Throne Speech Debate (2 November 2022)

From Hansard (2 November 2022)

 

Throne Speech Debate

Mr. Keisig: — Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before I get into my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have to take a moment to express my sympathies to the friends and all the families of the 11 residents who tragically died at James Smith Cree Nation and the community of Weldon. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that those families endured upon hearing the news of the attacks and the days leading up to the arrest.

As a province, we grieve and support you through this process. If there’s anything that we’ve been reminded of from this tragedy is how quickly Saskatchewan residents can come together in times of need. These communities do not have to go through this process of grieving alone.

Years ago, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was working at the Prince Albert pulp mill and there’s a little-known ferry you can take on back roads and you cross the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan and you come out by Kinistino, and it’s called the Weldon ferry. And I took it quite often. It was actually a very nice drive on the way home from a week of work. So we definitely grieve with all the members of those communities.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, another challenging event unfolded. It was the passing of Her Majesty. I never really considered myself much of a monarchist, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was honestly saddened at the passing. She’s indeed an iconic person that many Saskatchewan people had an opportunity to meet. In 1978 the Queen came to Balcarres and all the community groups were there to meet her. My father, Frederick Keisig, he was a 4-H leader. And I mean I was too young; I wasn’t old enough to be in 4-H at that time. But anyway my father and my siblings were there and they got to meet Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

And my dad always talked about the conversation he had with Prince Philip, talking about 4-H and rural youth. And Prince Philip was really eager to learn about my father’s purebred Charolais herd. And my dad always talked about that story, you know.

And then there was a very, very young Karla Baber from Balcarres presented the Queen with a really nice bouquet of flowers at the ceremony in Balcarres. And you know, good old Saskatchewan being one big small town, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Karla Baber’s daughter is working in the building and I’m hoping she’s watching right now. Cherisse Esplin should be paying attention to this.

You know, the Queen is really the only monarch that any of us have ever known. Well of course expect for one, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I really hope to go for a coffee with the Minister of Crown Investments Corporation and gain some insight about, you know, King George and what it was really like and everything. But you know, I’m hoping we have time. But we definitely support King Charles. He will make his mother, country, and Commonwealth very proud. Long live the King.

My wife, Mr. Deputy Speaker, has been very busy helping all the ratepayers of Tullymet — it’s a very busy time, tax collection season and everything else — and been selling a lot of maps to different hunters and everything else. So there’s always a lot of activity in her office. And she’s always also busy with the Rural Municipal Administrators’ Association. They do some really good work in conjunction with SARM [Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities].

And my older daughter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, she’s in her last year of nursing. She’s doing her clinical right now at the General. She’s in the cardiac unit and everything else. She’s really excited about the new parking. You know, parking’s always been a challenge for any of the employees at the General Hospital. So that’s really good news, you know. And she’s excited about the launch of the health human resources action plan. It’s going to help students like my daughter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with the student loan forgiveness program, the graduate retention program, the final clinical placement bursary. I mean the list goes on and on. There is a lot of good things that we’re doing to help health care people in this province.

My younger daughter, Sharlize, is doing her last year of veterinary technician in Vermillion in Alberta. She’s completing her course. She worked all summer in Melville, a great veterinary clinic there, Mr. Deputy Speaker. And the experience she received from her summer job, you know, it served her quite well at school, and she’s really enjoying it and doing quite well. My wife and I are very proud of our daughters and all their accomplishments. They’ve really proven themselves to be very hard workers.

My constituency assistant, Tina Knowles, is always helping the great constituents of Last Mountain-Touchwood. Had a very busy summer together and we had lots of activities on the go.

There was so much at the provincial parks — Last Mountain Lake, Katepwa, Echo. You know, I’m in a very fortunate place, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The lakes are beautiful and all of the rural communities. There was parades. This summer almost seemed like it was a pent-up demand from nothing going on for two years and then it was just overflowing. It was so great to see people enjoying our summer and supporting all their communities.

I was sitting in my chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, listening to the Speech from the Throne, and growth, growth that works for everyone. As most of you are aware, I’m a farmer, Mr. Deputy Speaker. So when I hear growth, I think of agriculture. I think of the seeds that we plant and the harvest in fall. How do we begin to grow? You see, Mr. Speaker, for growth to occur, it takes a lot of work, determination, and working with what we have or are given. When you plant a seed, it needs nurturing. It requires the sun. It needs rain. It takes a lot of faith that that tiny little seed will be prosperous, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for it to reach full maturity.

