Saskatchewan.

• Author: Woods, Margaret
• Position: Legislative Reports/Rapport legislatifs - Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, Canada

The Saskatchewan Assembly began its spring session on March 6th by welcoming a new Member.

Saskatchewan Party candidate Nancy Heppner was victorious in the March 5th by-election in the constituency of Martensville, winning with 77% of the vote. She succeeds her father, Ben Heppner, who held the seat until his death last fall. Ms. Heppner had little time to celebrate her victory. The first order of business in the Assembly the following afternoon was the adoption of a bill to enable her to take her seat prior to the return of the writ.

The Assembly marked the passing of former Lieutenant Governor, John (Jack) Wiebe with a minute of silence on April 16th. The Assembly agreed not to sit on April 24th so that Members could attend the state funeral in Swift Current. Mr. Wiebe represented the constituency of Morse in the Saskatchewan Assembly from 1971 until 1978 and served in the Senate from 2000 until 2004.

Budget

March 22nd was Budget Day in Saskatchewan. Finance Minister Andrew Thomson presented the 2007-2008 budget fashioned under the theme of "Making Life Better" in Saskatchewan. The Budget identified four areas of priority.

Cutting taxes was the focus of "Keeping the strong economy growing". This included lowering business taxes, maintaining the lowest Provincial Sales Tax rate in twenty years at 5% and providing education property tax relief.

The budget aimed to "Make Saskatchewan an even better place for young people" by creating a new five-year $10,000 annual tax exemption for new graduates, freezing university tuition at 2004 levels until 2008 and adding more than 2,100 new training seats in the areas of health care, trades, skills, early childhood education and on-reserve basic education.

"Increasing access to health care for Saskatchewan families and seniors" was the third theme. A new $15 Seniors' Drug Plan was described as the most significant expansion of health services for seniors in a generation. The budget also provided funding to shorten wait times, extend health benefits for low income workers, expand capital improvements in hospitals, health facilities and equipment, and additional resources to encourage health professionals to remain in the province.

The final theme of "Building highways and infrastructure to secure growth" will provide an increase of 31.3% in the infrastructure funding and a record amount of revenue sharing for municipalities and municipal infrastructure.

Finance critic Ken Cheveldayoff delivered the Opposition response to the Budget. Mr. Cheveldayoff took issue with the amount of spending outlined in the budget, questioning whether it was aimed at attracting votes in the lead up to an anticipated general election in the next year. He challenged the government for not taking advantage of the economic boom to prepare the province for future generations. He also condemned the slow progress on addressing the shortage of doctors and nurses.

After a spirited debate, the budget motion was passed on April 2nd by a margin of one vote.

House Business

Two issues have dominated Question Period during the spring session. The first concerned the government's handing of an employee of the Department of the Environment following allegations of harassment and the subsequent out of court settlement of his wrongful dismissal suit.

On March 12th, the Opposition House Leader, Rod Gantefoer, raised a question of privilege, asserting that the Carriere settlement impeded the ability of Members to carry out their duties, in that Opposition Members were privy to neither the...