REGINA - The opposition NDP have made it known they want to get on with calling provincial byelections already.
Opposition leader Carla Beck with three NDP byelection candidates — Jared Clarke of Regina Walsh Acres, Noor Burki of Regina Coronation Park and Kaitlyn Stadnyk of Lumsden-Morse — stood below a billboard of Premier Scott Moe and the Sask Party slogan “Growth that Works for Everyone” during the noon hour Friday in Regina. There, Beck called on Premier Moe to call the three byelections to fill those vacant seats.
“It’s time to give the people that say that they’ve been looking for ,” said Beck. “It’s time to call these byelections.”
In her remarks. Beck again pointed to long surgical wait times and underfunded classrooms, and again accused Moe of “the worst job creation record over the course of his premiership.”
“This is a government that doesn’t seem to understand all of these things are true or what people are going through. You see them patting themselves on the back, erecting billboards to themselves all across this province. This is so clearly the government that has lost touch and doesn’t get it.”
The government is required to hold the byelections by August 10, meaning a byelection must be called in early July for at least the Regina Coronation Park seat. The expectation is the three byelections will be held all at once on the same date. So far, Premier Moe has yet to officially call the byelections, but the Sask Party does have all of its candidates nominated for the three ridings.
The potential is for these to be the first July byelections held in Saskatchewan since the 1950s, which would also pose challenges in terms of potential voters going on vacations or heading out of town for extended periods.
On that note Beck said the NDP plans to let people know where and when to vote, and encourage those who are not in town to vote in advance polls. She said they will let everyone know the byelections are going on, who the candidates are, and try and get voters to the polls.
“It’s curious to me that the government would want to wait until the middle of the summer to call byelections,” Beck said. “I think perhaps they’re trying to wait until the very last minute. I think the people of those constituencies deserve representation now… we’re ready, we want the byelections called now.”
The NDP media event took place just one day after a controversy came to light in one of those ridings where a byelection is to be held.
On Thursday, Minister of Education Dustin Duncan suspended Planned Parenthood from presenting in schools after a number of graphic “Sex from A to Z” cards were brought to one of their presentations to Grade 9 students in Lumsden.
When asked for her reaction, Beck said she haven’t seen the cards, but said it was “reasonable that those perhaps were not appropriate for grade 9s.” But Beck said it was “overreach” for the ministry to pull Planned Parenthood from all schools.
“It’s in stark contrast to what happened when we saw allegations of very serious abuse in some of the private schools, for example. This is a province that has some of the highest rates of STDs, STI’s in the country, some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy. There’s obviously the need to be teaching sexual health in schools. That should be done in an age-appropriate way. it should be following curriculum for sure. But this does seem to be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the minister, who is quite selective when he decides to act quickly on things.”
