REGINA - There is no suspension to the provincial fuel tax happening any time soon after an NDP motion on gas tax relief was voted down Thursday.
The NDP motion was voted down by the Sask Party majority easily Thursday. The motion had read: “That the Assembly calls upon the government to suspend the collection of the provincial fuel tax from gasoline and diesel for a period of six months in order to help families struggling with the high cost of living.”
The final vote was a party line division 31-9 against the motion, with only the NDP voting in favor.
Speaking to reporters following the vote Thursday, Opposition Leader Carla Beck spoke about the vote, which would have suspended the 15 cent a litre gas tax.
“Unfortunately, again, we saw the government suggest that this isn’t a measure that’s needed, even though people tell us all the time how much they’re struggling, and we saw the government vote down the motion that again would’ve seen hundreds of dollars of relief for people at a time they desperately need it.”
Beck said the number one issue in the province has been the cost of living. “More than any other province, people in Saskatchewan report that they are having trouble paying just paying for the groceries. Right now almost 60 per cent of people say it’s difficult or very difficult to pay for groceries right now. Our focus has been and will continue to be on the issues that are important to people in this province. This is a common sense measure, it makes sense for people, it made sense in the winter time, when people were driving the kids to hockey. It made sense now that people are trying to get to the lake or trying to get the kids to ball in and around the province. We’ll continue to bring forward measures that we think will provide relief to people in this province, but also measures that other governments both in Alberta and Manitoba have already provided to its citizens.”
She added ”this is a government that’s started to believe too much of their own hype — think everything is just fine, grows that works for everyone yet we see people in this province, struggling… a government that seems tone deaf to the realities of most people in this province.”
