Sask. Party ready to work as Wall welcomes new MLAs

The balloons are all cleaned up and the congratulatory phone calls are all made – now the Sask. Party wants to get down to work.

Speaking to media at the legislature on Tuesday morning, Premier Brad Wall laid out his to-do list. He said they have to wait for the returns to become official. Right now the party is trying to set up a caucus meeting for Wednesday, then they will put together a throne speech which lays out the few promises they made in the campaign.

After that, Wall said they’ll deal with the budget, which he projected to be released at the end of May or early in June.

“As soon as possible in terms of, sort of, the timelines that finance needs to prepare everything they need to prepare, we’ll present a budget to the people of Saskatchewan.”

To do all this work, Wall will be surrounded by several new faces. Speaking Tuesday, one of the newcomers Wall seemed particularly proud of was Mohammed Fiaz.

“I am very excited and pleased that, when we are all sworn in as MLAs, for the first time in the history of the province, in the history of Saskatchewan, we’ll see a Muslim being sworn in to serve in the legislative assembly, originally a family from Pakistan,” Wall said. “I’m happy that the legislature will begin, at least, to make small steps towards being more reflective of the diversity of Saskatchewan.”

The official opposition is larger than the last session, but is still very small at 10 seats.

Wall doesn’t seem to think it will cause a problem.

“I do think that nine can be effective, was effective, and I think 10 will be effective as well.”

NDP leader Cam Broten lost his seat in Saskatoon, and Wall did mention that if Broten wanted to have a by-election, and contest one of the NDP’s seats, then they would work to make that happen quickly.