Saskatchewan is a province, beautiful, filled with many people from various cultures, religions, and varying opinions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. How do we grow together as a government and as a province? Two steps, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We need to have faith in the seeds that we’re planting. Our harvest will not be bountiful if we don’t have faith in these plants to grow a Saskatchewan that works for everyone. Secondly, we must work together to ensure that our seeds are continuously being nurtured. We need to work every day for all the people of Saskatchewan.

I have a lot of contacts, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the construction industry and everything else. And I remember very well that, like 2010-ish to 2014, ’15, I mean those were literally the best years financially I’ve ever had. Like I mean, some of the old guys talked about the ’70s and different things, and you could quit a job and walk across the street and get a better-paying job. And that’s how it was, like there was so much work. I was working at the refinery in town here and, I mean, my phone rang every day with different people wanting different projects all throughout Western Canada.

There’s so many good . . . And that time’s going to come again, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Like there’s so much work coming up that we literally do not have enough skilled tradesmen to fill the roles, to get these plants built. BHP wants their plant built. They want to be pumping out potash. You know, Cargill, they want their canola crush plant just west of the city; they want it built. They want to be pumping out canola oil. You know, Richardson, it’s halfway done in Yorkton, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you know, that’s just kind of the tip of the iceberg. And I’ve said this before. Like once these plants are built, the maintenance and the repairs and everything else, it just . . . These are generational projects, and everyone’s going to reap the benefits, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

You know, I was talking with a representative from a potash mine the other day, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and they are looking for a whole genre of employees that can operate underground mining equipment virtually. And the best people — I mean I don’t know any of these people — but the best people to run these machinery are young people that like to play video games. Like I’ve never even heard of that, but that’s what this potash, you know, leadership lady was really talking about. Anyway, my kids, they wouldn’t get a job there.

You know, the other day, the Lieutenant Governor hosted a very nice meet-and-greet with a diplomatic mission. And the member from Kindersley did a really nice member’s statement about that. You know, everyone was invited to that. Lieutenant Governor. And many of our colleagues, we made sure to attend. Export to this province, you cannot overstate it. I mean, everything, agriculture . . . We could never even come remotely close to eating what we produce, so we have to export. So it’s critical that we, you know, focus on those markets.

So I was having a really good conversation with some eastern European nations, Croatia and everything else. And they were really happy with our agricultural products, really happy with our potash, but they were really frustrated with some of our delays in getting it to port. You know, and this really just drove home the point. I mean we talk about it all the time in this Chamber, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but we have to get more pipeline infrastructure built.

This potash and our agricultural production is going to do nothing but go up. Historically, I mean our crops . . . We’re getting better at farming. We’re learning more. The production is increasing. We’re getting more advanced potash mining techniques. We’re expanding our mines. We’re going to need a rail infrastructure for products that have to go on the rail, and we need pipelines to move our other energy products.

I met an individual at this reception. And he’s from the European Union, but he grew up in Dusseldorf. So it was interesting, you know. You hear so much on the media and you see so much, and I always like to talk to real people and get an accurate assessment of what’s going on. So we’re hearing lots about an energy shortage, a natural gas shortage in Germany, and everything else. So I was asking this gentleman from Dusseldorf, and I said, like, how accurate is that?

And he said, well, it’s not really. He said their caverns are 88 per cent full and Germany right now is at like plus 22 or something. I checked the other day. So they’re not having any kind of a hard winter. So if it’s a mild winter and their cavern’s at capacity, they’re going to be just fine. But there is absolutely no way that they can refill those caverns for next year.

This is going to be an ongoing thing. They are in serious trouble. There’s not enough way to get enough LNG [liquefied natural gas] tankers unloaded. They can’t buy enough LNG to refill their caverns for next year. So they really don’t know what they’re going to do.

You know, Canada’s been blessed with such natural resources, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Each province has a right to grow them as they see fit. Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia have really expanded their hydroelectric generating capacity in the last decade. But Saskatchewan has increased its fleet. I mean we almost maxed out on our hydroelectric capacity. We’re flat, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But we’re expanding our fleet of natural gas generation with the Great Plains power station that’s going to come online next year.

