Premier Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan Party won a fifth consecutive majority government Monday, losing in the big cities but retaining its iron grip on rural areas to secure victory.
Moe’s party was shut out by Carla Beck’s NDP in Regina and was losing in all but one seat in Saskatoon in early returns.
But it found enough support everywhere else to be elected or leading in 34 seats in the 61-seat legislature, compared with 27 for the NDP.
The New Democrats effectively doubled their seat total from the 14 it had at dissolution, retaining seats and gaining more in Regina and Saskatoon. In doing so, they defeated Saskatoon cabinet ministers Christine Tell, Bronwyn Eyre and Paul Merriman along with Regina’s Laura Ross and Gene Makowsky.
Beck retained her seat in Regina Lakeview.
The NDP also gained back the rural northern riding of Athabasca, which it won in 2020 only to lose to the Saskatchewan Party in a subsequent byelection.
But with 31 rural seats to 30 urban ones, the NDP’s margin of error was razor thin. It needed wins in the two seats in Moose Jaw and the two in Prince Albert — but failed to get them.
Moe, in his second election as leader of the Saskatchewan Party, kept his seat in Rosthern-Shellbrook.
Other Saskatchewan Party cabinet ministers were re-elected: David Marit, Jim Reiter, Colleen Young, Lori Carr, Everett Hindley, Terry Jenson, Jeremy Cockrill, Tim McLeod and Jeremy Harrison.
Harrison was a controversial figure on the hustings. Earlier this year, he apologized for carrying a gun into the legislature about a decade ago while on the way to go hunting.
Moe’s Saskatchewan Party has been in power for 17 years in office, while Beck’s NDP was looking to take back government for the first time since 2007.
It’s the third straight campaign the Sask. Party has lost seats, from 51 in 2016, to 48 in 2020. The party had 42 seats at dissolution due to byelection losses, retirements and two members facing criminal charges.
The voting caps a month-long campaign that focused on health care, affordability and crime.
Moe promised broad tax relief and continued withholding of federal carbon levy payments to Ottawa.
His platform would cost an additional $1.2 billion over four years. He said his tax reduction plan would save a family of four $3,400 over four years. It also includes tax credits for those looking to grow their families or put their children in sports and arts.
Moe promised deficits in the first two years, followed by a surplus in 2027.
Beck pledged to spend more to fix health care and education, pause the gas tax, and remove the provincial sales tax on children’s clothes and some grocery items.
She said her promises would cost an additional $3.5 billion over four years, with plans to cut what she calls Saskatchewan Party waste and to balance the budget by the end of her term.
Moe also promised that his first order of business if re-elected would be to ban “biological boys” from using school changing rooms with “biological girls.”
He said he made the promise after learning of a complaint at a southeast Saskatchewan school about two biological boys using a girls change room.
It was later revealed that a parent of the two children who were the subjects of the complaint is an NDP candidate. Moe said he didn’t know that when he made the promise.
Beck has said such a ban would make vulnerable kids more vulnerable. She also promised to repeal a Saskatchewan Party law that requires parental consent if children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns at school.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2024.
