CONTENTS
Standing
Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice
Parks, Culture and Sport Vote 27
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of
Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
INTERGOVERNMENTAL
AFFAIRS AND JUSTICE
Hansard
Verbatim Report
No.
11 — Monday, March 30, 2026
Chair
B. McLeod: — And good evening and
welcome to the Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice. My
name is Blaine
McLeod, the MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] for Lumsden-Morse, and we
have our members here with us tonight. We have a few substitutions, so we’ll
get that looked after. First of all we have MLA Patterson, MLA Martens, and MLA
Brad Crassweller. I should say first names as well: Megan Patterson, Jamie
Martens.
And
on the other side of the room, chitting in tonight for MLA Betty Nippi-Albright
is MLA Brent Blakley. And we have MLA Jacqueline Roy. And sitting in tonight
for MLA Leroy Laliberte is MLA Don McBean. And I got it right tonight; thank
you, Don. Awesome.
So
I’d like to advise the committee that pursuant to rule 148(1), the 2026‑27
estimates and the 2025‑26 supplementary estimates no. 2 were
committed to the Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice on
March 26, 2026 and March 18, 2026 respectively. The 2026‑27 estimates are
as follows: vote 73, Community Safety; vote 92, Firearms Secretariat; vote 30,
Government Relations; vote 3, Justice and Attorney General; vote 27, Parks,
Culture and Sport; vote 88, Tourism Saskatchewan.
And
the 2025‑26 supplementary estimates no. 2 are vote 73, Community
Safety; vote 3, Justice and Attorney General; and vote 27, Parks, Culture and
Sport.
So
today to begin with, we will be considering the estimates and supplementary
estimates no. 2 for Parks, Culture and Sport until the hour of 5:30 p.m.
Then we’re going to recess from 5:30 to 6:30, and afterwards we will consider
the estimates for Tourism Saskatchewan.
General Revenue Fund
Parks, Culture and Sport
Vote 27
Subvote
(PC01)
Chair B. McLeod: — So we’re going to begin with vote no. 27,
Parks, Culture and Sport, central management and services, subvote (PC01).
Minister
Ross is here with her officials, and I’d ask first of all that officials please
introduce themselves before they speak for the very first time. And again, just
don’t touch the microphones, which I did just beforehand to make sure that it
was straight to me. The Hansard operator
will turn them on for you when you speak.
So, Minister Ross, please
introduce your officials, and we’ll be pleased to hear your opening comments.
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today as we gather in Regina, we also stand on Treaty 4
territory and homeland of the Métis people. Thank you for the opportunity to
discuss the 2026‑27 budget estimates for the Ministry of Parks, Culture
and Sport. I look forward to the discussion ahead and to answering the
committee’s questions together with my officials.
Here with me today are Greg
Gettle, deputy minister; Paul Johnson, assistant deputy minister for parks
division; Dan French, assistant deputy minister for the stewardship division;
Naomi Shanks, executive director of sport, culture and recreation; Jessica
Jackson, director of corporate services; Bernadet Hamill, executive director
for the Status of Women office; Charles-Henri Warren, executive director for
the francophone affairs branch; Elias Nelson, my chief of staff; and Tyson
Willock, ministerial assistant for communications.
The Ministry of Parks,
Culture and Sport plays an important role in supporting the quality of life
that people, families, and communities enjoy in our province. It plays an
important role in delivering our government’s mission to ensure that
Saskatchewan remains the best place to live, work, and raise a family. This is
made possible by the hard work and dedication of the team I have introduced to
you today as well as countless others who comprise our broader team within the
ministry. It is an honour to bring forward a second budget as the minister and
to serve alongside such an excellent group of professionals.
The Ministry of Parks,
Culture and Sport has a broader mandate than some might expect. In addition to
offering exciting and meaningful experiences, we support and safeguard natural,
cultural, and heritage resources — important aspects of Saskatchewan’s unique
identity.
The Royal Saskatchewan Museum
and Western Development Museum preserve our history and provide opportunities
for successive generations to learn about our history. The Saskatchewan
Heritage Foundation provides grants to support important heritage preservation
initiatives and is an important partner in the heritage property designation
process. Through unique arrangements, revenues collected from lotteries and
casino operations flow through to the trusted partner organizations such as
Sask Sport, SaskCulture, and the Community Initiatives Fund to support
participation in sport, cultural activities, and other activities that enhance
the quality of life for people, families, and communities across Saskatchewan.
Our provincial parks system
has a dual mandate of providing recreational opportunities and environmental
stewardship. We balance human use and development with the need to protect
natural beauty for generations to come. Over 1.4 million hectares of lands
are conserved across 36 provincial parks and 104 recreation areas. This
includes a wide variety of ecosystems, species, and environments. There are
lakes, rivers, valleys, hills, pastures, bogs, grassland, boreal forest,
lodgepole pine, and all manner of flora and fauna.
Delivering on this mandate is
largely supported by park revenues, primarily camping fees and entry fees.
Lessees also pay fees, whether it is private business that we partner with to
provide additional services within the parks or cottagers who hold land leases.
These revenues are 100 per cent reinvested back into our parks to help maintain
campsites, roads, facilities, and other infrastructure so that we can continue
to deliver high-quality experiences for visitors and for future generations to
come.
It is no secret that
governments across Canada are facing increasing financial pressure. Despite
these pressures, Saskatchewan has been able to bring forward what I would
describe as the best budget in Canada. With the broader provincial budget, the
Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport is no exception. We are strengthening our
provincial parks system with $15 million in new capital investments so
that we can continue to deliver high-quality services to visitors across
Saskatchewan.
We are providing stable
operating funding for the ministry and the third-party organizations that the
ministry supports. We are securing the Royal Saskatchewan Museum’s ability to
store, safeguard, and study artifacts, fossils, and Saskatchewan’s national history.
And we continue to deliver on the important affordability initiatives that our
government committed to in the 2024 provincial election.
Fifteen million dollars in
capital funding will support capital renewal and replacement in provincial
parks across the province, including new visitor centres in Candle Lake,
Cypress Hills, Duck Mountain, and Greenwater Lake provincial parks; road
improvements at Cypress Hills, Danielson, and Good Spirit Lake provincial
parks; upgrades to water treatment plants at Makwa Lake, Good Spirit Lake, and
Buffalo Pound provincial parks; upgrades to wastewater management at Cypress
Hills and Pike Lake provincial parks; numerous other campground and
infrastructure upgrades at provincial parks across the province. Included in
the $15 million is $2.5 million to replace and restore infrastructure
that was lost to wildfires last year in the Narrow Hills and Lac La Ronge
provincial parks.
We also continued funding for
the new seasonal site construction grant program that we introduced last year.
Administered in partnership with the Saskatchewan Regional Parks Association,
this program will continue to provide more camping opportunities for people,
families, and communities across the province.
$16.5 million in capital
funding will support the development of a new location for the Royal
Saskatchewan Museum’s research collections and exhibit centre, known as the
annex. As the RSM [Royal Saskatchewan Museum] collections have continued to
grow and as the RSM has continued to attract world-class researchers from
around the world, the time has come to develop a more modernized facility to
support this important work.
Budget 2026‑27 also
continues to deliver on our government’s commitments from the 2024 provincial
election. An additional $4 million has been added to the active families
benefit for a total of $8 million in funding to support the doubling of
this very important initiative. The benefit amount has been doubled from $150
to $300 per child, and for children with disabilities it has doubled from $200
to $400 per child. We have also doubled the threshold from $60,000 in adjusted
family income to $120,000. Eligible families can now claim the active families
benefit on their 2025 income tax filings.
