Brad Wall said his nomination as the Saskatchewan Party's first candidate for the 2011 provincial election was designed to set the tone for other constituencies in re-electing another SaskParty government and continuing the momentum to drive the province forward.
Wall was acclaimed as the SaskParty's Swift Current Constituency candidate before an audience of 50 people last Thursday.
"It does set the tone. The next election I think is going to be very much about forwards versus backwards. Do we want to keep going in the direction the province is now, or do we want to go back? Mr. Lingenfelter has made some policy statements, like he wants to set up a government-owned oil company again, like we used to have. I'm not sure that's going to be very helpful for our oil industry. I don't think that sends the right signal about our investment climate, that the oil companies that are investing here now will now be competing against the government. That's a policy from the past, versus government getting the fundamentals right - taxes at the right level, environmental regulations proper so that development is sustainable, balanced budgets going forward, getting the right regulatory environment. We want to just focus on the fundamentals, and not sort of pick winners and losers in the economy. That'll be a debate forward versus backward that's one example of the kind of debate I think we're going to see in the election."
Wall highlighted that the province is leading the nation in a series of economic indicators, including job creation, building permit totals, and manufacturing numbers.
"The next election I think is going to be very much about forwards versus backwards. Do we want to keep going in the direction the province is now, or do we want to go back?" - Premier Brad Wall
"Even in the midst of a global recession...we have the best job creation record in the country through the recession. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the country, just 10 years later."
"There is a lot at stake as we go forward. Our government's got to get things right as we move through the next couple of budget cycles and as we work to make sure there's economic momentum in the province. And we will. There's some challenges right now that we're facing on the revenue side in this current year that will have a bit of a hang over into the next year as well. And we're going to meet the revenue challenges as they're presented by controlling expenditures."
"Much of what we have done in terms of expenditure increases have been one-time infrastructure investments, not operating programs, so there is room and opportunity to make those expenditure decisions and we will take them."
Wall is predicting that at the end of 2010, Saskatchewan will be one of just two provinces who will have a balanced budget.
"We will make the decisions we need to make sure that we have continued debt reduction, to have continued balanced budgets, and also the investments we've talked about here in people and projects, and continued economic momentum."
"And just 10 years after that period of time where we were losing too many young people in record numbers, we are now in the midst of the largest spurt of population growth in 50 years in Saskatchewan."
sanderson@swbooster.com
