The provincial government has announced the date for their next budget to be revealed along with the start of the spring sitting of the legislature.
March 19th will see both the unveiling of the budget and the province's priorities. That will also be a couple of weeks later than what's normally seen for spring sitting start dates.
Estevan MLA Lori Carr says that the province is working broadly on a few issues, even if she can't share specifics yet.
"I think it's fair to say that what was focused on in the Throne speech will be some of those budget dollars that will be targeted in there. We talked about increasing the number of surgeries provided, of course, with the goal of getting individual surgeries in a reasonable amount of time. We've already been seeing some successes with the work that's been done to date, but there is definitely more work to be done to get to where we need to go and we're focused on doing that."
"As well in the throne speech we talked about education, increasing support for students who may need a little bit of extra attention, as well as focusing on reading levels for our students and ensuring that they're set up for success in the younger years so that they can be successful in future years. But of course, we'll have to wait and see what details actually look like when the budget is presented on March 19th."
2025 is set to be a busy year for politics between US tariffs and a federal election on the horizon, but Carr says they've been putting in work to help with some of those issues.
"While we focus on the priorities that we've set out for Saskatchewan and of course, we're always watching the changing landscape around us. We have trade offices that we've already set up around the world and so we were already setting up ourselves for success when we talked about international partners and different markets for our products. So just working on enhancing those to ensure that you know we're not sole sourcing to one country."
Usually, the spring sitting begins in the first full week of April, but a March 19th start date will instead put that in the middle of the month's third full week.
Carr says the delay is due to a lot of work going on with talks south of the border.
"First off, um, I think it's fair to say that our premier and several cabinet ministers have been very busy working around the world to ensure that Saskatchewan's interests are represented and our industries are protected. So they've been very busy working on that."
"We actually have a relatively light legislative agenda since the election was in the fall and we've already passed a couple of very important built in that fall sitting. As well, we needed time to put together the budget as the election aid up time that we would normally be using, so the budget development was pushed back slightly."
The sitting will not be extended, with the spring sitting likely to end in mid-May similar to other years.