Meili Calls for Change in 2020 at Weyburn NDP Spring Banquet

Saskatchewan NDP leaders were in Weyburn last night for the Weyburn-Big Muddy Constituency Association spring banquet. Ryan Meili, leader of the official opposition, and Carla Beck, deputy leader of the official opposition, spoke to a crowd of about 60 people, including four children who attended with their parents. 

The evening included fundraising and membership and a request for someone to consider running in the constituency in 2020. Constituency president Matt Caudill led the event, which was held at the Weyburn Legion.

"It's time to start looking around your community for those people who are doing great things in your community, who are leaders and who might be convinced to be your next candidate in Weyburn-Big Muddy," Beck told the crowd.

Beck spoke about the last provincial budget, released April 10, as well as last year's budget. She thanked people in the room for the part they played in fighting for funding to libraries, one of the initial cuts in the 2017 budget, which was overturned after community outcry.

"Because of the actions of people in this community, in Weyburn-Big Muddy perhaps, and I think I know this for a fact, people in this room, we were able to turn around some of those cuts," said Beck.

She dismissed this year's budget as being "on track".

"We have a province with the highest rates of child poverty in the country, the highest rates of domestic violence. We still are underfunding our schools despite putting back $30 million into the education system. It doesn't go very far to covering that $54 million cut that this government burdened schools with last year."

Meili mirrored Beck's comments about the 2018 budget, noting it wasn't as dramatic as last year's budget. Meili said the budget wasn't "on track" but asleep at the switch, doing nothing for issues such as unemployment and a slumping economy, climate change, and closing the inequality gap for indigenous people. He spoke about the most striking decision in the budget in his mind, which centred on a press release from the ministry of social services.

"This press release, for the second year in a row, was boasting about the highest budget in social services in the history of the province. Now, that could be a good thing if they were investing in helping get people out of poverty, making sure that people have enough to live on, but that's not what was going on here. Nobody who's on social assistance is getting any more, it's just that there's more people needing the program. They're boasting about more people living in poverty in Saskatchewan."

Meili said this is because the government is failing to act upstream and create the conditions for people to thrive and live their best lives.

Meili concluded his speech by asking the people in the room to help change the government in 2020 by supporting the NDP.