REGINA - It is a relatively quiet Thanksgiving weekend on the campaign trail in Saskatchewan.
Parties have been scaling down their media announcements as families focus on Thanksgiving and enjoying the long weekend.
The Sask Party had no further media events this weekend following the announcement of their platform in Saskatoon. The New Democrats, however, had a couple of events.
On Saturday as the Saskatchewan Party was releasing its platform, Trent Wotherspoon was at the home of a local family criticizing the Sask Party’s recent campaign promises of tax cuts and tax credits, claiming they are too small and will take too much time to take effect.
Wotherspoon later joined Ron Styles at another media event Saturday where they criticized the Sask Party platform as meaning cuts to health care and education, when accounting for inflation and population growth in future years.
In response the Saskatchewan Party released a statement where they said their platform “includes the record increases to health and education in the 2024-25 budget - a $726 million or 10 per cent increase in health funding and a $247 million or eight per cent lift in education funding” — and that the Ministry of Finance’s four-year forecast includes funding increases to all areas of government, including health and education every year.
On Sunday, the NDP held a media event outside Regina General Hospital in which Meara Conway was joined by health care and education workers.
There, the NDP continued to pound away on the theme that the Sask Party platform meant cuts to health and education. Conway accused Moe of releasing a “platform that makes no new investments in our overcrowded schools and our overcrowded emergency rooms.”
On Thanksgiving Monday, the extent of campaign activity for Scott Moe was to send out a video on social media wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. As for the NDP, there was only one scheduled media event as Meara Conway was outside Pasqua Hospital speaking on the health care issue once again.
There the NDP released an internal memo from Saskatchewan Health Authority pointing to interventional radiology services in Regina being temporarily unavailable Oct. 13 to 18 and Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, due to lack of physician availability.
"This is a health care crisis through and through," said Conway, who again accused the Sask Party of a platform "that will actually lead to further cuts to our health care system."
This coming week, the focus of the campaigns will turn to the provincial televised debate Wednesday night. The debate between Scott Moe and Carla Beck will take place at the rotunda of the Saskatchewan Legislature.
Harvard Media has joined the consortium and you can catch the debate at 6:05 p.m. on our platforms including 620 CKRM, GX94, and Â鶹ÊÓƵ.ca.
