If an NDP government is elected talks would begin on sharing resource revenue.
NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter made that promise at the Red Pheasant First Nation today.
“My view is that First Nations people do have a right to some of the resources. The question is what is the amount and that’s what we’re talking about today.”
But he couldn’t tell reporters when those talks would begin, how long they’d last, or what the cost would be.
He said his government would also spend $2.5 million a year to increase Aboriginal high school graduation rates.
The target is a 50 per cent graduation rate in four years.
In response to the NDP’s resource revenue sharing promise, Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall says that natural resource revenues are for all of the province’s people.
“We have said all along that we do not support a special natural resource sharing deal for First Nations or any other group. We believe the natural resource revenue of the province belongs to all people. That’s how we build roads and fund health care and education and it’s how we ensure there’s public services for all regardless of where they live or their backgrounds.”
Wall says that the Saskatchewan Party government has spent $167 million this year on Aboriginal issues including training, employment and closing the education gap between First Nations and non-First Nations.
The NDP pledge has caught the attention of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.
Acting chief Morley Watson says he’s pleased Dwayne Lingenfelter has agreed to what First Nations have long been calling for.
Watson says it’s unfortunate the measure wasn’t adopted when the NDP was actually in .
He adds he hopes the idea is something all the political parties will add to their campaign.
The Saskatchewan Liberal Party is calling the NDP campaign announcement “the most shameful and insulting display of pandering we have seen in this election campaign so far”.
Leader Ryan Bater says if Lingenfelter were serious, he would have apologized for decades of missed opportunities and put forward a hard commitment.
Meantime Lingenfelter says the province’s north has great potential to grow.
So he says if his party is elected it will develop a Northern Economic Strategy.
The aim would be to spur business in the forestry, mining, tourism, processing and aquaculture industries.
In North Battleford today, Lingenfelter said that’s all part of a package to grow small business.
However, the Saskatchewan Party wants to know how much the NDP’s Northern Economic Strategy will cost.
Saskatchewan Party spokesman Bill Boyd says the cost of that program and others announced Thursday remain unknown.