NDP calls for plan to address pandemic job losses

The Saskatchewan NDP says the provincial government needs a better plan to get people back to work.

Numbers from Statistics Canada on Friday show Saskatchewan is down 23,000 jobs compared to this time last year. While the province gained 2,300 jobs from January to February, the unemployment rate rose slightly to 7.3 per cent, up from 7.2 per cent.

“There’s no question that the pandemic is the cause of the vast majority of these job losses. That doesn’t let the Sask. Party off the hook for trying to do the work to get people back to work,” NDP Leader Ryan Meili said Friday.

The NDP is calling for a plan that helps small businesses rehire those who they’ve had to layoff and that specifically supports getting women — who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic — back into the workplace.

The services-producing sector is the hardest hit in Saskatchewan, down more than 14,000 jobs compared to this time last year.

Meili wants the province to support small businesses by working alongside them to see what they need to scale up their operations and staff as the province reopens.

He also believes the province would have been in a better place by now if it had put what he calls a circuit-breaker in place back in November to get COVID cases under control.

Meili argued because the government didn’t do that, it’s why the majority of public health restrictions are still in place as Saskatchewan leads the way in per-capita rates of COVID cases.

“The failure to get the second wave under control is a significant contribution to the fact that there’s still so many people in the service sector out of work,” said Meili.

The province has introduced a number of benefits for small businesses. They offer a range of financial supports for those that were ordered to close due to a public health order, those that needed to innovate and adapt to new operational requirements, and those that needed to provide existing employees training.

NDP Economy and Jobs Critic Aleana Young said those benefits aren’t nearly enough to provide meaningful help to businesses that lost thousands of dollars over the course of the year.

“The supports that have been extended to small businesses are laughable,” said Young.

Meili also criticized the government for rejecting a grant sought by True North Renewable Fuels (TNRF), which is proposing to build a renewable fuel refinery in the Regina area. The city gave TNRF a $1-million grant to go ahead with a study.

“This is the sign of a government trying to coast on this, trying to blame the pandemic only and not trying to do everything they can,” said Meili.