YORKTON — Across the nation, unity remains strong—something Yorkton-Melville MP Cathay Wagantall counts as a huge positive as she looks forward to 2024.
“I feel like over the course of the last few months, Canadians have really come together across the whole world, the whole country, on the issues that they’re facing, which are mostly economic, that they’re very focused on right now,” she said.
A result of that combined initiative has been the recent changes to the carbon tax, especially when it comes to home heating. Public pressure was one factor in the carve-out, which launched other reforms in the wake.
“The government’s response by changing its mind on the carbon tax on oil heating I think was significant,” Wagantall said. “A good thing, very hard, because obviously it opened the floodgates to the concerns of Canadians right across the country.”
Given the restriction of the change to only heating oil, the Saskatchewan government announced they would scrap the carbon tax on SaskEnergy bills come the new year, and Canada’s newest premier, R.J. Simpson of the Northwest Territories, has been vocal on his views to axe the tax completely.
Bill C-234—which seeks to amend the carbon tax especially as it affects agriculture—continues to crawl the Senate floor at a snail’s pace, stalled out at Third Reading as the year comes to a close. Wagantall remains confident that area producers will receive good news once the bill is finally dealt with.
“It’s interesting because on the one hand, yes, it’s an independent place of sober second thought,” she said on the Senate. “But regardless, there’s a lot of pressure on some of them to hold the line because the prime minister had come out—well, his minister had come out—and said there will be no more opportunities for a carve out. Yet, this is really resonating with Canadians, because food is expensive.”
While not as seemingly cut and dried as those outside the senate may think, there is progress on passing Bill C-234.
“They are very certainly putting their back into it,” Wagantall said of the senators. “From our side of the situation, it’s highly encouraging and they’re what they can to build consensus. So we’re very hopeful that that is what will happen. We will have a win for Canadians there, I believe.
“It’s one thing to come up with these concepts when a country is doing well, but there really is a great deal of angst around the cost of basics and mortgages as well,” Wagantall continued.
A huge opportunity came with the provincial announcement of 2,300 added childcare spaces through 51 points in Saskatchewan, something Wagantall was excited to hear.
“Esterhazy, of course, is receiving 60 of those spaces for the Little Miners Daycare, so that’s encouraging,” she said. “I like that there is funding for the construction as well.”
A challenge throughout the year, Wagantall noted, was the continued work from home environment government employees are still utilizing.
“It’s been tough communicating with the government on all the various files because people were still working from home,” she explained. “I think we’re hearing and seeing that gradually they are now getting back to their offices, and that is speeding things up—slowly—getting to where things should be back to where they were pre-Covid.”
Implications have been felt beyond the internal government sector, affecting the business culture around Parliament Hill.
“I know that it’s tough on Ottawa as a city as well, because downtown is government employees and huge high rises and they’ve been empty, which impacts all the small businesses in the area, too,” Wagantall said. “So for my staff, and those in the other offices in Saskatchewan, I know that that’s been a challenge is trying to respond to the needs of our constituents in a timely manner. We’re hoping that this means that we’re on the right track to having better service there.”
A challenge moving into the new year is that of the economic climate and how it affects mortgages. While something more magnified out East, Wagantall noted it has made for stressful conditions in our backyard also.
“I am concerned,” she said. “Even now, we’re starting to get into the circumstances where people are having to refinance their mortgages and Saskatchewan has been pretty buffered; we don’t have those big huge cities. Our prices have not been in the same challenging levels as other places, but I am beginning to hear mortgages being renewed.”
Wagantall gave an example from her riding involving a couple who had their first child and went on maternity leave. At the same time, the interest on their mortgage increased by $600 per month. Instead of extending the current mortgage to accommodate the increase, the young family decided to sell their house in favour of something smaller.
“They have not been able to find a bank that will give them a new mortgage,” Wagantall said of the dual-income family. “Here they thought they’re doing the right thing because they’re making sure that what they spend is within their income and they can still take care of all these other things with prices going up on food and whatnot. I’ll be talking with some of my friends on the government side of things to put pressure on the banks to work this out for Canadians in light of the circumstances, and hopefully it will improve over time.”
There is one situation that Wagantall believes should face further consideration. While coal has long been demonized as a dirty form of energy, some types can be converted to graphite—quite useful in batteries and the electric vehicle industry. However, some aspects of where this opportunity is heading has Wagantall scratching her head.
“We’re investing as a government here an awful lot of money on projects like Stellantis, the battery plant, and there is concern there,” she said. “We’re just debating the transition bill again today and the stress was that as we shut down oil and gas, that there’s going to be jobs for these workers and transitioning opportunities.
“On that note, this move to bring in the Korean workers to build the plant when we have people who definitely could do that work is not resonating with the workers across Canada,” continued Wagantall. “There will be jobs once the plant is built, but we can do it all. So we’re not quite sure what happened there.”
Ultimately, Wagantall is looking forward with optimism, confident the year ahead will offer more positivity overall.
“I’m looking forward to next year,” she said. “I’m looking forward to our public servants that are in larger numbers than pre-Covid getting back into downtown Ottawa and into their offices; looking forward to us continuing to have stronger and stronger response across the nation from Canadians that are saying they’re resonating with our perspective on how we need to build more homes.”
