Saskatchewan.

• Author: Woods, Margaret "Meta"
• Position: Legislative Reports - Report

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Assembly returned for a shortened spring session on March 10th. Members first paused to reflect on the passing of nine former Members over the previous year and to adopt motions of condolence for each. Subsequent days were devoted to considering supplementary estimates and moving forward on the government's legislative agenda.

The following week saw Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer deliver his first budget on March 19th. The budget focused on addressing many of the campaign promises made by the Saskatchewan Party in last fall's general election. A one billion dollar investment in capital and infrastructure improvements was announced as part of the Ready for Growth Initiative. In addition, the budget documents listed forty initiatives that would be funded as committed to during the election campaign. These included increased funding to create more positions in healthcare and policing, provide property tax rebates and enhance K-12 and post-secondary education programs.

The Opposition Finance critic, Harry Van Mulligen, criticized the government's budget for not sharing the $1.3 billion resources with average Saskatchewan families. The NDP identified four areas that could have been addressed, including immediately doubling property tax relief, doubling the number of new training seats, investing in affordable housing programs and funding green initiatives to help the province meet its climate change targets.

The budget debate was concluded on April 3rd with the Assembly defeating the Opposition amendment and adopting the budget motion.

Extended Hours Motions

After growing concerned that there were insufficient sitting hours to complete its agenda before the scheduled completion day of the spring session on May 15th, the government was prompted to introduce a motion to extend the sitting hours. The motion prescribed that the daily meeting on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday would be from 10:00 am to 12:00 midnight, with a supper break between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. The Assembly would observe its usual morning sitting on Thursdays and then convene committee meetings from 2:00 p.m. until midnight and again on Fridays from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

The Government House Leader, Mr. Gantefoer, opened the debate and was followed by Kevin Yates of the Opposition. Mr. Yates continued to speak from early afternoon on April 7th until late the following evening. Even a brief power outage that dimmed the lights in the Assembly did...