I was up at my family’s haskap orchard near Birch Hills, SK this past weekend getting ready for harvest. The air quality issues due to nearby forest fires were causing lung issues for almost everyone I spoke to. At our orchard, even when it’s rained nearby, it hasn’t rained on our land. Since the snow melted, we have had all of a millimetre of rain. The land is parched. We needed to repair a pump before we could irrigate with the water from snowmelt in our dugout. The nearby orchard that we also usually harvest for the owner doesn’t have the water for irrigation. There will likely be no point harvesting there this year if they don’t get rain. This is the reality for farmers.

     Everyone in the province is affected by the ever-worsening forest fire super fires our province is experiencing. So far in SK, over 5,000 people have been displaced. Entire communities have been forced to flee their homes as wildfires continue to sweep across the region.

 We, as a province, are experiencing this climate change-related crisis while simultaneously struggling with a homelessness epidemic and affordability crisis. People are stretched so thin just trying to buy groceries and feed themselves and pay bills and not join the ranks of those living unhoused, that it becomes difficult to focus on issues like air quality due to forest fires.

 It’s time for Premier Scott Moe to admit that the SIS Program, in particular, has an epic humanitarian failure and is a top cause of rising eviction rates and people becoming unhoused. It was always a woefully inadequate amount for people to survive on and find anywhere with rent that low in today’s rental market. The system is literally designed to force people to spend all their time seeking other services just to meet their basic needs, like food and clothing. Individuals are kept so busy, seeking out meal programs, food banks, clothing and school supply giveaways, etc, that there is almost zero opportunity to try to climb out of dependency on social services once on.

 To show the severity of our situation in Saskatchewan, let’s compare our unhoused population to other Canadian cities. Homelessness has increased by 15.05% in Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa and St. Jean’s. in comparison, Saskatoon is up 1,229%, Regina is up 1,594% and Prince Albert is up 511%. So homelessness is increasing everywhere, however, Saskatchewan‘s numbers are shocking. It’s time for action from the municipal, provincial and federal governments to work together and deal with this crisis in our province.

 The Saskatchewan Green Party calls on the SaskParty to take a good look at these numbers and admit that the SIS Program is a failure. 

Sincerely,

Naomi Hunter