We’re also expanding our renewable fleet, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You know, it’s critical that we keep a sharp eye on our baseload electrical needs. So I really want to give a shout-out to the member from Cannington. He’s been lobbying hard for this and he brought it forward. There’s a new app out and the Minister of Crown Investments has been integral in getting this out. You can check and go and see what SaskPower is creating. How everything works. It’s a little bit tricky to find, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it’s quite accurate.

So it’s always a day behind because I mean SaskPower’s buying and selling electricity so they don’t want it minute by minute. And that’s fine. The data that I’m interested in looking at, if it’s a day old, is perfectly acceptable.

So we have 615 megawatt capacity of wind power. And today, or yesterday, we were getting 189 megawatts. So just because you have a rated of 600, you never get the full 600. And that’s why we really stress baseload electricity, like, over and over and over again. It’s absolutely critical. Our solar capacity is 20 and we were getting 2. You cannot run a province, you cannot run business, you cannot run industry, you cannot run people’s homes on that unreliability, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

You know, and it’s really important to note, like, natural gas prices have just . . . well, in Germany they’re over quadrupled. They’ve really surged. And I mean, that affects our natural gas rates. That affects our natural gas prices for SaskPower to purchase and to use and everything else. And it really shows how economically conscious our coal-fired power plants are. We’ve got a 200 year supply of coal, Mr. Deputy Speaker. And it’s really becoming very economically driven to keep a hard look at that.

You know, the proposed small modular reactors — very exciting. And you know, we’re always looking forward to learning more about them. No one knows the future, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I do know this: Saskatchewan’s electrical generation should be decided by Saskatchewan people, not the federal government.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, you know, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is horrible. It has really affected the Ukraine people and everything else. We’ve welcomed over 2,000 people. Saskatchewan people have really stepped up to the plate.

And I really want to talk about a couple communities in my constituency: Lemberg and Neudorf. I mean, they’ve welcomed over seven families now. They’ve got them all houses. They’ve even bought them some cars to get to work. And everyone has a job, the kids are in school — it’s absolutely just a tremendous success story, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Like, the community has just so come around and helped these people and they have really gone above and beyond for them. So kudos to all the good people in Lemberg and Neudorf.

I’m going to ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to please listen very carefully. I am about to make one of the most controversial statements ever in this Chamber. I absolutely hate paper straws. Like I literally cannot stand them. They are a horrible, horrible thing. And you know, this is . . . Yeah, the NDP and Liberal coalition banning single-use plastics is a really out-of-touch piece of legislation.

But hear me out, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When I was running my small business . . . I had a welding business, and so you were always manufacturing. And there’s kind of two things when you’re manufacturing. There’s a gravy job and there’s a harddollar job. So you know, a gravy job, it’s very lucrative, it’s . . . You’re making money. A hard-dollar job is very tight margins and you have to be . . . Razor-thin margins. You have to really pay attention to your overhead and everything else.

Now I have absolutely no clue where single-use plastic straws and everything else fit into the mix, but I do know this: when you take any form of manufacturing away from any industry, you cut into their bottom line. And after having gone through two years of the pandemic, we need to have single-use plastics in our medical industry. It’s absolutely critical. And we need those industries based in Canada, producing what we need for all Canadians.

All areas of our economy are struggling with supply chain issues, and we cannot have that happen again. You know, in this Chamber, in these elected roles, we have to have a vision for everything. We all want less litter and we all want a smaller environmental footprint. But in today’s day of so much global tension — I mean the horrific war in Ukraine, the unrest in Iran, you know, the worrisome news coming out of China with, you know, the aggression toward democratic Taiwan — we need a strong, self-sufficient North American supply chain and governments should help that, not hinder it, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I want to thank all the good people in Hansard, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We all know that every word in this Chamber is recorded for posterity, so we all try to choose our words carefully. But of equal importance, what I’m really starting to learn, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it’s what is not said.

The members opposite criticize us about the government for not doing enough on affordability issues. I never hear any of them criticize the carbon tax — it’s going to triple — that is driving these inflationary pressures. It’s fully supported by Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau.

This government has a vision for the future, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are planting the seed for the future with opportunities for us all. A future like my colleague, the member from Athabasca’s mother said. I listened to his speech. I really like this part: we’re planting seeds, not just for today but for tomorrow. That’s what this Speech from the Throne brings forward.

I want to thank the Premier for all his hard work and all of my colleagues for all that they’re doing.

So with that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will be supporting the Throne Speech brought forward by the member from Walsh Acres, seconded by the member from Athabasca. I will not be supporting any amendments brought forward by the members of the opposition. Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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