Saskatchewan's minister of highways was in the Battlefords Friday to help raise the profile of local provincial election candidates.
Rosetown-Elrose MLA Jim Reiter attended a noon luncheon at Tropical Inn in support of Herb Cox, Saskatchewan Party candidate in the Battlefords.
Also at the luncheon were other area candidates for the party: Larry Doke from Cut Knife-Turtleford and Scott Moe of Rosthern-Shellbrook. Both ridings surround the Battlefords and are currently in Sask. Party hands.
During his speech Reiter touted the good times for the province and touted one of the Saskatchewan Party's familiar themes - creating jobs to allow young people to stay in Saskatchewan.
Recalling growing up, Reiter said "most of my friends moved to Alberta. Why? Because that's where the jobs were." Then a few years ago, before the last election, he found his friends' children were moving to Alberta for the same reasons.
"That's always driven me crazy. We've got an abundance of natural resources in this province," Reiter said.
Now, the population is over 1,050,000 and growing at one of the fastest rates in the country, and the province is now at or near the top of every economic indicator in the country, he said.
He recounted the budget speech handed down by Finance Minister Ken Krawetz, where an emotional Krawetz choked up recounting a story of a young person telling their family they were returning to a new job in Saskatchewan.
Reiter praised the Krawetz budget for reducing taxes, paying down debt and investment in the province.
Reiter also touted the progress of his party on the highways file, his portfolio. He said the province still has a lot of work to do and that there were a lot of highways in bad shape, but he said the government has made a "good start" on highways.
He said the province had not only met its promise to spend $1.8 billion on highways, but had exceeded it and had spent $2.2 billion. "The current opposition laughed at it, " said Reiter, who noted the NDP had "neglected highway spending" in office.
He called the government's capital budget of $285 million towards highways the highest in the province's history, which he said was more than $100 million more than what the NDP spent in their last year in office.
He described the work done on Highway 40 as well as the province's $6 million commitment advanced to Battleford to go toward twinning of Highway 4.
Reiter also answered a number of questions from the attendees at the event, mainly on highways issues.
In response to a question Cox posed about the actual work done on Saskatchewan highways since 2007, Reiter said the plan is for the province to repair or improve over 1,400 kilometres of highways this year, which would bring the overall number to 5,000 to 6,000 kilometres of roads improvements for the entire term.
In speaking to the News-Optimist, Reiter defended the government's handling of the highways file against fierce NDP criticism over the past several months from leader Dwain Lingenfelter and Battlefords MLA Len Taylor.
"I find that just hypocrisy at its worst," said Reiter.
"For 16 years the NDP did almost nothing for highways in this province, and people saw how they deteriorated, and now they're criticising because every highway hasn't been fixed in the last three-and-a-half years. People of this province realize what's going on, they see the amount highway work that's being done and they realize we can't catch it all up, we can't handle 16 year sof neglect in three-and-a half-years."
He admits there has been some obstacles to fixing highways this year.
"There's been a lot of flooding issues," Reiter said, referring to the east side of the province, It is taking up a lot of time and resources, said Reiter, but he said the government would get through that.
"We're playing catch up. We've got a big infrastructure deficit so we have a lot of highways in the province that need repaired."
Herb Cox was happy to see Reiter lend his support in the Battlefords and in turn, gave his endorsement of Reiter's handling of highways in the province.
"I think Jim's done a great job on the highways file," said Cox, who said he notices improvements during his own travels.
"I think our highways are definitely improving," said Cox.