We have continued funding for
other important commitments, including the new school playground equipment
grant and the doubling of the community rink affordability grant, as well as
the veteran service club support program.
The Status of Women office
continues to play a leading role across government when it comes to addressing
women’s issues and celebrating the success of Saskatchewan women. This budget
continues the important work we are doing to address the issue of interpersonal
violence in our society with an additional $125,000 for the Status of Women
office. One-time federal funding under the national action plan to end
gender-based violence has been used to hire an additional staff member to
accelerate the work that we are already doing.
We will continue to build on
Saskatchewan’s interpersonal violence strategy with programs and services in
alignment with our three focus areas of prevention: through educating our
youth, promoting healthy relationships into adulthood, and increasing awareness
within our broader society. Intervention to help individuals who are at risk
access the supports that they need and help victims escape their circumstances.
And accountability for perpetrators and users of abuse so that they are held
accountable for their actions or are rehabilitated and so that victims can see
justice fulfilled.
The francophone affairs
branch continues to play a leading role across government when it comes to
implementing the Government of Saskatchewan’s French-language services policy.
This policy reflects our commitment to delivering French-language services to
support the vitality of the francophone community in Saskatchewan.
[15:45]
Four key activities of the
francophone affairs branch include managing the French-language Service Centre,
translation services for various areas of government, engaging with the
francophone community, and managing the Canada-Saskatchewan Agreement on French-Language
Services. As with the Status of Women office, the francophone affairs office
plays a collaborative role within government while most public services are
delivered by other areas of government.
With that, my officials and I
would be pleased to take your questions.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you so much,
Minister. I will now open the floor to questions and I recognize MLA Roy.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thanks so much. I will begin with some questions around the Status of Women
office line of Parks, Culture and Sport.
So
I guess first I’m looking at the new money that was added based on that
one-time 125 K grant. What is the current full-time equivalent budget for
the Status of Women office, and what was it prior to that 125 K being
added?
Bernadet Hamill:
— Hi, my name is Bernadet Hamill and I’m the executive director of the Status
of Women’s office. Thank you for the question. So last year . . .
pardon me, I had to get some numbers written down. I don’t have my reading
glasses with me, so I had to have them blown up for me in real time.
So in 2025‑26 the
Status of Women’s office had four FTEs [full-time equivalent], full-time staff
in our office, and our budget was 697,000. This year we will have five FTEs
with this year’s budget and our budget being 816,000.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that answer. Moving on to the next question. Has there been a
funding change for organizations since third parties have been unable to
present to schools? And I guess that being said, has that funding increased,
decreased, or stayed the same?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for your question, Madame. I really can’t speak to other ministries’
budgets. If you could be more specific as to what date and ranges and
organizations that you would like to have information on, we may be able to
address that for you. Bernadet, do you have anything more specific that you
would like to add?
Bernadet Hamill:
— Yeah, I think we could just get some clarity on the question first.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
That might take a while just because there are quite a number of organizations
that are funded. So what I will do is I’ll commit to tabling that, those
organizations here so that I can get an answer at a later date from you.
Bernadet Hamill:
— I can speak to organizations that the Status of Women office provides funding
to. We just can’t speak to other ministries. I wouldn’t be able to provide you
with that. We’d have to defer to those specific ministries.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Yes, that’s my understanding from what you said.
Bernadet Hamill:
— I’d be happy to share who we provided funding . . .
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you, I will table and move on with my other questions.
Bernadet Hamill:
— But no, I’m prepared to answer the question. I have the information in front
of me.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Answer the question then,
please. That will be good. Provide what you can.
Bernadet Hamill:
— What particular year would you like? I can start with this 2025‑26 or
’24‑25.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Those would not answer the question because my question would be regarding when
the funding change occurred. So ’24‑25 and ’25‑26 years would not
provide a broad enough range to answer that question.
Bernadet Hamill:
— I can say that the Status of Women’s office funding has not changed from 2024‑2025
to 2025‑26. We had the same level of funding that we provided, and I can
share the organizations that we provided funding to. I’ll start with ’24‑25
. . .
Jacqueline
Roy: —
But that isn’t the question I’m asking, is the problem. If I may, the question
I’m asking is, has there been a funding change since third parties have been
unable to present? So that would be way before 2024, and it doesn’t appear that
that data is here today.
Chair
B. McLeod: — So point of order in
regards to the questions that are being asked. We’re dealing with estimates
from ’25‑26 and ’26‑27. So we can provide the numbers that are
related to the estimates that are in front of us there. And if that is helpful,
then that can be done.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
I guess what I’m saying is that although I appreciate that answer, it wouldn’t
be in direct relation to the question, so it wouldn’t be helpful. I’ll move on
with my questions then.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Sorry, I will . . .
Minister Ross, your interpretation there?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madame, you would have to go directly to the ministries
involved — Education — that we . . . Our ministry is not a part of
that. The community-based organizations were working directly with the school
system. So that would be a question that you would be taking to the Minister of
Education.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Okay. Thank you for that. And does that include . . . With that
detail, would that then include funding for sexual assault centres that deliver
those programs? That would be under the Education budget?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
So, Madame, what I can tell you is . . . I’m sorry. I’m not French,
so I just am trying to answer the question as best I can. I can tell you that
we provided funding through the Status of Women’s office to the Prince Albert
Mobile Crisis Unit and Sexual Assault Centre.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So funding is provided to the P.A. [Prince Albert] mobile crisis unit and the
sexual assault centre?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
The name of their organization is the Prince Albert Mobile Crisis Unit and
Sexual Assault Centre.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. And in the budget is there any other funding provided to
any other sexual assault centres?
Bernadet Hamill:
— We didn’t have any applications from any others this past year.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. And in the previous budget year, would you have had
applications from other sexual assault centres?
Chair
B. McLeod: — Again I’ll intervene.
We’re speaking of ’25‑26 and 2026‑27 estimates, so the focus of
questions needs to remain within that scope.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. I will reword my question. Has there been a change in the
number of applicants?
[16:00]
Bernadet Hamill: — Thank
you for the question. And I’d just like to clarify that I’m speaking about only
the Status of Women’s office. We can’t speak to other ministries that may
receive applications. What I can tell you is that the Prince Albert Mobile
Crisis Unit and Sexual Assault Centre is the application that we received this
past year.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
And so then would I be correct to assume that for other sexual assault centres
that might be funding provided under Justice? Would that be the correct
assumption?
Bernadet Hamill:
— Yeah, I would defer to . . . It could be the Ministry of Justice.
Could be the Ministry of Health as well.
Jacqueline Roy: — Okay,
thank you for that. And do you in any way direct or advocate for the allocation
of funding for justice or health, since I presume you would have more insight
into the needs of those areas of programming?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
Thank you for the question. The Status of Women’s office works across all
government as you heard the minister speak earlier in her opening remarks. And
so we collaborate with a lot of different ministries or departments within
several ministries. But a big focus of our work over the last couple years has
been in a collaborative relationship with the Ministry of Justice.
And so we have worked
together on numerous different initiatives that have come forward that have
been talked about and shared, such as things under the national action plan to
end gender-based violence and Saskatchewan’s strategy to ensure that the work,
across the work that people are doing, is following the alignment that is
guided by Saskatchewan’s three pillars of prevention, intervention, and
accountability. And supporting Saskatchewan’s implementation of the national
action plan is part of Saskatchewan’s ongoing work to do that.
Jacqueline Roy: — Thanks
for that. And what dollar amount are you contributing to the national action
plan to end gender-based violence? And would that be based on Saskatchewan’s
population, or do we contribute more since our gender-based violence rates are
twice the national average?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. So across government, the province spends over $70 million
annually on the Status of Women files, specifically in gender-based violence,
and that’s across various ministries. We are also part of the national action
plan, and the requirement is a one-to-one. We match what the federal government
does, but that’s also included in the excess of $70 million. Bernadet can
give you a greater detail on that, but we far exceed the requirements of the
national action plan for the matching dollars.
