YORKTON – David Chan is the Saskatchewan Party candidate for Yorkton seeking a seat at legislature. SaskToday.ca reached out to Chan via email ahead of the 2024 Provincial Election.
"My wife and I moved to Yorkton seven years ago with our then one-year-old daughter for a work opportunity. We quickly realized we had found a gem of a community in Yorkton. It’s the simple things you can take for granted if you’ve never lived anywhere else – things like the Christmas parade, knowing your postal worker, having your mechanic on speed dial. We soon realized Yorkton would be the place we wanted to set down roots and raise our family. We decided to purchase a home (which was oh so affordable compared to BC and Alberta), had two more children – both born in the Yorkton hospital, and have been grateful for the beautiful friendships we’ve made ever since," said Chan in the email.
"Prior to moving to Yorkton, I worked in international education and business, domestically and abroad, and across cultures helping clients train and retain the valued personnel they needed. This included working with foreign governments, multinational corporations, as well as with local industry. I am excited to bring this wide range of experience, exposure, and education – including a master’s degree in international and intercultural communication – to our challenges locally and to our provincial government," added Chan.
What do you see as priorities for the area?
These are challenging times in our world, times of uncertainty and instability. However, I see this creating massive opportunities for growth and prosperity for our region and province. Our next federal election and the election south of us are going to be significant factors in how we need to position ourselves as a province to maximize and capitalize on the opportunities that are ahead of us. We need a thriving economy to weather the global shifts that are happening. A strong economy will allow us to focus locally on supporting the things that make a difference in people’s lives – things like high quality healthcare and senior care, having more disposable income, expanded opportunities for our children and youth.
- Locally, on the economic front, this will require continued investment into infrastructure.
- Grain Millers Drive needs to be able to service the corridor all year round. This will attract more investment into our area, especially in the value-added sector. It will also support existing business and industry growth. These larger industries support our small and medium size local businesses.
- Making improvements to key highways that serve as our supply, export, and transportation routes – particularly Highway 9 South, 52 West and 10 East.
- Opening more trade offices to increase our access and exports to new or expanded international markets.
- Continuing to partner with our local First Nations’ along economic lines through their respective business development corporations. There is so much more potential here.
- Continuing to expand post-secondary opportunities through Suncrest College to train professionals and trades locally and make post-secondary education more accessible for all.
At the community level, we must:
- Recruit more doctors to work in Yorkton to replace the ones we have recently lost and more. Ensuring access to a family doctor is one of my top priorities for this area.
- Continue working to get our new hospital built along with training, recruiting and retaining medical professionals.
- Continue looking at options from all angles to address the challenges in K-12
- Work with the municipality to provide more housing options.
- Invest in preventative supports for children and youth and increase treatment spaces across the province. This is key to helping families who need the support to strengthen and remain together. It helps lower unemployment and helps increase public safety.
What is your plan on:
Affordability
The Sask Party has some exciting affordability measures in our platform. People want to be able to put food on the table and keep more of their hard earned money. Here is what we’re going to do when re-elected:
- We’re reducing Income Tax
- When fully implemented 54,000 people will no longer pay any income tax.
- A family of four won’t pay any provincial income tax on the first combined $72,425 of income – the highest threshold in Canada.
- This will save a family of four more than $3400 over four years when combined with indexation of personal tax rates.
- Seniors, couples, individuals, and low-income earners will also benefit from our income tax reduction measures
- We’re making the Homeowner Renovation Tax Credit permanent – saving homeowners on the tax cost of renovating their homes. Homeowners can claim up to $4K in renovation expenses on their primary residence per year and for seniors it’s up to $5K.
- We’re locking in the small business tax rate at one per cent. It will no longer return to its pre-2020 rate of two per cent. We have one of the lowest small-business tax rates in Canada and the highest threshold of qualifying revenues at $600K.
Health
- We’re incentivizing doctors to work in rural SK by offering $200,000 in tax credits over a five year period if they practice in rural SK during those 5 years.
- We’re filling the immediate shortages by recruiting hundreds of new healthcare workers from abroad.
- We’re making it smoother and faster for foreign trained healthcare professionals to be assessed and become licensed in SK so they can begin working in our healthcare system sooner.
- We’re adding 48 seats to the College of Medicine and 150 seats to our nursing programs meaning we are prioritizing and investing in homegrown and locally trained professionals over the long-term.
- We are incentivizing healthcare workers to take positions in rural and remote areas with up to $50,000 over three years for a return-of-service agreement in hard-to-recruit positions.
- We are adding 100 new permanent full-time positions and converting 150 part-time positions into full-time in rural areas.
Education
- We are increasing investment in infrastructure by 46 per cent with this year’s budget seeing $216M assigned to capital projects. This is on top of the $2.6B spent on 101 major school infrastructure projects since forming government in 2007 – all possible thanks to the strength of our economy over the past 16 years.
- We are also investing in increased classroom supports. Our latest budget assigned $356.6M to be spent on classroom supports and mental health resources.
- We are investing in teacher-led solutions to the challenges they face with classroom composition – we have fully funded two pilot projects initiated by teachers, that if successful, can then be replicated across the province in similar settings.
Public safety
- Since 2007, we’ve increased funding to the RCMP by 862 per cent, or $20.6M, and have invested $253M to fund front line municipal police positions. This includes targeted initiatives as task forces that address community policing, child exploitation, crime reduction, crisis response, missing persons, and trafficking response.
- We are also investing in rural policing through the Sask Marshal Service. This will not and cannot replace the RCMP but is meant to enhance law enforcement in key locales with a prioritization on gangs, illegal weapons, drugs, and high-risk offenders or wanted individuals.
- We are investing $33.8M in new funding this year to expand and mental health and addiction services, as well as $40.2M to create housing solutions and emergency shelter spaces for the homeless.
Highways
100 per cent of the gas tax goes into our highways budget. Every person who uses our highways whether from in province or out of province pays this tax when they fuel up in SK – it’s akin to a user fee. Since 2008, more than $13B has been invested into highway infrastructure. This year, $404M will go to capital projects including $269.5M to municipal and regional transportation infrastructure.
What is your stance on the federal Carbon Tax?
The Carbon Tax is responsible for sky-rocketing costs. The Carbon Tax is a money grab by the Liberal/NDP federal coalition. It’s more money out of your pocket and into federal coffers. It unfairly penalizes rural communities and is driving up the cost of food, transportation, housing, construction, agriculture….everything!
Instead, we need a federal government that will partner with our province in supporting our uranium industry and in developing Small Modular Reactors as both an energy supply and export product. We could also do better on every measure than the Liberal/NDP Carbon Tax by exporting our carbon capture technology to major industrial economies like China.
Most pressing issue affecting your constituency?
The two most pressing issues I have heard from our constituents are as follows:
- Making sure everyone has access to a family doctor
- Making life more affordable so people can keep more of the money they earn.
