The campaign is in full swing for the 2024 Saskatchewan provincial election. We are reaching out to the leaders of the parties of the province and will be asking them the same set of questions.
Jon Hromek is the leader of the Sask United Party and will be running in the riding of Lumsden Morse. We caught up with him on Thursday morning.
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How does it feel to finally be on the official campaign trail after what seems to have been a summer of campaigning?
I mean, we're going as, as hard as we can. I mean, we have been doing a lot of town halls across the province and a lot of meetings, you know, but definitely it's ramped up for sure. People are engaged.
They're, they're coming out to listen to some fresh new ideas) And it's exciting. So, we've got a, you know, a lot of our candidates, of course, are out there now and going strong.
So yeah, this is a good time.
What has the reception been on the doorsteps to the parts of your platform already unveiled?
That's been very good. You know, I, what we're seeing from, from the voters on the doorstep is, you know, people are looking for real solutions to real problems. I honestly believe that the days of, you know, empty platitudes and, you know, easy politicking are done.
I mean, the issues that are facing our society today are significant. And, people are really looking for actual solutions rather than just, than just token words and, you know, empty platitudes.
Our listeners and readers identified healthcare, affordability, education, and trust in public officials as the main issues – how does your platform address these?
Yeah, well, I mean, with respect to health care, that's why we are pushing for, it's time to use universal private public. So basically, opening up our universal health care system to the private sector to come in and build out capacity, for services. So it's still, it's universal coverage.
So, the government is paying, the government is still the underwriter, of all the health insurance and what it covers in the province. But it just opens up the system such that private physicians and, you know, can come together, say, radiologists, for example, they can come together, they can start their own radiology clinic and, and then be paid by the government for, for each MRI they do, things of that nature, something that's been done already in, in Europe and in Scandinavian countries, because at the end of the day, we're spending all this money and we're just not getting the performance for it. So that's what we're, we're doing on the, on the health care front.
Of course, our recruitment in health care is something that we're focusing on. So, we would implement a system that's very similar to the Royal Military College out of Kingston, Ontario, whereby you're paying years of tuition in exchange for years of service. And that would be something that would apply to any university in Canada.
So it just opens up the pool of potential recruits to Saskatchewan right across the board. So, and that would be in physicians and nurses, nurse practitioners, lab techs, wherever there's a need, this would open it up. So again, we would pay years of tuition in exchange for years of service for these health professionals to come to Saskatchewan and, and practice here.
So that's as it relates to health care. There's other things on health care that's part of our platform. You know, with respect to health care and that, that can be found at saskunited.ca. Our full platform is out there. But as it relates to affordability, like if you truly want to address affordability in Saskatchewan, you have to cut the PST. There is no other, other measure or means to actually truly address affordability. And that's why we pledged to cut the PST in half. So basically from 6% going down to 3%.
And, and so that's one, one measure. The second measure is to axe the provincial gas tax. So that's 15 cents a litre on both gas and diesel.
Those two alone will, those two measures alone will save the average family in Saskatchewan $2,000 per year. So that's $8,000 over the next four years' worth of savings. And then our third affordability measure that we're proposing is to give our seniors, so those 65 and older, a 65% discount on their property tax for their personal residences.
And that's because, you know, seniors are typically on fixed income and inflation has really taken a bite on, out of, out of their, out of their incomes. And this would be something that they could, would, would give them that affordability and very directly. So that's something that we're doing.
You know, cause we see on the gas tax, for example, the NDP has, has pledged to, to cut the gas tax also, but the NDP only pledged, has pledged to cut it for six months. So, when I'm talking about cutting the gas tax, I'm talking about completely cutting it forever. It is, it's cut, and it's gone.
So that would be a permanent shift in affordability for the people of Saskatchewan.
On education.
So, we're pushing with respect to education more for, we got to get back to more of a regional based type of education system. Like what the Sask Party had done in 2009 and 2011 would be all of those consolidations. I don't think that was very wise because as we know in education, like Saskatchewan is very regional.
Like what would work in Estevan doesn't, wouldn't necessarily work in North Battleford or what works in a small town isn't what works in the city. So we want to get back to more a regional autonomy and have our systems more lined up that way. Even with, even with healthcare, because of just the complexities, like class complexity is a real thing.
Like when you look in Regina, for example, like there are classrooms where they have a large majority of the students that don't speak English or that speak English as a second language. So, there's the, there's language issues there. So, their needs would be a lot different than say the needs, of a town like rural Saskatchewan that is just basically interested in ensuring that they can get teachers to their school and keep them in their community such that they don't lose the school.
