The longest serving member of the Saskatchewan Party cabinet is stepping into a bigger role.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has given Rosetown-Delisle MLA Jim Reiter significant responsibility as Minister of Finance and Deputy Premier.
"I'm very excited about it," Reiter said. "I feel very honored that Premier Moe has selected me for this, and I'm just very much looking forward to getting to work."
Reiter's roles also include Minister of Immigration and Career Training, Minister Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, and Minister Responsible for the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board.
The biggest responsibility is finance where he is responsible for trying to get the budget back to balance.
"You know, it's always a balancing act," Reiter said. "There's all these services that people gratefully expect. The services you think of automatically, healthcare, education, highways and many, many more. So it's a balancing act between keeping taxes manageable, because that's what pays for those services, and provide these services that people want and expect. We're in a bit of a deficit situation right now, but obviously the long-term goal is going to be to continue to provide those services, but also to be in a balanced situation."
Reducing income taxes was a part of the election platform for the Saskatchewan Party in the most recent provincial election.
"We'll be working on that shortly," Reiter said. "You'll hear some announcements coming up about that. While Saskatchewan is the most affordable province in the country, we're still feeling that pinch too. We all know that inflation has had gotten out of control for a while there and costs are up. We're trying to let people keep as much of their own money in their pocket as possible. You'll be hearing about the income tax changes shortly."
As for the immigration side of his responsibilities, Saskatchewan will now have to adjust to the significant cut in immigration from the federal government.
"Immigration is primarily federal and they've signaled that they're going to be scaling that back," Reiter said. "That obviously will have an impact on us. We've always looked at immigration in a situation where there's going to be needed professions, Healthcare is a good example of immigration providing doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals to the province. We obviously want to keep an eye on that once it gets beyond that though. Our relationship with the federal government hasn't always been great. That we certainly have not reached any kind of an agreement there and we would expect to have some discussions going forward with the federal government."
Being Deputy Premier also means Reiter will play a leadership role within the government.
"I was very privileged that premier selected me for that," he said. "It's kind of a multifaceted role. There are many parts to it. Obviously, I can have a bit of a learning curve too, but I've been around long enough and watched the previous deputy premieres how they've conducted themselves. I'm going to use that very much as a training opportunity for this and I'm excited to do the job."