“Scott Moe has failed our students, teachers and parents — and his own candidates agree,” Saskatoon Eastview candidate Matt Love said Monday at a campaign stop in Saskatoon.
The provincial NDP says a recorded conversation involving a Saskatchewan Party candidate shows that even Scott Moe’s own party members feel Moe has let local educators and students down.
On Monday, the NDP released audio it says was recorded during a January conversation between a local constituent and Muhammed Fiaz, the Sask. Party candidate in Regina Pasqua. In the audio, Fiaz is heard responding to the constituent’s complaints about Sask. Party billboards the constituent says were attacking teachers.
“I totally agree with you. It was disrespectful, and I’m speaking myself,” Fiaz is heard saying. “It is a big courage to tell you that was not appropriate stuff by my government and I acknowledge that.”
Fiaz said of “all the caucus members … you do not know how much is the disagreement. We can not tell you outside that I disagree, he disagrees, she disagrees.
“You gotta toe the leader’s line, actually. That’s the policy you have, to toe that. But you are given 100 per cent the right, on that table inside, to disagreement. Use whatever the words you want to do that. You can be NDP in there. You can totally agree with them … You can say that inside. But I’m not going to come out and say that.”
The relationship between teachers and the provincial government has been contentious for years. Teachers went on strike earlier this year and pulled volunteer work to pressure the province on several bargaining issues, including per-student funding in public schools, class size and complexity and classroom violence.
“Scott Moe has failed our students, teachers and parents — and his own candidates agree,” Saskatoon Eastview candidate Matt Love said Monday at a campaign stop in Saskatoon.
“People deserve an MLA that will fight for our kids’ future and make life better, not one that sits on their hands while their own government fails Saskatchewan students.”
The NDP on Monday noted that another Saskatchewan Party candidate — Darlene Rowden in the Batoche riding — said in her capacity as a school board trustee that Scott Moe’s 2023 budget meant that her school board would be forced to make cuts to classrooms.
In the recorded conversation, Fiaz is also heard lamenting overcrowded classrooms, saying “35 kids in Campbell (in one classroom) is insane … It has to be a reasonable amount that one teacher can be full attention with.”
Don McBean, a retired educator and current candidate in Saskatoon Chief Mistawasis, said on Monday that “even Scott Moe’s own MLA knows he’s done a horrible job supporting our students.”
Also on Monday, NDP candidate for Saskatoon Centre Betty Nippi-Albright took to the steps of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina to urge Indigenous votes to make their voices heard.
Nippi-Albright, a Saulteaux and Cree woman, says Indigenous people have the power to put an end to the Saskatchewan Party’s 17-year run in government.
“We cannot afford four more years of Scott Moe and the Sask. Party,” Nippi-Albright stated in a news release.
“For too long, our people have been ignored and divided by politicians like them. It’s time for change. This election, you can vote to make that happen.”
She says if the NDP wins, it would work with First Nations and Métis people to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action and the Calls for Justice outlined in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls final report.
She says it would restore a physical government presence in the province’s north, honour Treaty rights of all Indigenous people in Saskatchewan, apologize for the province’s role in the Timber Bay and Ile-a-la-Crosse residential schools and work with survivors to provide meaningful support.
Other plans include working with First Nations and Métis leaders on a recruitment and retention plan to get more Indigenous people working in health care.
“Your vote matters. This election, your vote matters more than ever before,” Nippi-Albright said the release.
“I say these words, as a residential school survivor. I say this message, as the descendant of a Treaty 4 signatory. I say this message to all of you, because I know you believe it is time for change, just like me. The generation before us didn’t have the right to vote until 1960. However, now our vote has the power to change the government.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
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