Bernadet
Hamill: —
Thank you, Minister. Yeah, and I’m happy to share that with you. So
Saskatchewan entered into an agreement in 2023 with Women and Gender Equality
Canada to receive $20.3 million over the four-year period, and so that is
broken down . . . with expectations that Saskatchewan’s also
contributing. As the minister said, Saskatchewan far exceeds what we receive in
federal funding. So each fiscal year since 2023 . . . And I’ll just
go kind of backdating and what we’re to get this fiscal year that leads to the
20.3 million.
So
in 2023‑2024, Saskatchewan received the first instalment of the federal
funding of $3.333 million. In 2024‑2025 we saw an increase within
that federal agreement of $5.658 million. In 2025‑2026 Saskatchewan
received another $5.658 million. And the last year of the agreement, which
is the current fiscal year that we are now in, Saskatchewan is to receive the
last instalment of $5,658,000 for a total of
$20,307,000. And to answer your question on how the federal government
determined that funding, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat set the funding
for all the provinces and territories.
And I appreciate your
question that, you know, was that based on population or was that based on
statistics. Because we asked the same question, how they came to that number.
And what they shared with us was that that was population based, and that they also
then did a bit of a sliding scale, if you will, with the territorial provinces
because their populations were lower and had higher rates of interpersonal
violence, domestic violence, based on their smaller populations.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that answer. So because that money definitely goes through a lot
of different ministries, as mentioned, ultimately which ministry is responsible
for the money that goes specifically towards the national action plan? Would
that be Justice, or would that be Status of Women, or which specific ministries
would it include?
Bernadet Hamill:
— Thank you for the question. So how Saskatchewan’s agreement and how we’re
implementing our national action plan, or Saskatchewan’s implementation plan of
the national action plan, is we work with all the ministries who are
participating in the plan. And that includes the Ministry of Education, the
Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Government Relations, the Ministry of
Community Safety — sorry, I was going to say the wrong ministry name — as well
as in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Social
Services, the Status of Women’s office with a larger, I would say, role with
the Ministry of Justice due to the nature of the programs that they provide.
So how the funding works is
that through the provincial budget process, our own treasury board sets the
budgets for each ministry. And each ministry must go through the budget
process, just as Status of Women do, to participate in the funding and receive
the funding to support the programs and services that they are delivering that
align with Saskatchewan’s strategy and that are enhanced with projects to
implement this national action plan. And it’s a 10‑year plan with four
years of funding.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Excellent. Thank you for that. So where would I find the balance sheet for the
amount that each ministry is being allocated?
Bernadet Hamill:
— Particular budget questions have to be deferred to the particular ministry.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So would that be my understanding then, if it is to be deferred to the
particular ministry, that there is no combined balance sheet for the national
action plan, that I would need to ask Education, Health, Government Relations,
Community Safety, Justice, Social Services, and Status of Women individually?
Bernadet Hamill:
— That would be correct. Each ministry is responsible for speaking to their
budgets.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So when it comes to the budget and what is handed out by the federal government
to the province, what are the reporting mechanisms that the government requires
as to which ministry gets allocated what?
Bernadet Hamill:
— So, yeah. So to answer your question, the Status of Women, what our role is
is we coordinate with the ministries. As I mentioned, they work within their
budgets. It’s set by Saskatchewan Ministry of Finance.
When it comes to reporting
the outcomes of the work being done, the Status of Women’s office reports that
to Women and Gender Equality Canada, and they roll it up into a national
reporting that they share on their website.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that information. So does that mean that the Ministry of Finance
would have the numbers that go to each ministry? Or is there no central area
where all the funding is listed?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
I think that I have to refer back to how I answered the question before.
[16:15]
When it comes to the
provincial budget process, the Ministry of Finance sets each ministry with
their budget amounts for the year for all their programs and services. And so
each ministry works with the Ministry of Finance for that. So I can’t speak to
other ministries or what the Ministry of Finance can tell you. I would just
have to defer you to ask them.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Okay, thank you for that. So the Status of Women’s office does not work with
the Ministry of Finance to allocate those resources?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
So the Status of Women’s office coordinates and collaborates with all the
ministries participating in the funding. And we support the ministries in their
processes to move through the provincial budget process, and that includes
supporting them to submit their information to the Ministry of Finance. And
that’s the role that we have.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Okay, thank you for that information. When it comes to the domestic violence
death review recommendations, are there specific dollar amounts tied to each
domestic violence death review recommendation?
Bernadet
Hamill: —
Thank you for the question. So the Ministry of Justice, the domestic violence
death review was their process, and it is up to them to respond to this
particular question.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Okay, thank you for that. I’ll now move on to some francophone affairs
estimates. Thank you for your help with the Status of Women.
So when we look to
francophone affairs, we see that there has been a decrease in the variance of
budget between ’26‑27 and ’25‑26 despite population increase of
francophones. Could that be explained?
Greg
Gettle: —
Good afternoon. Greg Gettle, deputy minister for Parks, Culture and Sport. And
so that budget change from next year’s budget, 2026‑27, to the current
fiscal year of ’25‑26 is only $8,000. And that’s based on the overall
ministry’s reduction in salary dollars based on government’s efficiency target.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So are you telling me that the entirety . . . Am I to understand the
entirety of the decrease was due to lowered wages at the francophone affairs
office?
Greg Gettle:
— No. Let me clarify. So what we have, what we’ve done is we have an overall
efficiency target for each ministry. And our ministry happens to be 3 per cent.
And so what we’ve done at this stage is we’ve gone across all of our different
branches and we’ve set a slightly lower amount for people wages based on that
efficiency target.
We don’t yet know where we’re
going to actually gain those efficiency targets because it’s based on natural
attrition. So we have to wait to see what our retirements are and our voluntary
resignations in order for us to be able to realize where those true efficiency
dollars will be derived from. But it’s not related to reducing people’s
salaries. No one’s salary has gone down as a result of this.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. I guess where I was going with that question was, therefore
that would be due to attrition, retirement, or possibly letting staff go?
Greg Gettle:
— So I’ll just clarify. There’s no letting staff go. It’s only through
retirements or voluntary resignations.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Could you clarify for me the difference between a voluntary resignation and
letting someone go?
Greg Gettle:
— Sure. That’s basically someone decides that they’re leaving their position
for whatever reason. Maybe they’re taking another position with government,
maybe they’re taking another position outside of government, or they’re
choosing to retire. So it’s their decision that they are leaving. And that’s,
as a result, it being voluntary.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. And what percentage of the budget went to compensation
packages this year for employees that left either voluntarily or were let go?
Greg Gettle:
— Sorry, I’d just like to ask a point of clarification because sometimes we get
mixed up with years. So when you say this year, do you mean ’25‑26 or ’26‑27?
Jacqueline
Roy: —
I would mean for the period in which you can actually do reporting for
estimates.
Greg Gettle:
— I think we’re reporting on both years, right. We can talk about ’26‑27,
which is . . .
Jacqueline
Roy: —
One of my former questions was ruled out of order because I asked about ’25‑26.
Am I allowed to ask those questions?
Chair
B. McLeod: — If the question relates
to where we’re going in ’25‑2026, yes, I will allow that. Yes.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you then. So that would be for both years that we’re looking at.
Greg Gettle:
— Sorry, my apologies. I was trying to remember the question, if you used the
term “severance.” Is that what you were looking for?
