The Council of Federation will be gathering in Victoria on July 11 and 12 to discuss issues around Canada’s provinces. Premier Scott Moe touched on some of his main points ahead of the meeting.
Canada’s Health Transfer is a topic Moe said is important for all provinces, with premiers asking for a $28-million increase in health transfers, bumping up federal funding from 22 per cent to 35 per cent.
“As you know, all 13 Premiers have a unanimous ask in front of the federal government for the federal Liberal government to correct a wrong of (other) successful governments in underfunding our health transfer.
“So we will have further discussions around exactly how we can further engage with the federal government on ensuring they become a full funding partner in provincial and territorial delivered health-care services,” added Moe.
He said another topic that’s important for Saskatchewan is energy security, suggesting that they want to mirror what’s happening in the food security space, and he is asking the federal government to work with provinces to market their energy.
“We produce much more food than we actually consume in North America. And we do so through a very integrated system that operates not only provincially and between states, but north and south of the 49th parallel as well.”
“We use, for example, tractors that are manufactured in Fargo, North Dakota, combines that are manufactured in East Moline, Illinois. They work closely with Saskatchewan-manufactured air drills. We use crop protection products from the U.S. brought into the prairie provinces in Canada. And we shipped much of our product back down to the U.S. for further processing for the North American market, as well as contributing to global food security,” noted Moe.
Moe also touched on the province pulling funding from the Lighthouse in Saskatoon, noting that his government is looking for alternate service providers in the Saskatoon area.
“The government of Saskatchewan has lost faith in the management at the Lighthouse.”
“We most certainly are going to ensure that we can continue to offer what are very important services to some of our community’s most vulnerable residents.”