Sask. NDP Leader reflects on 2024, what's ahead after election gains

After making significant gains in the recent provincial election, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck reflected on the year’s achievements and challenges.

Beck spoke with CTV News Regina’s Lee Jones in a year in review special that can be seen on the video player above.

The provincial NDP claimed 27 seats in Saskatchewan’s election held on Oct. 28, almost double the number of seats the party had previously.

Beck said she attributes a focus on outreach to much of the success her party has seen this year.

“Sitting down with people, meeting them, where they're at, really connecting on the things they get. Maybe they have frustration about something that happened in the past, but also focusing on the things that are going on in their communities and their families right now, looking at where the challenges are, but also opportunity,” she explained.

Healthcare remains one of the biggest issues facing Saskatchewan people, according to Beck, with retention as the number one issue within the sector. She emphasized the need for retention of healthcare professionals to prevent more losses.

“We've heard this from communities, from healthcare providers, from physicians themselves, that we have to, as a government, we have to be willing to sit down with those on the front line and figure out not just where the concerns are, but where some of the solutions lie,” she said.

Beck claims Saskatchewan lost 4,000 healthcare professionals last year, with workers citing feeling disrespected, feeling their concerns are not being heard by the government and decision makers, and feeling burnt out as reasons for leaving.

Because of that, Beck said the NDP put a motion forward in the house to strike an all-party Health Care Committee, a “fix that requires all hands-on deck.”

“There are no magic wands here. We should all be representing our constituencies and making sure that here in the birthplace of Medicare, that we are coming forth with innovative solutions that are going to retain the healthcare workers that we have that’s going to respect and listen to them while we continue to attract and graduate new healthcare professionals in this province,” she said.

Beck also highlighted the need for solutions surrounding education, housing, and the cost of living, topics that were all heavily debated throughout the year.

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Beck said the Saskatchewan Party’s priorities in education were misplaced, having put a proposed change room policy ahead of other concerns.

“There are a lot of concerns in the education system that have come up, lack of supports, longest teachers job action in the history of the province, and the list goes on and on and on,” she said.

“For the premier to suggest in the later stages of the campaign that this would be his number one priority, you know, I think was deeply troubling and disappointing to a lot of people to say the least.”

Beck said for the last decade in Saskatchewan, the education system has not been funded in a way that is meeting the needs of students in the classrooms.

After over a year of negotiations, the province and the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation entered a binding arbitration. Beck said regardless of what happens with that, she hopes to see some acknowledgement and repair for what she called the damage that’s been done for the last decade.

“I think that we can find consensus that in a province as wealthy as ours, with such a proud tradition of a strong public education system, that we need to do better than this. We have kids right now in this province with special needs, whose parents are being called regularly to come pick them up as their needs can't be supported in in our schools,” she stressed.

When it comes to affordability, Beck has advocated implement measures that would immediately help families, such as fuel rebates and cutting PST on groceries.

“I believe Saskatchewan people when they tell us that they're struggling and they can't wait until 2026 and for that reason, we'll continue to put forward measures that are going to respond to the needs of Saskatchewan people,” she said.

The year also saw housing and homelessness issues increase in Saskatchewan, something that Beck said needs to be rectified.

“We have 3,000 housing units owned by the province that are currently empty at a time when people are at risk of freezing to death in our communities. That doesn't make sense for people in this province. So that's one thing that we have proposed, getting a handle on the drivers that that often lead people to be on the streets, mental health and addictions,” she said.

“That's incredibly important, and it's not something we've seen this government focus on, despite the fact that we have consistently seen higher incidences of both mental health and addictions concerns in in the province.”

During the year-end interview, Beck also spoke on the importance of practical measures to support the agriculture sector and ensure its sustainability.

Looking ahead

While Beck was disappointed in the results of the past election, she remains optimistic about forming government in Saskatchewan.

“There's a lot of pride in what we did and what we did achieve, but still very much a feeling that this is a government in waiting,” Beck said.

“We're going to use the next four years to show that to the people of Saskatchewan and to continue to work focused on the goals of people in this province towards forming government in four years. That remains the goal.”