Humboldt recently received a visit from NDP Leader Carla Beck and Shadow Minister for Municipal Affairs and the Environment Jared Clarke. Armed with fresh information about Humboldt and area, including its unique manufacturing environment, Clarke talked to Discover Humboldt about the NDP’s perceived shortfalls seen in the 2025 Budget delivered by the government on Wednesday.
After a protracted dispute with teachers over the past couple of years, the Sask Party Government said it had heard concerns about education under funding and were seeking to right the ship with this year’s allotment to education. Clarke expressed concern that the budgeted funding for the coming year did not match the actual spending for the previous one.
“The Sask Party said they were listening to parents, but I don’t think that any parents in the province said they wanted to see a cut in funding for education in the province,” Clarke said. “That’s what we’re seeing in this budget, and our kids deserve better than that.”
A former teacher, Clarke says he’s witnessed first-hand the pressure experienced in classrooms for both students and staff. Overcrowding and a lack of resources to support students with increasingly diverse needs were the call throughout the contract dispute. In spite of a spending increase this year, Clarke says it’s not likely to be enough to put a dent in those needs.
“This budget fails to look at the future of our kids.”
When it comes to health care, the budget language sets the goal to have a health care provider available for every person in the province. Again, Clarke professes that the current reality won’t be impacted with a spending allotment that won’t support the extreme situation.
“We are in a crisis in health care. When you look across the province in urban and rural communities, we see temporary closures in a number of communities. We see City Hospital in Saskatoon reducing its hours every day for the next few months by closing five hours early every day. Health care workers are saying we need help, and this budget again shows an overall spending cut to health care. We are really concerned about what this means.”
Clarke acknowledged the success stories in places like Humboldt, but the health centre has been relaxing the strain on rural hospitals like Lanigan and Watrous who have experienced frequent service closures.
“We used to be national leaders when it came to health care, and now we’re unfortunately dead last in so many metrics in health care. I think people were hoping for a lot better out of this budget and it fails to deliver.”
The lack of directed budget response to the imposition of tariffs by the US and China was also on the minds of Opposition members. Humboldt and area are particularly sensitive to tariffs on canola products like oil and meal from China, who is retaliating against tariffs on electric vehicles and some electronic products. Local ag manufacturers rely on steel and aluminum which comes at a premium given the imposition of tariffs from the States. The potential impact on consumer goods from groceries to gas is also swirling, and the budget failed to offer contingency funding, says Clarke.
“That’s something we were hearing at the SARM convention last week in talking with municipal leaders and in Humboldt talking with community leaders. This is a really big miss on the government’s part. We are facing some serious challenges for those industries that circle around Humboldt. In this budget, we’ve seen no plan for the economy. There are no measures for protecting workers, producers, industries or business when it comes to these tariffs.”
The NDP had been looking for what it calls “big picture investment” in Saskatchewan to establish a platform to build on with a greater sense of security. Clarke criticized the Sask Party for an “asleep at the wheel approach,” which relies on wishful thinking that everything will be “okay.”
“The tariffs from China haven’t even come in play yet, and canola producers are already taking a hit financially. These (tariffs) are having a real impact on the people of the province right now, and we need a government that’s actually putting forth ideas and solutions for the things that they can control, and that can give people and industry a bit of hope that we can weather this.”
Clarke concluded that the budget was not future focused and that it was formulated in a bubble where the last three months simply hadn’t happened, leading the Opposition members to an overall state of disappointment.