Protest causes traffic jam at Premier's Dinner in Saskatoon

A protest caused traffic problems for Saskatchewan government leaders and Sask. Party supporters entering the annual Premier’s Dinner Thursday evening.

The protestors — made up of teachers, parents and students — rallied outside the entrance of Prairieland Park, sounding the alarm over classroom conditions.

Jennifer Gallays, a Grade 5 teacher, said students aren’t receiving adequate resources to succeed.

“The things that we used to be able to offer to students that were struggling, to help them get caught up, they’re not there anymore,” said Gallays, who has been teaching for 24 years.

“We’re here to make the government aware that this is not ok. We are not ok with dismantling public education, underfunding it and crippling it to the point where people are looking for private options.”

Meanwhile, inside the venue, Premier Scott Moe delivered a speech to more than 900 of his supporters.

Premier Scott Moe speaking to more than 900 of his supporters during the annual Premier’s Dinner on June 15, 2023. (Laura Woodward/CTV News)

With the provincial election about 15 months away, Moe urged the crowd to keep the Sask. Party in power.

“Let’s get to work. Let’s continue to build a strong and growing Saskatchewan for this generation and for many generations yet to come,” Moe told the crowd before dinner was served.

In his speech, Moe said the education budget “has climbed” over the years.

“We have more teachers in our schools, more educational assistants in our schools,” Moe said.

But members of the protest disagreed.

“Professionals in education have lost their jobs because they’re no longer being funded, or they’re being moved back into classrooms when their passion and specialty lies in areas like being a teacher-librarian or being a speech pathologist — all of these positions have been cut,” Jessica Brown, a Grade 1 teacher at the protest, told CTV News.

“It’s making it next to impossible to do our jobs.”

As a result, Brown said she’s witnessing “the mental load increase for teachers.”

“It’s just really hard, at the end of the day, not to do your best for your students,” she said.

During his speech, the premier touted the province’s economic and population growth, key infrastructure projects, Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate and the importance of provincial autonomy.

The premier said he will continue to fight for Saskatchewan and spoke against Ottawa’s clean electricity standards — which has a net-zero emissions target of 2035 and aims to phase out coal by 2030.

“I made some comments on it a few weeks ago, and apparently I’m going to go to jail for those comments — and that’s fine by me,” Moe said, as the crowd laughed and cheered.

“We will not put the security of our energy system and our economy, quite frankly, into jeopardy because of an ideological goal of another level of government.”

Moe also slammed the NDP. He said the official opposition isn’t interested in Saskatchewan's growth.

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“Under the NDP in this province, we lost jobs, we lost people,” Moe said.

Saskatchewan NDP leader, Carla Beck, pushed back against Moe’s message.

“Scott Moe can be focused on 20 years ago, he can be focused on pointing fingers. We're focused on actually building solutions with people in this province because we think they deserve better than what they've got right now,” Beck told CTV News.

“We are very proud of this province. We are hopeful about the future. We think that there is all sorts of opportunity here. But we see a government that has stopped trying — tired and out of touch.”

The provincial election is scheduled for October 2024.