Jacqueline
Roy: — I
believe I heard a few words that you discussed back there. But basically any
amount of money that would have been given to somebody who voluntarily left or
who was, in your own words . . . I’m trying to remember what they are
now. But yes, any type of compensation package.
Greg Gettle:
— Okay, so to answer the question, there are no compensation packages being
provided to employees. We are looking at saving salary dollars. When people
choose to leave voluntarily either through resignations or through retirements,
we will then as a ministry decide whether or not to fill those positions as
they are or to look for additional savings. But we’re not actually offering
employees any type of package or severance as they leave the organization.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So there have been zero payouts in ’25‑26 or ’26‑27 due to a salary
bonus, a severance pay, as you said, a retirement bonus, or any other
applicable word above and beyond a base salary level?
Greg Gettle:
— So I can say that there are no retirement bonuses or severance bonuses that
have been offered to anyone in either of those fiscal years that you mentioned.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
So I can therefore assume that zero dollars were spent outside of the base
salary. That is correct?
Greg Gettle:
— There are other forms of compensation. That might be vehicle allowances.
There’s flex benefits. But I’m not sure exactly how those are accounted for.
But there are no other kinds of bonuses that employees receive.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
When it comes to flex benefits, could you please elaborate?
[16:30]
Greg Gettle:
— So the out-of-scope employee flexible benefit program is for out-of-scope
employees to use on an annual basis for things that are kind of health related
in nature. It could be gym memberships, running shoes, those types of things.
And that is provided to employees on an annual basis.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you. I just want to make sure I get everything clearly on record. Thank
you.
Charles-Henri Warren:
— Charles-Henri Warren, executive director of francophone affairs branch. The Official
Languages Act is a federal piece of legislation that’s not binding on the
province. If you have more specific questions related to Health, I guess I’d
invite you raise that question with that ministry.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. So when I look at one of the four major mandates of the
office, one is the Canada-Sask Agreement on French-Language Services, which the
Official Languages Act in 2023 came to reinforce. So I guess what I’m
looking for here is, how does your office deal with the portion of that duty
that concerns health care?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So the Canada-Saskatchewan Agreement on French-Language Services was renewed
in 2023, so at the same time as the changes to the Official Languages Act.
But those are sort of two separate initiatives.
Now in terms of the agreement
and initiatives to support health, there’s a couple of programs that the
Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport fund through this agreement in the field
of health. One is the TAO Tel-Aide which is a French mental health support line
that’s available to Saskatchewan citizens.
The second is the patient
accompaniment service by the Réseau Santé en français, which basically it’s a
service where if you have someone who is going to a medical appointment, wants
to be accompanied by a trained volunteer that can translate in French and
provide some general sort of navigation in terms of the health service, that’s
what that service provides.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you. And could you clarify what you mean when you say the Official
Languages Act in 2023 is not binding on the province? Do I assume by that,
that the province is not intending on seeking out the possible federal funding
that other provinces have received because of that?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So basically the Canada-Saskatchewan Agreement on French-Language Services is
part of the federal . . . like other similar agreements the federal
government has with the provinces and territories, is part of the federal
action plan for the official languages.
But again that’s separate
from the Official Languages Act. The funding we receive from the federal
government, there’s essentially an approach to it. Basically every province
gets a base amount, and then there’s an amount based on the francophone
population in each province. So we’re not leaving money on the table. We are
taking full advantage of the full amount that’s been offered by the federal
government in that agreement.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you. I guess what I’m looking for here is, could you explain the
difference between the Saskatchewan approach and the approach that Alberta took
to get more funding from the Official Languages Act, for example.
Charles-Henri
Warren: —
So in terms of the approach, I think basically prior to the new federal action
plan for official languages in 2023, all provinces were united in asking for
more federal money. The envelope for these agreements had essentially been
stagnant for the previous 15 years.
So basically in terms of . . .
Alberta didn’t really do anything different than we did. What happened
basically is prior to 2023, there was not really any formula for the feds to
distribute the money. It was kind of based on historical amounts.
Now there is a formula that,
you know, there is a base amount and takes into account the francophone
population in each province. Obviously the francophone population in Alberta
being greater than it is here, they receive more funds by virtue of that. But
basically, yeah, there’s no difference in approach. Like they adopted a policy
on French-language services 15 years after we did, so the same, a similar
approach.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that information. So I am to understand that the tactics used by
Alberta then, if any, would equal those used by Saskatchewan.
Charles-Henri
Warren: —
Yes.
Jacqueline
Roy: — Thank
you. When it comes to the Official Languages Act in 2023, you stipulated
some things that have been done around health, either through that or the
Can-Sask agreement. What has been done in education and advanced education,
justice and community safety, and immigration?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So when it comes to French-language services, there are two big agreements
that come into play. There’s the Canada-Saskatchewan Agreement on
French-Language Services that is managed by Parks, Culture and Sport. There’s
also the Canada-Saskatchewan agreement for French-language education that’s
managed by Education and Advanced Education. So I can’t speak to that second
agreement.
However in terms of some of
the initiatives covered in the action plan under the Canada-Saskatchewan agreement,
in education that’s covered in that agreement, there’s basically some money for
child care and support for family literacy programs. For justice it’s money to
support the translation of statutes and bilingual personnel in courts. And for
immigration there’s money to support the settlement services in French and also
money to promote francophone immigration to Saskatchewan employers.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. And when it comes to Ed and Advanced Education, what
communication takes place between francophone affairs and the Education and
Advanced Education ministries when it comes to budgetary considerations?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So in terms of the way Education and Advanced Education manage their
agreement for French-language education, that’s really . . . you’d
have to speak to them about that because they manage that agreement. We don’t.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. In talking with stakeholders, one of the wishes that they
have wanted to see is the bureau of francophone affairs working more closely
with specifically the department of Advanced Education and Education so that
there is a budgetary, strategic alignment when it comes to that money. Is that
something that francophone affairs is looking into? And if so, is that
consideration being well received?
[16:45]
Charles-Henri
Warren: —
So one of the functions of the francophone affairs branch is to be a liaison
with the francophone community. And so part of that role is when we receive
information or feedback from various community organizations, we will share
that with the respective ministries that are involved. But then it would be
obviously up to these ministries to use that information in their budget
requests and submissions.
Jacqueline Roy: — Thank
you for that information. So I guess I just need clarity between that question
and the previous question. When it concerns Education and Advanced Education,
the decision is made by them as to how to use their budgets, but it is made
with input from francophone affairs?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So basically yeah, going back to my previous answer, when we have information
to share with ministries, whether it’s Education or Advanced Education or
others, we will do so. But in the case of their agreement, I mean, ultimately,
they’d be the decision maker in that one.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that information. And what community groups has francophone
affairs heard from that has informed that education, post-secondary education
consultation? Is that something where somebody would have to come to you, or is
there meetings all the time to go over those issues?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— In response to your question, I’d say it’s a little bit of both, i.e. if
community groups have specific concerns they want to bring to our attention,
they’re always welcome to do so. But we will, we also seek out views on a
regular basis.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. And would a regular basis be about once a month, once every
year? What would that look like, just on average?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— That will depend on the organizations. Obviously with, you know, with the
l’Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise which is essentially the community
spokesperson organization, it will be every month for sure. With some of the
smaller groups, it might be once a year or every second year. But we, you know,
our door is always open.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thanks for that. And so when it comes to the CÉF [Conseil des écoles
fransaskoises] and their budget, how often does the francophone affairs bureau
advocate on behalf of the needs of the CÉF community?
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So you’re referring to the Conseil des écoles fransaskoises in your question,
yeah?
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Correct.
