WEYBURN - The leader for the new Saskatchewan United Party, Jon Hromek, is hoping his party will be an alternative conservative choice for voters, and laid out his vision that will bring back responsibility and accountability to provincial politics.
He spoke at a town hall meeting in Weyburn on Thursday evening at McKenna Hall, and took several questions about his policies on energy, education and health care, among other issues.
The party plans to have a candidate in the Weyburn-Bengough riding in the fall election, but the candidate has not yet been selected by the riding association.
Some of the points of the party’s platform will include completely eliminating the gas tax, and lowering the PST by three per cent, both in a bid to make finances easier for families, as well as a revamping of the province’s education system to give more autonomy back to local school divisions.
“We want to reduce the financial burden on families, and make everyday essentials more affordable, and stimulate the economy in the province. With responsibility comes a duty to steward taxpayers’ dollars wisely. We must demand efficiency, accountability and transparency with the management of public funds,” said Hromek, who pointed out that spending by the Sask Party is “out of control”, and said it is not what a small-c conservative government would do.
He added the party also pledges to make health care more universally accessible by all residents, and will have a combination of public and private facilities rather than putting millions of dollars into administration and new facilities, with a Saskatchewan integrated health care system that gives every person access to world-class medical care.
In fielding questions from the audience, he was asked what he will do about the federal requirements for net zero emissions, including a demand to shut down all coal-fired power generation stations.
As a petroleum engineer by trade, Hromek said net zero is something that exists on spread sheets, not in reality.
“The crux of net zero is to create an understanding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. They had to change the definition of CO2 to being a pollutant. CO2 is not a pollutant, it’s plant food. Net zero will kill agriculture and the resource sector. Basically, without CO2, you die,” said Hromek, noting his government would challenge the federal government on this just as they were challenged on their contention that plastic is toxic. This claim was thrown out by the Supreme Court of Canada, and Hromek feels that the fight over CO2 can be approached in the same way.
“Net zero is not going to happen for Saskatchewan, it can’t. We are going to attack on the crux of it,” he said.
He noted the Saskatchewan Party instituted the Output-based Performance Standard on large emitters of CO2, and from this the government has collected some $500 million just this year alone. Hromek said Premier Moe, in the meantime, is going after the federal government for a mere $25 million for collecting carbon tax on natural gas use, while taking in $500 million.
“So when I say we’re going to cut the gas tax, guess what money we’re going to use? We’re going to give it back to the people. If you’re going to go after Trudeau, that’s how you do it,” he said.
Asked how he would handle wind and solar power projects, Hromek provided some statistics about how costly and inefficient these power sources are. If coal plant were retrofitted to run on natural gas instead of coal, it would cost around $900,000 per megawatt produced.
By comparison, solar panels cost about $2.7 million per megawatt, and wind power costs the equivalent of $3 million per megawatt, when calculating in that they don’t operate all of the time.
“It’s just not efficient, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said, adding that relying on intermittent sources of power like these makes the power grid unstable, as Alberta has found out after committing large scale to solar and wind power. Small modular nuclear reactors aren’t any better, noting that the GE Hitachi reactor that SaskPower has committed to will cost about $17 million per megawatt of power produced, and this may take some 20 or 25 years to get built and put online to the power grid.
Asked by Leslie Richards what sort of policies the party has around education, she wondered if a voucher system could work for families like hers where the children are home-schooled.
“That hasn’t been fleshed out yet. We’re looking holistically at education first. We want to go back to where school divisions have more power, with more discretion on funds,” he said, noting local boards know better what the needs are for their families.
For example, where issues like class complexity is a real thing in urban schools, a rural school division is more interested in getting teachers to come out to their communities to teach, he said. “We would give school divisions more power and more autonomy and authority on funds to an extent. Saskatchewan is too diverse – what works in Weyburn and Estevan might not work in La Ronge. We need to give more autonomy back to the regions.”
An audience member asked what they have been hearing from people about the Sask Party, and whether vote splitting would be an issue in going up against the NDP.
Hromek pointed out the NDP’s core of support is in urban ridings in Regina and Saskatoon, while the Sask Party’s core is in rural ridings. The Sask United plan of attack will be to go after the NDP in the urban centres, and after the Sask Party in the rural areas. The leader pointed out that the level of support for the Saskatchewan is 65-per-cent-plus, so their foray into rural ridings would not cause a split enough for the NDP to make a difference.
As for what they’ve been seeing the Sask Party do, he pointed out that just between 2019 to 2024, the government has increased spending on salaries and benefits alone by 23 per cent. Since coming to power in 2007 until 2024, they have increased the size of government by 37 per cent, mainly in middle and upper management, but not on the front lines.
“A conservative government doesn’t do that. They’re all about the delivery of services, about efficiency and a smaller government. We’re not seeing that, we’re seeing out-of-control spending,” said Hromek.
