Rent reduced for riders, early budget items approved by Regina Council
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Regina's city council covered a lot of ground in a three-hour meeting on Wednesday. With all members in attendance, coun...
Premier Scott Moe has been pondering the Saskatchewan Party’s options amid soaring resource revenue prices over the last few months.
On Wednesday, the premier reiterated to Gormley that providing relief remains a priority for the provincial government.
“We’re looking at that very closely. And as I have said, we’re going to be coming out with our Q1 update on our budget in August,” Moe said. “This is a very serious discussion that the Government of Saskatchewan is having.
“We are a natural resource-producing province. Yes, natural resource prices are up at the moment. If the projection is for those to continue to be up throughout the year, we want to provide relief to Saskatchewan people as much as we are able to provide in these times where we’re seeing a fairly strong economy.”
The premier also justified the impending rate increases done by SaskEnergy and SaskPower.
“It’s the price of the natural gas that SaskEnergy is paying for and they flow through that price, they don’t mark it up,” Moe said. “The price of natural gas has increased substantially. And that’s what’s reflected in the increase that you and I and everyone else will be seeing.
“That is predominantly almost 100 per cent what is causing that increase as well as the power increase. We burn a significant amount of natural gas to produce power in this province, and that’s predominantly behind the power increase.”
Moe stated in June that the government was thinking of using resource money to pay off the provincial debt accumulated from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the most recent talks about inflationary aid, Moe pointed to the federal government, saying the feds might need to be the ones to provide some relief.
“We would ask other governments to look at what they can do, not only from a cash perspective but what they can do from a regulatory perspective to ensure that these inflationary pressures are met,” he said.
“There are regulations in that space where ourselves and the federal government could work together to lower the cost of production of products that are driving inflationary pressures across Canada and across North America.”
This comes during a time when Moe’s government has held a series of “provincial autonomy meetings” pushing for greater independence from Ottawa.
During a news conference on July 5, ahead of his trip to B.C. for the annual Council of the Federation meeting, Moe said the purpose of the autonomy meetings will be to try and expand Saskatchewan’s autonomy to “use up the entirety of the Constitution of Canada.”
Moe and the 12 other premiers wrapped up their meetings Tuesday after focusing on inflation, prioritizing immigration numbers for certain jobs around the country, and the state of the health-care industry in Canada.