MELVILLE — There’s a lot to look forward to in the Melville-Saltcoats constituency according to MLA Warren Kaeding.
“The employment opportunities are endless,” Kaeding began. “You know, we’ve got Mosaic, we’ve got Nutrien, we’ve got CN in Melville and then the crush plants in Yorkton, grain millers in Yorkton. The last I checked, there were 1,100 job openings listed on SaskJobs in the Yorkton area. They’ve been open for a little while, but that is definitely an area of opportunity.
“I drove up the Number 9 here just a few minutes ago, and there’s seismic crews all over the place there,” he continued. “Who knows what that’s leading to!”
The health care sector is another area where he sees growth, especially after key announcements over the past year with $250,000 flowing to Esterhazy for a new facility and $500,000 to the Yorkton Regional Health Care replacement project. These funding commitments came back in March when the provincial government announced their $6.9 billion overall health-care budget.
“What’s been very promising and positive for the area is planning dollars for the Esterhazy Integrated Health Facility, and planning dollars for the Yorkton Regional Hospital,” Kaeding said. “Those are two key government capital projects that we need to get underway here in the area.”
Another huge area that received a major boost was daycare funding for existing and new projects—something that has kept Kaeding busy during his recent commute back to the constituency.
“That’s how half my drive from Regina to the constituency has been: talking to daycares,” he said. “We’ve got a new board that’s formed here in Esterhazy, we’re just trying to find them a space to have a 40-50 spot daycare. Langenburg’s expanding, Melville can literally double, we’ve got a brand new one that just opened up in Stockholm and Bredenbury. I mean, every town now, Grayson just opened up earlier. So that is really exciting, certainly for our constituency. That’s a second job for a family or it’s a primary job for a single parent—there’s tremendous opportunity there.”
Another huge announcement came over the summer with a $1.8 million investment to Suncrest College in Melville, re-opening the firefighter training program after being on hold since 2021.
“The other big thing for our constituency was the revamping of the Fire School through the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency. It used to be the Parkland College, but it’s Suncrest College now. That was idled for a couple of years. That is a big deal,” explained Kaeding.
An initial intake of 14 students began their National Fire Protection Association training and the additional funding allowed upgrades to the facility plus relaunch the NFPA 1001 professional firefighting program.
“Now we can train professional firefighters locally, where for the few years it was on hiatus, they had to go out of province, so that’s huge,” said Kaeding. “And then ultimately what happens with the firefighters is a lot of them stay on for paramedic training. Local fire departments are turning over a lot of staff, they’ve got their 40 or 50-year service pins, so we need to get a few guys now to get their five-year service pin.”
A challenge over the past year has been that of convincing professionals of the rural advantage present in the Melville-Saltcoats constituency. This seems like an age-old dilemma that continues to play out all over the province.
“It’s just getting hard to recruit professionals to come to rural Saskatchewan. It doesn’t matter if it’s an accountant’s office, a lawyer’s office, working in the health sciences lab or an RN, or a doctor, or even teachers. It’s just difficult to recruit young people from outside the area to come and consider rural Saskatchewan as a great career opportunity for them,” Kaeding said. “That’s ultimately why we set up this Health Human Services Plan. We’re changing things with SINP (Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program), trying to get qualified professionals into the area easier, trying a lot of ‘grow our own’ programs now, that try to encourage young people that if they’re going away for career development, that they consider coming back to the area they come from originally to start their career. And knowing that if we get them to start their career here, they’ll probably complete their career here.”
As for the coming year, Kaeding has cautious optimism about what 2024 will bring. With an ever-soaring cost of living felt across the nation forcing everyone to stretch their dollars, a nervous future awaits as forces beyond everyone’s control dictate the future.
“Hoping that the economy improves over the next little while, that we can end the fiscal year on a positive note and that we’re able to supply all the services that our constituents require,” said Kaeding, when asked about the biggest challenge 2024 will hold. “So, that would be the area that’s a bit of a concern now, and probably the bigger concern is ultimately kind of where federal policies are leading us right now and that boils down locally. Being that our area is so dependent on ag, dependent on manufacturing, dependent on the rails—both CP and CN are big employers in the area. How does a federal economy affect those businesses.”
As for future opportunities, as another year closes, Kaeding pointed to the strong agricultural tradition and the pivots seen in the farming sector as something to watch.
“Being an ag-based economy here, we’re always looking forward to next year. And I would say that’s kind of our approach here, looking forward to next year to see what it brings,” he said. “We finally now have become an area that ag value-added wants to be in. Look at the huge expansions going on in Yorkton and I understand there’s a lot of companies poking around that Yorkton-Melville area to see if there’s an opportunity for them to show up. So there’s lots of exciting things percolating behind the scenes that you hope the economy is going to stay strong, that’s going to support them developing in the areas.”
A final point Kaeding made was during a conversation about renewed optimism when it comes to the trades in general.
“That’s the other area that we’re certainly spending a lot of time on as a provincial government is supporting the trades,” he said. “Making sure we’ve got enough seats at all our post-secondaries to support the trades, whether they’re in health care, or whether they’re in the welding or machining trades, we just need to make sure that we’ve got enough training spots that everybody has an opportunity here.”