Charles-Henri Warren:
— So basically in terms of the . . . that would be, you know, with
Education that determines that. As with other ministries, you know, if we have
information that we feel would be relevant to our colleagues at Education,
we’ll share that with them.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Okay, so therefore it doesn’t happen on a frequent basis though, whereas in . . .
Okay, thank you.
Regarding the budgetary
considerations for the CÉF and the litigation now taking place with the
province, is that bucket of funding coming from Justice? From francophone
affairs? From Education? Where is the money for the legal challenge and the
legal action coming from?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question, but this is a situation that’s in the courts. So we
will be not commenting or taking any questions on this particular situation.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Thank you for that. I thought that might be the answer. However patient-client
privilege does not apply to funding-bucket commentary or to giving answers to
the fiscal record. So I would like an answer to that question.
Greg Gettle:
— So all I can speak on is on behalf of the ministry at Parks, Culture and
Sport. There is no money within our budget allocated to that.
Jacqueline Roy: — Thank
you for that. And with that I will be handing over questions to my colleague
from Regina University.
Brent
Blakley: —
Regina Wascana Plains, actually.
Jacqueline
Roy: —
Oh, pardon me.
Brent
Blakley: —
That’s okay. Thank you very much . . .
Chair
B. McLeod: — Just before you start, I
just do need to recognize you. MLA Blakley, please go ahead with your questions.
Brent
Blakley: —
Thank you very much. And I want to thank the previous two on their Q & A
[question and answer] for speaking in English for us and not carrying out in
French. So thank you very much for that. Would have went right there.
Minister, I’m just going to
get started right away with a few just kind of general questions on Parks,
Culture and Sport.
Minister, as you went through
the budget development this year, the budget development process, what were
some of the objectives and the priorities of this year’s budget specifically,
and how is that different from previous years?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. As you know from my opening statements, we did kind
of lay broadly out what we were intending to do.
So the purpose of this budget
is to strengthen our provincial parks. And with that, we are investing $15 million
in capital funding. And that goes into projects such as new service centres at
Candle Lake, Cypress Hills, Duck Mountain, Greenwater Lake provincial parks;
road improvements in Cypress, Danielson, and Good Spirit provincial parks;
water upgrades, or upgrades to the water treatment plants at Makwa Lake, Good
Spirit Lake, and Buffalo Pound provincial parks; upgrades to wastewater
management at Cypress Hills and Pike Lake; and various campgrounds upgrades at
other provincial parks.
We’re also providing stable
operating funding for the parks — was one of the things that was important for
us to do — and we are also continuing to deliver on the important
affordabilities that we committed to in the elections such as . . .
When we look at that, we look at our active family benefit. We look at our
school playground equipment grant, making certain that that’s going ahead; the
community rink affordability grant; veteran service club support grant.
And also with our Royal
museum, we are also securing the Royal Saskatchewan Museum’s ability to store,
safeguard, and study artifacts, fossils, and Saskatchewan’s national history,
and looking at replacing the research, exhibits, and collections centre.
So what we looked at in our
budget was how do we strengthen our province and have a positive impact on the
quality of life for the people of Saskatchewan through the programmings that we
offer.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thank you. And what were some of your priorities with regards to the arts
movement and the arts community in Saskatchewan?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. So within the arts programs, we looked at the same
thing like stabilization and strengthening. In the previous budget, the arts
got 1.5 per cent increase in their funding, and that was carried over in this
year’s budget.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thank you very much. I’m wondering if you could tell me what was the rate
of inflation that was being factored into the budget as it was being developed?
[17:00]
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
So thank you for the question. So as you know, this is a very difficult budget
year across the country. So what we were looking at in this particular year’s
budget was creating that stability and to be able to protect the services that
we were already providing.
Brent
Blakley: —
I’m sorry, and what was the rate of inflation that you were factoring in on
this budget?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
As I said, we were looking at . . . Because it’s a difficult
situation nationally in the country in terms of creating budgets, what we
looked at specifically was stabilizing and maintaining in this year’s budget.
Brent
Blakley: —
So sorry, just to be clear, you did not factor in the rate of inflation when
preparing the budget?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
So it wasn’t about inflation. It was about protecting and stabilizing what we
have existing already within the park system.
Brent Blakley: — Okay,
thank you very much. Kind of a two-part question: wondering if you’re able to
tell me what percentage increase is this budget over the previous budget. And
will this increase cover inflationary costs going forward?
Greg Gettle:
— So the overall ministry budget for ’25‑26 . . . Sorry, ’26‑27
— got my years mixed up — is an increase of 16.1 per cent.
Brent
Blakley: —
And do you believe that this funding increase will cover inflationary costs
going forward?
Greg Gettle:
— Yeah, I think I would just build on what the minister has said. It was really
about, you know, looking at how we protect the services that are provided to
the people of Saskatchewan and, where possible, where we might be able to
enhance particular services.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thanks. Thank you very much. You said 16.1 per cent. How does this per
cent increase, for example, compare . . . You may have compared with
recent BC [British Columbia], Alberta, or Manitoba, other Western provinces’
budgets, if you’re able to answer that.
Greg Gettle:
— Yeah, I think . . . I appreciate the question. I think it’s a
really difficult question to answer for us, and the reason why is our makeup of
our ministry is very diverse. When you include things like parks, stewardship,
francophone affairs, Status of Women’s branch, we have quite a diverse
portfolio and there’s really no true apples-to-apples comparison of what our
overall ministry budget would be with any of those other provinces that you’ve
mentioned.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay. For example, they may have a different makeup of the ministry than we do
in Saskatchewan? Okay, thank you very much.
Just another question about
percentage budget. How much of this budget supports, goes towards third
parties? For example, companies that you may contract work out to. For example,
previously Aspira was doing your booking, was your booking company. So how much
of that, percentage-wise of the budget, goes to third parties, third-party
contractors?
Greg Gettle:
— Thanks for the question. I’m going to just have to ask for a bit of
clarification because you used two terms there, and sometimes they might get
mixed together. So you said third parties, which would obviously mean anyone
not us or government agencies. And then you also used contractors, I think. So
I’m just trying to clarify, do you mean third parties, contractors, or
third-party contractors?
Brent
Blakley: —
Third party. Sorry, I may have been using the term contractors differently.
Contracts to third parties is specifically what I’m questioning about.
Greg Gettle:
— Okay, I’m going to have to take my glasses on and off to read some of the
fine print. But within our 2026‑27 estimates, we would have a number of
different lines that would be considered kind of third party that we fund. So
things like our parks capital program for $15 million, that’s all third
parties that we would use for that. We have 2.23 million that we provide
to regional parks, 513,000 provided to urban parks.
And then within community
engagement we have a number of lines. So there would be the community sport,
culture, and recreation programs; that’s 8.45 million. Heritage
institutions and the Saskatchewan Science Centre, and that amount is 5.551 million.
Saskatchewan Arts Board, 6.879 million; Community Initiatives Fund, 8.848 million;
Creative Saskatchewan for 12.125 million; and the Saskatchewan Heritage
Foundation for 308,000.
In addition to that, we would
also contract within parks for things like gravel, firewood, those types of
things. And those are all funded out of our Commercial Revolving Fund, which is
not mentioned in any of the numbers that I’ve just highlighted.
Brent
Blakley: —
Thank you very much. I’m going to get a little bit to some more kind of pointed
questions I guess. You had mentioned — I think, Minister, it was in your budget
highlights this year — the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, it says, will receive
$16.5 million to modernize the research, exhibits, and collections centre
in Regina. So that’s 16.5, for a total budget for Royal Saskatchewan Museum of
19.7 million. So if you take away that 16.5 million that you are
paying out just this year, $3.2 million remain. And that seems to be a
little bit of a decrease of about 2.6 million from the funding support
that they received last year of 5.8 million. Can that be explained?
