REGINA - An election, a teacher’s strike, and decorum and ethics issues all were hot issues at the provincial legislature in 2024.
Here is a look back at the top stories from provincial politics during the past year.
Teacher’s strike
A major story that dominated 2024 was the ongoing labour dispute involving Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation with the province and school boards, which finally came to a boil with teachers commencing job action. The teachers went on a province wide one day strike on Jan 16, followed by another one day strike and more rotating job action as the year unfolded. There was a return to the bargaining table in February only for those discussions to break off rather quickly, with job action resuming.
The main stumbling block throughout the year was the issue of class size and composition, as well as classroom complexity. In advance of the provincial budget the province pledged $180 million in additional funding and $356.6 million towards classroom support, but that did not bring the teachers back to the table.
The teachers staged a major job action during the week of the budget, resulting in Hoopla being cancelled.
In April a tentative offer went to the teachers for a vote; it was overwhelmingly rejected in May. Not long after, negotiations resumed and a tentative deal was announced. But that also resulted in a “no” vote.
Finally in June, the two sides agreed to proceed with binding arbitration which took place in December.
Fight with the Feds on carbon tax
The war of words between Saskatchewan and Ottawa over the carbon tax hit new heights in 2025 when the province announced it would not remit the carbon tax to the federal government.
In February, Minister for SaskEnergy Dustin Duncan posted a video in which he stood in front of Parliament in Ottawa.
“I’m here in Ottawa where 40 years ago Pierre Trudeau took a walk in the snow and decided to resign as Prime Minister. Today, I took a walk in the rain and made an important decision on the carbon tax…
“The carbon tax has always been unaffordable but at least up till now it has been applied fairly. The heating oil exemption for Atlanta Canada changed that. And our government simply is not going to accept this unfair treatment of Saskatchewan families by (Justin) Trudeau.
“So today I’m announcing that in addition to not collecting the carbon tax on SaskEnergy bills, the Government of Saskatchewan will not be remitting the federal carbon tax on natural gas that Saskatchewan families have used to heat their homes."
But the move was controversial with critics accusing the Saskatchewan government of breaking the law.
The deficit
Finance Minister Donna Harpauer presented her final budget in March which was billed as a “classrooms, care and communities” budget. It also had a deficit of $273.2 million.
By the midyear update in December, that number had gone up to $743 million, attributed mainly to larger than anticipated crop insurance claims due to drought conditions.
Provincial election campaign
The 2020 for provincial election dominated the news in October. The Saskatchewan party launch their campaign with a focus on affordability issues including several pledges including reducing the provincial income tax and the home renovation tax credit.
Opposition Leader Carla Beck and the NDP hit back with their pledge to suspend the gas tax for six months and remove the PST from groceries and children’s clothing. Their campaign also had a relentless focus on healthcare issues, with the party bringing up horror stories from the frontlines on a seemingly daily basis. They particularly focused on stories about the emergency room at Royal University Hospital being at 350 per cent capacity in Saskatoon.
The Sask Party campaign seemed to go sideways just one day after the provincial leaders’ debate. At a Regina campaign stop, Premier Scott Moe pledged he would prevent biological boys from using girls’ changerooms in schools, in response to news about happenings at a high school east of the city. Moe also pledged this would be the first order of business if re-elected.
The NDP denounced the announcement, which hadn’t been included in the Sask Party platform document. Following the election, Moe walked back on the pledge, saying instead they would look to bring in a policy that would support every student.
Later, Moe also got into hot water for jumping the gun, so to speak, in claiming gunshots were fired at a Sask Party campaign office in Regina Northeast. Regina Police ruled out gunfire as the cause of the damage there.
The final election results saw the Sask Party returned with a much reduced majority down to 34 seats, compared to 27 for the NDP.
The results saw over half of the elected MLAs being brand new, but also highlighted was a sharp urban-rural split with the Sask Party seats mainly coming outside the large cities while all but two of the NDP’s seats were from Regina and Saskatoon.
Cabinet changes resulting from the election
Major changes happened to the provincial cabinet after the Oct 28 election. The cabinet had already lost several senior stalwarts during the previous year including Donna Harpauer, Dustin Duncan, Gord Wyant, Don McMorris and Don Morgan due to retirements. But the election results also took down long serving ministers including Bronwyn Eyre, Paul Merriman, Christine Tell, Laura Ross and Gene Makowsky.
In announcing his new cabinet, Premier Moe pledged a “new beginning,” with a new minister installed in each and every portfolio. Longtime cabinet minister Jim Reiter wound up with the most plum post as the new Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance.
Affordability
When the Legislature resumed for a brief sitting in late November and early December, affordability quickly became the hot topic. The Saskatchewan Party government moved quickly to pass its priority measures the Saskatchewan Affordability Act and the Carbon Tax Fairness Act, the latter extending the exemption on home heating for another year.
The NDP meanwhile tried and failed to introduce several emergency motions of their own on affordability, including ones to suspend the gas tax and to eliminate the PST on all groceries as well as children’s clothing. An NDP emergency motion to investigate rising food prices in the province’s North also failed to get anywhere.
Conflict of interest
A major issue during 2024 remained the conflict of interest allegations against MLAs Gary Grewal and Jeremy Cockrill. During the election campaign the Conflict of Interest Commissioner rule that Grewal had violated the Members Conflict of Interest Act over his financial interest in two Regina motels/hotels that accepted Social Services clients. He later ruled Cockrill also violated the Act over his sales job at the family-owned business Fortress Windows and Doors.
Decorum under the microscope
It was a heated Legislative Assembly during the spring, and tensions boiled over during the final days of the sitting when outgoing Speaker Randy Weekes issued a broadside against the Sask Party house leadership. He accused them of sending harassing text messages his way, and also accused Government House Leader Jeremy Harrison of bringing a rifle to the Legislature several years earlier. Harrison later resigned after admitting to the incident.
Weekes, who lost his Sask Party nomination, later endorsed the NDP during the election campaign.
When the legislature resumed following the election, Premier Moe pledged there would be a change of tone in the Legislature from his side. For the most part that appeared to be the case, although opposition New Democrats accused the government of failing to learn its lessons from the election by blocking several attempts at NDP emergency motions during the sitting.
The rise and fall of Sask United
The fortunes of the new true-conservative and populist Saskatchewan United Party, and how it might do in the provincial vote, were also in the news in 2024.
On the final day of the legislative session in the spring, party leader Nadine Wilson announced her resignation from that role, with Jon Hromek taking over.
The party ended up fielding 31 candidates in the provincial election, but the campaign did not go well for them as they failed to win any seats. Wilson lost her Saskatchewan Rivers seat while Hromek ran third in Lumsden-Morse where he had competed in a by-election a year earlier.
Following the election, Hromek announced he was stepping down as leader of the party.
