The premier of Saskatchewan has shared his opinion on the 2021 Canadian federal election.
Ahead of a media availability on Tuesday morning, Premier Scott Moe’s office released a statement with his initial reaction to the election’s results.
And he was not shy to say what was truly on his mind.
“That was the most pointless election in Canada’s history,” the premier says in his statement.
“The Prime Minister spent $600 million of taxpayers’ dollars and five weeks further dividing the country to arrive at almost the same result as where we started.”
Moe also made suggestions on what the money used to fund the latest election could have paid for instead.
“This time and money could have been spent working to address real issues facing Canadians, including properly funding Canada’s chronically underfunded health system, working with provinces to increase vaccination rates in some of our hardest-to-reach communities, and positioning Canada and its provinces as leaders in the global economic recovery.
“That’s what should happen now.”
There was not a dramatic change in Monday’s election results when compared with what happened in the 2019 election.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not get the Liberal majority government he was hoping to attain this time around. The Liberals have a minority government following Monday’s results with 158 seats to their name, only three more than before the election was called.
In Saskatchewan, the Conservatives retained each of the 14 ridings.
Moe made it aware that he was not impressed with Trudeau’s “divisive” comments later in his campaign with respect to the province’s vaccination rates.
He said there are challenges in the far north areas of the province and some Indigenous communities. Moe noted how some communities are running at vaccination rates lower than 50 per cent and even as low as 23 per cent.
The premier said while this is an area of the province with some of the highest COVID-19 transmissions, he added that it’s also an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction.
“I would put forward that the prime minister has a role to play with this,” stated Moe. “He has many communities across this province that are exclusively federal jurisdiction with the province doing what we can to increase vaccination rates in these areas. I would ask him to support the provinces where he has a role to play in pushing our rates up.”
Moe also pointed to the Liberals only receiving approximately 10 per cent of the vote in the province, suggesting that 90 per cent of Saskatchewan residents do not want Trudeau to be prime minister.
He told reporters it’s his job to represent the people of Saskatchewan and stand up to the federal government.
“We’re going to work – like we have before – with a minority Liberal administration that quite obviously will continue to be propped up by a NDP opposition,” Moe suggested. “We’re going to have more of the same.”