Floods in southeast Saskatchewan and labour woes involving crop insurance workers overshadowed the Northwest Premier's Dinner in Meadow Lake.
Those subjects were on the mind of Premier Brad Wall, who used the occasion June 23 to announce plans to recall the legislature to pass back-to-work legislation ordering striking Crop Insurance members of the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees Union back to work.
In the end, the legislature was not recalled, as a settlement was reached the day after the premier's speech in Meadow Lake. Crop insurance workers were back at work Friday after the SGEU agreed that day to the proposed 5.5 per cent wage increase over three years being offered by management.
The new three-year agreement between the SGEU and Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation will be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2009 and expire Sept. 30, 2012.
However, when Wall took the podium in front of a packed Meadow Lake Community Centre, the government was still in "war" mode with respect to developments in the crop insurance strike. The strike was by that point two days old, with the walkouts having begun at 2pm on Tuesday.
During his speech, Wall took the SGEU union's leadership to task for its conduct. He singled out union president Bob Bymoen who was quoted in the media as saying it was felt the flood presented a "window of opportunity" for the union to get a good deal.
"This doesn't sound like Saskatchewan to me," said Wall, having talked about some of the heroic volunteer flood relief efforts earlier in his address.
"The 'window of the opportunity' that the rest of the province was looking at was the opportunity to help their neighbour, to put down their union card or their political preference and realize that there are six thousand unseeded acres claims at crop insurance today, 2,000 came in the last few days, only 92 have been processed."
Wall had written Bymoen the previous Wednesday to give his union an ultimatum of 10:45 a.m. Thursday to settle the dispute, but with no progress in sight Wall told his audience he planned to recall the legislature Monday to legislate an end to the strike.
"We'll strike later - right now help the people of the province who need that help," said Wall to loud applause.
The prospect of going back to the legislature was on the minds of several politicians in the hall including Michael Chisholm. The retiring Cut Knife-Turtleford MLA had given his farewell speech in the legislature in May for what was supposed to be its final sitting before the fall election.
Nevertheless, Chisholm said he was ready to return if needed to support back-to-work legislation. He said he was sure Wall's move to end the crop insurance strike had wide popular support.
"This particular situation is really untenable for the people," said Chisholm. "Crop insurance may be the only thing that's going for these farmers to pay their bills right now, and if that is held up and delayed indefinitely, that is a disaster."
With both sides coming to tentative terms Friday, the premier called off plans to recall the legislature and thanked the two sides for reaching the deal.
The third-annual Northwest Premier's Dinner, an annual fundraiser for the Saskatchewan Party, again played to a packed hall of supporters as it had in previous editions in Lloydminster and in North Battleford. As he had done during his North Battleford address in the fall of 2009, the premier gave another rousing speech touting government achievements on the Saskatchewan economy, health care and elsewhere.
"It's definitely a wonderful response from the premier as he brings the message of Saskatchewan moving forward," said organizer Orville Bilous. He was once again pleased with the turnout, calling it a "good response from the Northwest region."
Actually getting the premier to attend his own dinner, though, has been a bit of an issue as of late.
Last October, Premier Wall ended up delaying his departure from Regina to the Lloydminster dinner so the legislature could pass an emergency all-party resolution calling on the federal government to block the BHP Billiton takeover attempt of PotashCorp. As a result his plane encountered heavy fog at the Lloydminster airport and was unable to land, forcing him to return to Regina.
It fell on Lloydminster MLA and cabinet minister Tim McMillan to take the podium and speak instead that night.
"I know (Meadow Lake MLA) Jeremy Harrison was wondering if it was his turn tonight," noted Wall to reporters. He admitted the flooding and crop insurance strike situation threatened to derail his dinner plans yet again.
"Today, we didn't anticipate having to go back to Regina to announce the recall of the legislature," said Wall. "But it worked out well. We made it out here. You know what, it's a great province to be able to see in a hurry, and it's a lot that we saw in a hurry today."
