PILOT BUTTE – The Saskatchewan Party government touted a growing economy on Monday as they released an update to ‘Saskatchewan’s Growth Plan: The Next Decade of Growth.’

Provincial ministers were in Pilot Butte at Dutch Industries on Monday, whose plant has been undergoing expansion. Cabinet ministers including Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison, Energy and Resources Minister Jim Reiter, and Agriculture Minister David Marit reported the Growth Plan was ahead of schedule, and that Saskatchewan is ahead of the economic and growth targets outlined in that document that was released back in 2019. 

Highlights from the update, as outlined in the province’s news release, include the following:

On exports, the export value has gone up to $49.3 billion in 2023, already officially exceeding the province’s goal of $46 billion by 2030.

Saskatchewan is up to nine markets with over $1 billion in exports, up from five in 2019.

The province has surpassed its goal of $20 billion in agri-foods exports, with the export value reaching $20.2 billion in 2023.

The value of Saskatchewan potash sales hit $10.9 billion in 2022, well ahead of their $9 billion target by 2030.

The province’s population hit 1.23 million in 2024, keeping the province on pace to a goal of 1.4 million residents by 2030.

In the value-added ag sector, annual revenue has gone up since 2012 from $3.5 billion to $7.5 billion in 2023. The province says it is also on track to meet its goal of crushing 75 per cent of its canola by 2030.

Uranium sales hit $1.6 billion in 2023, closing in on a target of $2 billion. 

In the forestry sector 2023 sales hit $1.2 billion.

The province is also touting the nation’s lowest rate of inflation at 1.4 per cent and the lowest unemployment rate at 5.4 per cent. In the last 12 months, the province has added 19,200 jobs, keeping the province over halfway to its target of 100,000 new jobs by 2023.

Real GDP in 2024 also reached an all-time high of $77.9 billion, an increase of $1.2 billion, or 1.6 per cent, due largely to the government no longer collecting the carbon tax on home heating.

Minister Harrison also pointed to that morning’s numbers released on manufacturing, with 28 per cent growth in the last month and six percent year over year. He said they have also exceeded their goal to increase manufacturing exports by 50 per cent.

In speaking to reporters Harrison said the growth plan achievements were “a testament to our job creators, our companies here in Saskatchewan that have made remarkable progress in increasing our exports to $50 billion a year around the world, increasing things like uranium production, potash production, all of these population growth,  job growth — nearly 100,000 new jobs we are on target for 2030.”

Harrison also made the point at the announcement that this “doesn’t happen by accident.”

“Government doesn’t create wealth. Government redistributes wealth and consumes wealth, the private sector are those who create wealth. The government can facilitate that happening in a greater rate, or it can hurt that. And we’ve really kept at the forefront of our policy-making in the last 17 years the private sector is going to create that wealth, create that growth, and it’s been working.”

Contrasting portrayals of economy by Sask Party, NDP

While Sask Party ministers were touting good news about the province’s growth in Pilot Butte, that same morning the opposition New Democrats were once more painting a picture of economic doom and gloom. 

At a campaign event in Regina announcing their plan for startup loans for new business, Opposition Leader Carla Beck characterized business confidence in Saskatchewan as being “at an all time low.” 

Regina University MLA Aleana Young, running in the 2024 election in Regina South Albert, described Premier Scott Moe as having shrunk the economy before, during and after the pandemic. She pointed to Saskatchewan having “the second worst jobs record in the country.”

In Pilot Butte, Harrison dismissed the criticisms from the New Democrats about the government’s jobs record. He accused them of “absolutely cherry-picking, in the most egregious possible way, data. They try and come up with some farcical narrative that everybody in the province knows isn’t true.”

“We’ve created 100,000 jobs over the last nearly 17 years we’ve been in government. They’re trying to make the arguments that somehow the population isn’t growing. Well, they would know all about that because the population actually shrunk for the 16 years that the NDP were in government whereas we have seen the population grow by well over 200,000 people over that literally side-by-side comparison… They can say what they’re going to say. People know the reality that we have a growing economy, an incredibly strong economy, we’ve created 20,000 jobs in the last year alone, exports up to $50 billion. This is what results in economic growth and prosperity and opportunity for young people here in Saskatchewan.”