Greg Gettle:
— So I think you mentioned a decrease or the . . . Sorry, the
difference was about 2.6 million. The large majority of that is related to
that research, exhibits, collections centre. So we did have a budget in the
current fiscal year, ’25‑26, of $2.5 million to finish the design
work and to begin construction on that facility. That’s linked to the 16.5 million
that we have in next year’s budget to continue with that construction.
There’s about 75‑ish-thousand,
maybe a little bit less or more, and that’s related to some other things that
are directly in the RSM. But they’re very small amounts related to some
improvement work, and then again some small salary reductions related to that
other workforce adjustment program that I had spoken to earlier.
Brent Blakley: — Okay.
So aside from those — the renovations, improvements, and such for both years —
the funding support was about roughly 2.5, 2.6 million?
Greg Gettle:
— Thank you for the question. So the operating funding for the Royal
Saskatchewan Museum is essentially the same. It was 3.2 million in ’25‑26;
it’s about the same. A small reduction again related to that salary decrease
for our workforce adjustment plan.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, that fits with the math that I have. Thank you very much.
[17:15]
Just a couple more, just a
few more kind of pointed questions. With regards to the Globe Theatre in
Regina, can the minister confirm what the current level of annual operating
support provided to the Globe Theatre the ministry is giving?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. The ministry doesn’t fund the Globe Theatre
directly. They do get annual operating funding from the Arts Board.
Brent
Blakley: —
So the Arts Board being under your portfolio as well, are you able to give us
those numbers? Just how much . . .
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
They currently get $245,000 annually.
Brent Blakley: — Okay,
thank you very much. And has this amount changed in any significant way over
the past number of years, particularly considering inflation? Or has it
remained fairly much the same cost?
Dan French:
— Dan French, assistant deputy minister, stewardship division. It’s been pretty
constant funds. Remained the same from SK Arts generally.
Brent
Blakley: —
Thank you. Next question. Has the ministry reviewed how and taken into account,
I guess, how rising costs — labour, production, utilities — are affecting
organizations like The Globe in the province’s art community and other
communities? Is that factored into your budgetary estimates at all?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. When we were looking at developing the budgets
again, we used the same philosophy. We were looking at how to protect the
people of Saskatchewan. So what we were looking at is the maintenance of the
stable funding that was in place in the sector. So we were still able to
protect the services and to be able to provide the opportunities for people to
enjoy what we have within this portfolio.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thank you. Considering this constant funding, as you say, would the
minister agree that maintaining this flat funding in the current economic
environment can maybe put some pressures on programming and operations of these
organizations?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Yes, so we recognize there are pressures everywhere, all provinces. The entire
nation is facing pressures. And again what we were looking at was to be able to
maintain the stable funding that was in place across our government to be able
to protect the people of Saskatchewan.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thank you very much. And just, Minister, are there any plans to revisit,
for example, how The Globe Theatre is supported in light of the potential role
that it has in downtown and vitality and growth? Any thoughts on that?
Dan French:
— I thank you for the question. So we have ongoing dialogue with our third
parties and our sectors, and we have ongoing discussions through the budget
development process every year. So we certainly can’t predict what next year
is, but we can say for sure that we have pretty good relationships within the
communities and we have those ongoing dialogues around budget developments.
Brent Blakley: — Okay,
thank you very much. And just your opinion here: considering the positive
economic impact that The Globe Theatre and organizations like it have on this
province, doesn’t it seem to make sense to look at the financial support of
these organizations as a good investment rather than a risk?
Dan French:
— Thank you again for the question. We do recognize the value of arts and
culture in this province, and we do recognize the economic benefits of
heritage, arts, and culture in the province as well. So we will continue to
have those dialogues with our partners during budget developments in future
years.
Brent Blakley: — Thank
you very much. I’m going to switch gears a little bit to parks since we have, I
see, about five minutes left. Just a couple parks questions. I’m just curious
about the wildfire season we had last summer. I’m just wondering if you could
indicate how many provincial parks were impacted by the wildfires that we had
last year, last summer?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you for the question. There were a number of parks that were impacted by
the smoke. It made camping difficult, I think, across the province this year.
But in terms of closures, we had one park that was closed for the season, and
we had another park that was partially closed.
Brent Blakley: — Okay.
Then how about damages? How much has been spent so far repairing damages? And
how much is perhaps projected to complete repairs for damages?
Paul
Johnson: —
Hello. Paul Johnson, assistant deputy minister of parks division. And thank you
for the question. The reality is we are still assessing damages from the 2025
wildfire season. We know that we lost substantial capital infrastructure in a
number of locations, Narrow Hills Provincial Park being the worst, but also in
Lac La Ronge Provincial Park. And it will take us some time to fully assess
that equipment because it sometimes can include underground infrastructure,
waterlines, those types of things. And we’re not open yet for the season. So
we’re still assessing that.
We have estimated the capital
losses in all our parks from the fires to be two and a half million dollars,
but there’s also operational-cost expensed items, things like small tools,
equipment, and other things as well. So we are still assessing the total value
of the losses. Estimated capital is the best I can give you at two and a half
million.
Brent
Blakley: —
Okay, thank you very much. And did you by chance track the impact that the
wildfires had on attendance in the parks by cancellation of booked sites, etc.?
Just how it affected that.
Paul
Johnson: —
Yes, thanks for the question. Overall across the parks system our attendance,
our visitation we call it, was flat in 2025‑26, which is a good-news
story considering we closed the provincial park for almost the entire season.
So actually if you take out the fire-impacted parks of Narrow Hills, Lac La
Ronge, and to a degree Candle Lake Provincial Park, our overall camping numbers
are up about 2 per cent year over year, which is a great-news story for us.
Brent Blakley: — Okay, thank you very much. Again
switching gears a little bit. I note from previous budgets’ estimates, we had
from 2020 to 2025 Aspira was the online booking agent, I believe, for the
campsites. And I believe that contract ended as of September 2025. I was
wondering if you could tell me who is now doing that online booking and how
long the contract is for?
Paul
Johnson: —
Thank you for the question. Yeah, the
current service provider is Aspira Canada limited. So the original contract was
2020 to 2025, but in that original contract we had built in two additional
one-year extensions. We evoked one of those one-year extensions. So the current
contract with Aspira Canada ends in September 2026.
[17:30]
And as you may be aware
there’s an RFP [request for proposal] open right now for a new contract
provider, and that RFP I believe closes on June 1st. So we are seeking,
actively seeking a new provider of the integrated campground management
services, and that will determine who’s the provider going forward after
September 2026.
Brent
Blakley: —
Thank you very much. And you referred to it as Aspira Canada? It was my
understanding that Aspira is a US [United States]-based company.
Paul
Johnson: —
Aspira Canada is the company we have the contract with currently. The one-year
extension was signed with Aspira Canada. So they have a Canadian office. The
company Aspira is owned by a US parent company called RA Outdoors. This is
exactly the same structure as the other major Canadian supplier of an
integrated campground management system — a Canadian company owned by a US
parent company.
Chair B. McLeod: — Having reached our agreed-upon time
for consideration of these estimates, I do have to entertain that we will now
adjourn consideration of the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2
for the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sports. I want to really thank everyone
for your participation and the good questions, good answers, and some really,
really great interaction back and forth.
Minister,
I’ll leave the door open for you to have any closing comments.
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you. I want to say thank you to the committee
for attending here this evening, for the questions that you respectfully
brought forward. I would like to thank my officials for being here and for all
the support that they give us from our ministry during the year. I would like
to also thank Hansard for taking the time; I know when we get into
estimates they can be long evenings for you. And I think I’ve covered everyone,
but just thank you very much. Thank you.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you so much. Any
closing comments from the committee members at all? Please go ahead, MLA
Blakley.
