REGINA - In alphabetical order, the fourth in our series of leaders’ profiles is an interview with the leader of the Saskatchewan United Party, Jon Hromek.
Less tax and responsible spending are what the Saskatchewan United Party is offering voters in the 2024 provincial election campaign.
This is the first election for the new party under its leader Jon Hromek. The party came to fruition in 2022 soon after Saskatchewan Rivers MLA Nadine Wilson left the Saskatchewan Party caucus. Wilson became the party's first MLA and briefly held the leadership before Hromek took over in the spring of 2024.
Hromek comes to politics with an engineering background. He attended the University of Regina and graduated in 2003 with a B.A.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering. Since then Hromek has been involved in several oil exploration and production companies, including as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Adonai Resources II Corporation.
In 2023 Hromek ran for Sask United and placed second in the Lumsden-Morse by-election, where he will be on the ballot again in 2024. The party also has its platform out entitled Blueprint for Change and you can find it at their website at www.saskunited.ca.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation with Hromek, which took place at our Harvard Media headquarters in Regina.
On getting involved in politics
"I'm a petroleum engineer by trade and I never thought I would be or get involved in politics at this level or in this type of capacity, but I mean the issues that are facing our province, you know, are significant. There are issues in just about every area and I figured, you know what, it's time to bring some problem solvers and some private sector management techniques to government because we've got to solve some problems here. So that's why I got involved.
"My wife and myself and our kids, we live just outside of Lumsden. I ran in the by-election last year that was held in Lumsden-Morse. We did well.
"We came in second place, got 23 per cent of the vote and you know, this province is worth it. It's worth to get involved. It's worth working hard to solve the problems that need to be solved in this province.
"So that's why I'm here and I'm excited for what the future brings because I think Saskatchewan is on the cusp of greatness if we can just get our systems realigned and reorganized and focused on the future."
What success would look like for his party:
"Success for me would be, I mean, we're a new party. We were founded in 2022. Our kickoff was in early 2023.
"So success for me would be, you know, winning some seats, as many seats obviously as we can, but getting a foothold into the legislature by, you know, having as many seats as we can get and, you know, bringing our policies and some really good people to the floor of the legislature to actually discuss and talk about the real issues that are affecting, you know, the people of Saskatchewan. So I would look at winning some seats as being very successful because, you know, we're a new party and it takes time, but we've been working hard at it and we'll see what this election brings."
What differentiates Sask United from the other parties:
"Yeah, well, I mean, our party is a true conservative party. So we believe in small, efficient government. We believe in less regulations rather than more regulations.
"We believe in less taxation. We believe in responsible spending. We believe in decentralizing power rather than centralizing power because Saskatchewan is such a diverse and rich province, but what, you know, what policies may work in Estevan, they don't necessarily work in North Battleford or in other rural parts of the province compared to the cities.
"So we recognize that diversity, so that's why we're about decentralization of power. We're also about making sure that, you know, the people's voices are heard and it's more of a grassroots party as compared to a top-down legacy type of party. So that's what we're about.
"We're about conservative values. We're about family values. I firmly believe that the family is the building block of both the economy as well as society, so that's why we're a family first party.
"We believe in law and order and the responsibility that, you know, individuals have with respect to their communities and going forward with that. So those are pretty stark differentiations compared to the other parties that we're up against in this provincial election. So that's kind of the distinguishing factors here."
Issues that are the biggest priorities in this campaign:
"Well, the biggest issues that we're seeing are affordability, of course. Then there's health care, and then there's also education comes up quite a bit too.
"But basically, overall, just management of the province with respect to those areas. So on affordability, we're pushing to drop the PST by three per cent. So basically cut the PST in half…
"Also on affordability, we want to cut the provincial gas tax completely, not just for a period of time, but actually, you know, cut it, you know, like permanently cut it.
"So that would provide a lot of support, economic support to the province, to the people of the province. And then the last thing on affordability, we want to cut or give our seniors who are 65 years and older a 65% discount on their property taxes for their primary residences. So affordability is a big piece.
"We can see that, you know, inflation has taken a big bite, but also what's really pushed inflation is basically the size of government. People don't realize that, but since the Saskatchewan Party took power in 2007, so from 2007 to 2023, the size of government has grown by 41 per cent. With that government growth, the size of growth in the government comes more and more regulations, and more and more permitting and more and more bureaucracy.
"With that bureaucracy and administration comes inflation, it comes a higher cost, and that is being borne by the taxpayers. So these are things that need to be addressed for sure.
"And of course on our health care front, we want to address the issues that we're seeing there. It doesn't matter. Health care and education, they're both 100 per cent within the provincial purview, and yet, I mean, our education is on life support and, you know, as a program, and health care is basically flatlined and needs some paddles. We basically got to come in and we got to start looking at doing things differently.
"If money could solve our issues, they would have been solved a long time ago. And so we need to bring in some new eyes. Again, I go back to ‘we need to bring in private sector management to government’.
"Because we know in Saskatchewan that we do not have a money problem, but we're definitely seeing a management problem. So that's what we bring to the table."
How he will balance the budget:
"… If you cut the PST in half, that three per cent, that works out to about $1.5 billion.
