introduced to keep the carbon pricing off SaskEnergy bills in 2025. The government expects families to save $480 next year.

The province originally removed carbon pricing from home heating this year in response to the federal government’s decision to stop charging it on home heating oil primarily used in Atlantic Canada.

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.

The promises come at a time when Moe and his government have the slimmest majority since the party first won in 2007 with 34 seats to the NDP’s 27.

It has changed how the party caucus operates, as it works to ensure it has enough members in the house at any given time.

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Political analyst Ken Coates said it is important for the Sask. Party to have all their members in the house at all times.

“You got to make sure you have a majority in the house at all times, and that’s really hard to do,” he explained.

“If you look back for the last few years, you often had situations where they would have most of the cabinet ministers traveling in the province or they’d be out nationally or internationally. They’d be free to move around because you had such a large majority that you could actually keep a select number of people back behind. Now, you can’t do that.

“You actually have to have almost all of your people there and almost all the time.”

Coates said if all the members aren’t around for a vote, there is a chance the opposition could defeat them on a piece of legislation.

“All of a sudden they lose and they might consider that to be sort of a repudiation that they have to go back for an election,” Coates said about the government. “They have to be very careful about these kinds of things because it can really upset the political applecart very, very quickly.”

Thursday will be the last day of the shortened fall legislative sitting. The assembly will resume in the spring.

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