Brent
Blakley: —
Yeah, I would just like to reiterate what the minister said and just thank
everybody, and her staff for being here and answering, kind of going through
things with a fine-tooth comb trying to get us the answers. And just thank,
again, everybody else for being here. And it’s a little late, so again thank
you very much for taking the time. Appreciate that.
Chair B. McLeod:
— And thank you, everyone. We stand recessed now until 6:30 p.m. Thank you.
[The committee recessed from
17:32 until 18:30.]
General Revenue Fund
Tourism Saskatchewan
Vote 88
Subvote (TR01)
Chair
B. McLeod: — Welcome back, committee
members. We’re now going to move on to consideration of the estimates for vote
88, Tourism Saskatchewan, subvote (TR01). Minister Ross is back with officials
from Tourism Saskatchewan. And I would ask that officials please introduce
themselves before they speak for the first time. And please don’t touch the
microphones. The Hansard operator will do that for you when you speak.
Before I get the minister to
introduce her officials, I was remiss in saying we have a member sitting in for
MLA Jacqueline Roy: MLA Tajinder Grewal from Saskatoon University-Sutherland.
Wow, pulled that out of somewhere. Excellent. So, Minister, please introduce
your officials and make your opening comments for us, please.
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good evening, everyone. It’s my pleasure to speak to
the work of Tourism Saskatchewan and the actions being taken to strengthen the
visitor economy and enhance the tourism experiences and destinations in the
province.
So to begin, I will introduce
CEO [chief executive officer] Jonathan Potts. Jonathan is joined by his
colleagues Amy McInnis, vice-president of marketing and communications; Tracy
Breher, vice-president of destination and workforce development; Rae Gallivan,
vice-president of corporate services and chief financial officer. I also want
to introduce my chief of staff, Elias Nelson, and my MA [ministerial
assistant], Tyson Willock. Is that everyone?
The total operating budget of
$19.469 million supports Tourism Saskatchewan’s 2026‑27 business
plan. The General Revenue Fund budget for Tourism Saskatchewan includes a
$384,000 increase to meet the collective bargaining agreement and out-of-scope
compensation commitments. The GRF [General Revenue Fund] allocation also
includes a $193,000 decrease and a reduction of 2.0 FTEs due to an
organizational restructuring resulting in efficiency improvements. Overall this
represents a 1 per cent increase in funding from ’25‑26.
Saskatchewan’s Growth Plan
sets an ambitious goal of a 50 per cent increase of tourist expenditures by
2030, a jump from $2.4 billion to $3.6 billion annually. Tourism
Saskatchewan has solid strategic priorities in place to achieve this goal, and
a robust industry that plays an increasingly larger role in Saskatchewan’s
economy. These strategic priorities include growing visitation to Saskatchewan
from national and international markets, strengthening the tourism workforce,
growing tourism business across the province, and collaborating to advance
tourism priorities.
Travel spending in
Saskatchewan reached $3 billion in 2024, which is the highest level ever
recorded. While the full year of tourism data from Statistics Canada for 2025
will not be released until May of this year, preliminary tourism data points to
an increase in visitor spending in the first nine months of this year.
Despite economic and
geopolitical pressures, tourism activity in Saskatchewan remains stable, driven
by strong domestic travel and continued US interest. Tourism represents 10 per
cent of total employment in the province, with over 61,000 residents employed
in the sector during peak season. Hotel occupancy rates and average daily rates
set new historic highs in 2025, with occupancy averaging 62 per cent and
revenue per available room reaching over $95 a year. The most likely reason for
this increase are that more Canadians travelled within the country in 2025
instead of going to the US.
While American visitation has
declined in many parts of Canada, Saskatchewan has continued to see steady US
visitation since January of 2025 and experienced robust growth in July and
August last year.
Tourism Saskatchewan is
actively engaged in aviation partners to increase and sustain air connectivity
and grow Saskatchewan’s visitor economy. US air arrivals to Saskatchewan went
up by 21.6 per cent in 2025, while total international passenger volumes have
matched or surpassed 2019 levels. Daily non-stop service from Regina to Denver,
launched in May of 2025, provides convenient connections for Saskatchewan
travellers and US visitors, particularly hunters and anglers.
The Regina airport recorded
over 1.1 million passengers in 2025, a 3.1 per cent increase over 2024,
with transborder travel from the US up a remarkable 29.5 per cent year over
year despite the ongoing market volatility. The Saskatoon airport recorded just
over 1.5 million passengers in 2025, a 3 per cent increase over 2024,
driven by a 6 per cent rise in domestic travel. Cross-border vehicle traffic
from the US also had an increase of 2 per cent in 2025 over 2024.
Uncertainty around tariffs
impacts traveller sentiment and booking intentions. However Saskatchewan’s
tourism markets are diversified, with strong resident travel and steady
visitation from both domestic and international visitors. The Saskatchewan
resident market is our strongest, accounting for approximately 60 per cent of
visitor spending, while Canadians from outside the province comprise of another
26 per cent. Those coming from the United States make up just over 9 per cent,
while overseas visitors account for nearly 5 per cent of our province’s total
visitor spending.
Efforts to concentrate on
niche, high-spending traveller segments, such as hunters and anglers. These
travellers are less influenced by political tensions and more motivated by
their passion for the activities Saskatchewan offers.
Record wildfires in 2025
caused significant impacts on the tourism industry, including park and highway
closures and reduced visitor safety perceptions, which led to cancellations and
resulted in lost revenue for tourism businesses. Several initiatives were
undertaken by Tourism Saskatchewan to support the industry and public during
and after the wildfires. Targeted marketing campaigns to help offset the
impacts of wildfires and to support local businesses included a summer to fall
campaign for Waskesiu and Prince Albert National Park as well as a partnered
social media campaign with Travel Manitoba, promoting winter experiences in the
Denare Beach, Creighton, and Flin Flon area.
An additional investment has
been made to support the promotion of visitation to the Waskesiu area for the
summer of 2026. These efforts are intended to restore visitor confidence,
stimulate spending, and highlight the resilience of the affected communities.
Tourism Saskatchewan
continues to actively engage with stakeholders to minimize the impact of
natural disasters for both travellers and businesses, and to keep the visitor
economy strong.
Tourism Saskatchewan’s
marketing strategy focuses on growing visitation and tourism, spending from
long-haul, high-value market. Resident and short-haul markets are strong, but
opportunities for significant growth are limited. Future growth will come from
attracting higher spending travellers from domestic and international long-haul
markets along with niche-interest travellers.
Marketing efforts are centred
on strengthening Saskatchewan’s reputation and competitive advantage through
compelling storytelling. This includes delivering consumer-focused content that
inspires travel while using research and evaluation tools to continuously
refine tactics and better target potential visitors.
In 2025‑26, Tourism
Saskatchewan partnered with the Matador Network, the world’s largest
independent traveller publisher, to highlight Saskatchewan’s niche,
astrotourism experiences. In October, Tourism Saskatchewan hosted a Matador
Network film crew to capture content featuring astrotourism experiences across
the province. Filming highlighted the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park and
its dark-sky preserves, as well as the Great Sandhills. The final piece was
exceptionally well produced and Tourism Saskatchewan invested in a campaign
through Matador’s audience channels to ensure the content reached the dark-sky
enthusiasts around the world.
The month-long campaign
earned over 12 million impressions, 5 million video views, and 45,000
page reviews. In June last year, Tourism Saskatchewan launched a redevelopment,
consumer-facing website focused on bringing the tourism brand to life through
storytelling and content. The site promotes niche experiences and highlights
regional travel zones supported by visually engaging design, strong
accessibility practices, and personalized user experiences. The website was
built using research, stakeholder feedback, and best practices for search
engine optimization.
