Teachers take part in Budget Day rally outside Minister Jeremy Cockrill's office on Weds., Mar. 20. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Budget Reaction

Northwest Sask. leaders react to provincial budget

Mar 21, 2024 | 12:24 PM

The 2024-25 Saskatchewan budget has been tabled and the Battlefords and Meadow Lake communities are reacting to the Classrooms, Care and Communities.

According to NDP Battlefords candidate Tom Kroczynski, it’s an election-year budget.

“I think certainly as teachers, we’re very suspicious of almost anything being offered by them at this point. I mean, that’s what we’re fighting for.”

Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill said in a scrum following the announcement that the budget represents the largest ever school operating budget.

“The other piece we’d really like to highlight is a 14 per cent in classroom supports funding and obviously, we want to make sure that students in our classrooms…that they have the supports that they need,” he said.

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“I think what we’ve done is increase those classroom supports funding in this budget but we’ve also, which is different than previous years, we’ve also signed a multi-year funding agreement with the 27 school divisions that basically set that amount as a base…providing predictability to the education sector, providing predictability to school divisions and really providing predictability to classroom teachers.”

The budget contains $40 million allocated to help support classroom size and complexity but the government hasn’t committed to adding that to the STF contract, something Kroczynski and his party aren’t pleased with.

“I think there is a lot of disappointment there, also, there doesn’t appear to be any cost-of-living relief delivered to just your average Saskatchewan citizen.”

Though the budget will have no new taxes or increases, Kroczynski said his party is frustrated that there wasn’t much support for filling up on gas or buying groceries.

“We’ve been calling for the…withdraw of the fuel tax as Manitoba has done to benefit families directly,” he said. “They’re collecting a record amount of PST and I believe the NDP is looking at offering some PST relief to consumers.”

According to Meadow Lake Sask. PartyMLA Jeremy Harrison, the budget is clear.

“In this year’s budget, Northwest School Division will receive $1.476 million in preventive maintenance and renewal funding to allow the division to prioritize and respond to infrastructure needs as they arise,’ his statement read in part.

Harrison’s statement also addressed health care in the community and noted the $7.6 billion in funding would help the Meadow Lake Hospital and the Northwest Community Lodge.

“To ensure we are filling critical positions in our health care facilities, Meadow Lake has hired 17 health care positions since September 2022,” read Harrison’s statement, noting that included three registered nurses, two Licensed Practical nurses and eight continuing care aids.

Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie said the overall spending was surprising.

“In the government’s defense everybody’s got their hand out right now whether it is the municipalities or it’s education and its health, it’s the social services,” he said.

“So, I was surprised that they went and had such a big increase to all the key factors in the province all at once this year.”

Leslie said he was disappointed that the debt was increasing to $21 billion but noted that the increase in spending “go hand in hand.”

“I’m excited to see the investment in health first and foremost. You know, it was kind of vague as to where it was going to be used and how it’s going to be used so, we’ll definitely keep a close eye on that.”

The Battleford mayor noted that he had recently had a conversation about the emergency room in the Battlefords being overcrowded.

“Somebody had used the term that it was like an airport how busy it was.”

Kroczynski said the NPD are also focusing on health care with a plan to “encourage a growth here of local health care workers.”

The NPD hopeful said wait times, lack of family doctors and women having to travel out of province for mammograms are issues he’s not confident the government to fix.

“Here in the Battlefords, I think that’s really frustrating for people that we’re spending that much on our health care and not seeing the results,” he said.

According to Harrison, the budget includes funding of $271.75 million in the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Fund.

“This funding will continue to support the construction of the $51 million Meadow Lake Arena project (Now called Co-Op Centre) announced in 2023,” his statement read.

Infrastructure is also something Leslie wanted to see more commitment to.

“One thing that I always watch closely is the highways investment. You know on the surface it looks like it was flat,” he said, noting he needed to delve into the budget more.

“That gives me a little bit of pause of highways in general investment,” added Leslie.

“You don’t have to drive far outside of the Battlefords to see that our roads and our highways are deteriorating pretty quickly.”

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ju;oia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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