The province has released an update for its Saskatchewan Growth Plan, which is a series of goals the provincial government has set for itself leading into 2030.
In their update, they documented some of the items that have made progress, met their goals, or have fallen behind since the plan was made back in 2020.
Estevan MLA Lori Carr says that the growth plan shows Saskatchewan is making good progress in a number of areas.
"I think with the stuff that's happening in the growth plan, it's great for the province as a whole as we know, if you don't have a strong economy, you can't continue to pay for the services that people need, and deserve such as our healthcare and our schooling and all of those services."
"So we've had targets that have been matched within our potash sales, our uranium sales, even within highways. We have a 10-year goal of 10,000 kilometers to be resurfaced this year. We're going to do 1100 kilometers and it'll actually bring us to 5600 kilometers total and we're just halfway into our growth plan. So we fully expect to meet that and it's because of the strong economy. So we can afford to do the work on those roads."
Just one area has seen a decrease since 2020, with barrels of oil per day beneath the initial 487,000 to 454,000 in 2024, recovering from COVID.
For other sectors where Saskatchewan needs to speed up growth Carr says that an increased workforce can speed the whole province up.
"I think with the growth time we in the last year over year, so the August to August, we've created 19,200 new jobs and so we want to continue that job growth within the province because you know when people are working, it's just truly better for everybody involved and the economy continues to move forward."
The southeast corner, which depends on oil, is still seeing growth as gears are switching in the area according to Carr.
"I think we see growth in the southeast corner of the province. Some things have stabilized. When we look at our oil industry and what's happening there and even if we look at lithium, because it takes those same employees, they have the same tools. So if things are slow in one industry, they can transfer to a different type of industry and that's what we talk about when we talk about growth and never just sitting and waiting for things to happen, but creating those opportunities."
The greatest aspect to work on for Saskatchewan is population according to Carr, with
"While we're continuing to shoot for 1.3 million people by the end of 2030, right now we're at 1.23 million people, so the the growth continues to happen there. We'll continue on with our value add and continuing to increase those sales and exports to other countries. Because we have what the world needs right here in Saskatchewan, even in the southeast corner with our canola crops, those are very important products that the world needs."