"So there's two main areas that we're looking at to make up that $1.5 billion. Number one is we're going to institute a full royalty framework review of potash. In Saskatchewan, the potash royalty framework has not been addressed.
"Well, the existing framework was put in place in the 90s, in the early 2000s. At that time, the potash price averaged about $160 to $170 a ton. Today, it's averaging closer to that $500 a ton for the last 15 to 17 years.
"That's been the average. So there's been a massive change there. The market's grown substantially.
"The only real component of the royalty framework that the people of Saskatchewan can actually get good value or any value for to them is the profit tax component of the framework. And in reality, right now in Saskatchewan, 35 per cent of the potash that's produced is exempted from that profit tax. When BHP brings on their latest expansion and the production associated with that, it's going to be 65 per cent of the potash produced in Saskatchewan is going to be exempted from the only main mechanism whereby the people of Saskatchewan can actually get value for their resource.
"Remember that potash is owned by the people of Saskatchewan. So that is this framework review is something that we've been pushing for and we're going to do. And basically, it's a system that we're going to be much more aligned with a structure that Alberta has with respect to its oil and gas.
"See, potash to Saskatchewan is like oil and gas to Alberta. And so that's why you need to have a very good royalty framework for it in order to ensure that it's equitable and fair and that the people, the citizens of the province can capture the rare value that it is. And I always say like, there's a reason Alberta doesn't have a PST and Saskatchewan should be in that same boat eventually as well.
"So that's one area with respect to the PST. Another area with respect to paying for the PST cut is we're going to be doing department by department, ministry by ministry audit of management and management processes within the government. As I've said prior, the government has grown, the size of government has grown 41 per cent in the last 17 years.
"And with it, there is a lot of inefficiencies, there's a lot of waste, there's a lot of room for efficiencies to be found there. So we're going to be going through that and auditing and making sure that we're going to grind out every dollar of taxpayers money to ensure that it's adding value and quality to the people of Saskatchewan. Because as spending has gone up, people don't realize that in Saskatchewan today, in Saskatchewan today, Saskatchewan is spending the most money on programs and services that it's ever spent in the history, in the history of this entire province.
"And yet our services are in crisis. So again, if money could solve the problem, it would have been solved a long time ago. So we need new eyes.
"We know what the problem is. It's a management problem. We know that the money is not being put into front line.
"It's being absorbed and sucked up through middle and upper management. And so we're going to target that and we're going to find efficiencies and we're going to find cost savings for the people of this province."
Where the party stands on the carbon tax:
"So with respect to the carbon tax, I mean, I'm going to go up a little bit to a higher level. If you're, if the real threat to the province is net zero and that whole push, that whole regulatory framework, we as the Saskatchewan United Party completely 100 per cent disagree with the premise of net zero… we believe that that would cause absolute catastrophe to this province.
"It will kill agriculture. It will kill oil and gas. It will kill industry.
"And that entire net zero regulatory framework is based upon the fact that CO2, according to the federal government, is a pollutant. And in reality, we know in Saskatchewan, that CO2 is not a pollutant, it's plant food. And so if you demonize CO2, that is going to, we completely disagree with that.
"We think CO2 is great. It's great for growing our crops. It's the gas of life.
"So that's where we stand on net zero. And that relates then to our energy policies. We believe that our clean coal technology in Saskatchewan is great. And we believe using natural gas for power generation is great also. And these are the fuels that we have. And we want to make sure that we have an energy grid that is stable, an energy grid that is cost-effective, that can provide for the people of Saskatchewan for generations to come."
On education:
"Yeah, with respect to education, I mean, class complexity is real. We see that we see there's a massive difference between class complexity in the cities and class complexity rurally.
"And that's why we believe in more regionalization of education, we think that we need to go back to a more of a regional model rather than a centralized model that the Sask Party government brought in. Because, you know, you go to places in rural Saskatchewan, and they just want to make sure that they can get teachers to ensure that they don't lose their school. Or as you go to Regina, and there is certain, you know, schools in Regina where 90 to 95 per cent of the class doesn't speak English as a first language.
"So they're dealing with much different types of complexity, different needs. So we want to go to a more regional model with respect to that. And we also think that that the curriculum needs to be addressed, as well, like, and the curriculum with respect to education is 100 per cent within the provincial purview, it's 100 per cent within the Ministry of Education, and it can be addressed."
On health care:
"So we want to… put forward a universal private-public model, so that's universal coverage, but service delivery can be provided by both the public sector as well as the private sector.
"Basically, we want to open up health care to the private sector to come in and build out capacity. The government still pays for it, there's still universal coverage to it, but it opens up capacity because, I mean, we're hearing from people right across this province that, you know, mammograms are being booked into November, December of 2025. The private sector can come in, they can build that out, and to be able to provide for the services of people here in Saskatchewan, so we believe that it's time to start rethinking about health care, because in reality, if money could solve health care in its current state, it would have solved it a long time ago, but we're not seeing it, so that's why we want to go to a universal, so it's universal coverage, but services can be offered by both private or public clinics, and that would mainly start in the testing side first."
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To hear the complete interview with Jon Hromek, click play below.