So that's, that's a very significant thing that we're, we're pushing for is to go back to more of a localized model and then allow more autonomy within the, within the divisions to be able to utilize funds in the way that they, you know, deem necessary for their, you know, localized populations. So that's one thing. Another thing on the, on the education front, like we're pushing to completely remove, you know, political ideology completely out of schools, on the curriculum.
So, we firmly believe, that the curriculum needs to be addressed in Saskatchewan. There's just too much political, politicalization of the curriculum. And that is 100% within the provincial purview and the Ministry of Education to do that.
We're hearing from parents right across the, right across the province that they do not like a lot of these controversial issues being taught in schools. They think that those are issues that should be addressed at the family level and in homes and don't want their kids exposed to that. So that's, that's another, another area that we're pushing.
And then I guess finally on education would be, we've got some of the lowest test scores for reading and mathematics in the country. So, we believe a way to address that would be to bring in standardized testing. So other jurisdictions in Canada use it.
It's a great means, it's a great way whereby you can address issues that are within the curriculum very quickly. And it basically brings back a standardization that, where, you know, which will help say the universities and, and, and different, and different, and different colleges when you graduate there, then it's easier to, to rank students and to know that their, the competencies are being covered adequately. And because at the end of the day, we know that our students are actually competing in a global, global market.
And so standardized testing is very important to ensure that the curriculum is being, is being taught well, and it just holds everyone to, everyone to a high standard. So that's another piece on education.
As for trust in political and elected officials, that's a good one. Like basically, and that kind of relates back to what I was talking about with, you know, originally that, excuse me, empty platitudes are not, and empty promises are not, you know, are not being respected by people anymore.
The issues that we're facing are, you know, a lot of them are very structural and that's why we need to have new eyes and, you know, on these problems. That's the whole reason why we started Sask United to begin with was to bring a whole new perspective to politics and more of a grassroots type of perspective where you have more accountability and more transparency, with the people. And, frankly, like from my perspective, myself, like I come from the private sector, which is a performance-based system.
And you know, if you're not performing, if you're not delivering the service and the results that your shareholders demand, I mean, there's consequences for that. I don't understand why we don't have the same level and the same attitude within our, within the public sector and within government, you know? In reality, if you had a company that was run and managed like our healthcare system is, I mean, the senior leadership team and the board would have been fired a long time ago because we've got to bring, we've got to get back to, you know, the simple, good, common sense governance. And, at the end of the day, that's to provide the service that our taxpayers are paying for. And so, you know, that's something that we hear.
And I mean, in reality, Saskatchewan, I've got, they've got two main parties, right? They've got the Sask Party and the NDP. But in reality, when you look at it for the last 17 years that the Sask Party has been in power, it's been kind of a single-party type system.
The NDP has not done a good job of holding them to account. And, what’s transpired out of that is basically an attitude of the Sask Party where they have no problems telling their base or people in rural Saskatchewan or frankly, people that are conservative of nature, well, who else are you going to vote for? And that is just not good for democracy.
And it's not good for effective, efficient management of public funds and public services. And so that's why we started this party. And we want to bring back accountability.
We want to bring back true conservatism back to Saskatchewan and go forward that way. So, I get it. I get why people have lost faith and lost trust in the institutions, because when you start going around telling people, well, who else are you going to vote for?
And, it is what it is and nothing can change and whatever problems we have, well, we'll just throw money at it. You know, if money could solve our problems, they would have been solved a long time ago. And you know, we're just not seeing that.
So yeah, I understand that. And that's why it starts one election at a time to start rebuilding trust. And the only way you can rebuild trust with people is to show results.
That's the only way to actual true results at the ground level.
As leader of the party, you will be travelling quite a bit during the campaign. Where will you be focusing most of your attention?
I kind of front-loaded it before the writ was even dropped. Because in reality, you know, you can't get everywhere. I mean, we've got 29 candidates announced.
We've got a couple more in the pipe that we're trying to get here announced before the deadline. But so, I'll be focusing on the ones of course, where we are running candidates. But at the same time, you know, I've got to be close to home and ensure that you know, because at the end of the day, if I'm elected, I will be representing Lumsden-Morse.
And that would be my number one priority to represent them first and foremost, even though I am the party leader, but their needs need to come first. And so that's why I'm, you know, focusing a lot at home as well. So that's that.
But yeah, we were just in Waldheim, which is in Scott Moe's riding, last night, we didn't get back to Lumsden here till 2 am. And we had a full, you know, sellout room for a town hall there. And so no, if people are excited, there is an excitement about this election that we really haven't seen, I guess, since maybe since 2007, when Brad Wall was first elected as government.
And so people are excited. And it's going to be an interesting election for sure.
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We will continue to bring you up-to-date coverage of the 2024 Saskatchewan election, leading up to election day on October 28th, when we will have the results as they come in – on-air and online.