Since launch, the online
landscape has continued to evolve rapidly with the growth of AI [artificial
intelligence]-driven research. Tourism Saskatchewan has undertaken a
comprehensive AI visibility audit in its websites. Strategies from the audit
will be implemented to ensure content surfaces effectively in AI search
results, helping maintain visibility and competitiveness with other
destinations. Maintaining relevance and remaining a trusted source of travel
inspiration and information continues to be the priority for the marketing
team.
Several in-house strategies
were introduced to grow social audiences and increase engagement with content.
These included phased approaches designed to guide audiences along the path to
booking. As a result Tourism Saskatchewan gained an additional 31,000 followers
across its social channels and achieved a 1.9 million engagements with its
content.
Tourism Saskatchewan and
Discover Saskatoon co-hosted the annual Travel Media Association of Canada
Conference and Media Marketplace in Saskatoon in June of 2025. A significant
amount of media coverage has resulted, with 141 pieces being written and appearing
in 175 unique digital and print publications. As of March 11th, 2026, the media
advertising value for the printed pieces is over $1.4 million, while
impressions for online pieces are over 43 million.
Tourism Saskatchewan is
exploring opportunities in the meetings and incentives sectors tied to
agriculture, where early signs point to promising potential.
In partnership with
Destination Canada, a UK [United Kingdom]-based campaign ran from September
through October. Strong overall visibility and traffic performance across paid
media channels achieved more than 36 million impressions and over 500,000 clicks.
That campaign significantly increased reach and awareness for Saskatchewan
within key UK markets, successfully placing our province in front of highly
qualified audiences.
[18:45]
A digital media marketing
campaign ran across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from mid-September
through January of 2026, building a brand awareness, emotional engagement, and
qualified traffic to key travel trade partners while motivating high-intent audiences
for 2026.
US anglers and hunters
represent a lucrative market for Saskatchewan’s outfitting industry, generating
over $150 million annually in operational impact which includes revenue
and operator capital spending. Tourism Saskatchewan actively targets the US
market to generate awareness and demand for outfitted hunting and angling
experiences. Hunters and anglers stay for a longer time in the province than
average US visitors and are the province’s highest spending travellers. Growing
new markets for the outfitting sector for the future is a priority.
In 2025‑26 Tourism
Saskatchewan invested just over $1 million to promote Saskatchewan’s
angling and hunting experiences in the US through agency-led and in-house
advertising. Tourism Saskatchewan’s annual fishing and hunting campaign ran
from December of 2025 through March of 2026 and was delivered in three stages:
building awareness amongst US hunters and anglers, highlighting easy access to
Saskatchewan through direct flights from Denver and Minneapolis, and converting
interest into bookings with urgent “book now” messaging. Leveraging the
influence and reach of popular outdoor media personalities and programs is
fundamental to influence anglers and hunters to choose Saskatchewan for their
next adventure.
In 2025‑26 Tourism
Saskatchewan invested $237,000 to support 25 media projects featuring outfitted
experiences. Attracting new events to the province is a key strategic action to
support increasing visitor spending to $3.6 billion by 2030. Events boost
the local economy through visitor spending while enhancing the province’s
global reputation as an attractive and innovative destination.
Tourism Saskatchewan’s events
strategy prioritizes events that drive overnight visitation, increase tourism
revenues, and maximize the economic impact of investments. This strategy
supports the development and expansion of events, conventions, and trade shows,
particularly business events and incentive travel and alignment with
Saskatchewan’s sectors of strength, including advanced manufacturing,
agriculture, life sciences, technology, and natural resources. Two major event
wins for the province were announced in the fall of 2025, this year. 2027 will
be significant for Saskatchewan as we host the 100th Montana’s Brier in
Saskatoon as well as the 114th Grey Cup Festival in Regina.
Tourism Saskatchewan supports
significant business events that attract visitors from across the world,
including Canadian Western Agribition and Ag in Motion. Both were nominated for
the Tourism Industry Association of Canada Business Event of the Year Award,
which was won by Ag in Motion. Tourism Saskatchewan supported two major
business events coming to the province in 2026: the ISSA [International Social
Security Association] Mining Safety Conference, and MS [multiple sclerosis]
Canada conference. Both will be held in Saskatoon as a direct result of the
events strategy.
The marketing and event
partnership program is Tourism Saskatchewan’s largest funding program,
providing investment to outfitters, resort-based accommodations, attractions,
and destination marketing organizations to build digital capacity and to market
to audiences within and outside the province. In 2025‑26, 67 successful
applicants received just over $900,000 in funding. Tourism Saskatchewan is
continually evaluating the criteria and application process to ensure the
program is accessible, contributes to developing market readiness, and
strategically supports the development of new markets.
The destination development
team supports tourism businesses to expand into new markets, strengthen
infrastructure, and develop new experiences that drive sales and grow the
visitor economy. The team made 262 in-person industry visits over the past year
to 220 unique businesses in 117 communities throughout our province.
The tourism development
program supports established tourism businesses to expand and diversify their
operations by supporting the development of new experiences, expanding seasonal
operations, and increasing core business capacity. Funding support of up to
$40,000 per business is provided through an application-based, adjudicated
process. Since its inception in 2017, Tourism Saskatchewan has provided over
$5 million in financial support to 161 successful applicants through this
program. In 2025‑26 a total of 33 applications were received with 26
tourism businesses funded for a total investment of just under $900,000.
Some examples of projects
funded through this program include a new lodge constructed for the provision
of all-inclusive fish-and-hunt packages at an established camp. $400,000 of
funding was provided along with $340,000 in private investment in the construction
of the new facility, resulting in over $87,000 in sales in the initial year. A
working grain farm was provided with $40,000 to enhance their infrastructure to
enable regular, on-site farm tours. The business was successful in providing
almost 300 farm tours in the initial year to both domestic and international
visitors.
Tourism Saskatchewan provides
training to businesses to develop new tourism experiences, with specific focus
on niche markets. In 2025‑26, 55 participants received special training
and mentoring based on business needs.
Tourism Saskatchewan
recognizes the importance of Indigenous tourism and its role in advancing
reconciliation through economic autonomy and cultural revitalization.
Indigenous tourism businesses are supported by Tourism Saskatchewan through
marketing, training, export readiness initiatives, content creation, and
funding for experience development and co-operative marketing projects.
Saskatchewan was well
represented on the national stage at the 2026 Indigenous Tourism Awards, held
on February 19th in Edmonton, with four finalists and one winner taking home
top honours. This year marks the highest number of finalists for the province
since 2018. The finalists included Dakota Dunes Resort, Pêmiska Tourism,
Wanuskewin Heritage Park, who was nominated in two categories. Dakota Dunes
Resort took home the award for a business that launched a new experience.
In December of 2025, Tourism
Saskatchewan entered into an MOU [memorandum of understanding] with Wanuskewin
Heritage Park to support its UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization] World Heritage status bid and strengthen the development
and promotion of Indigenous cultural tourism experience.
Tourism Saskatchewan provides
training and education in tourism throughout the province for businesses and
for individuals. In 2025‑26 more than 15,000 people were trained in
online and in-person courses that enhanced capacity and skills. These programs
include Service Best customer service training and the Serve It Right
Saskatchewan responsible service of alcohol program.
In response to the identified
skill gaps, Tourism Saskatchewan continues to develop targeted training
solutions. This includes new leadership and team dynamics training to support
emerging supervisors, and new courses in guide training and food and beverage
service, two areas facing heightened labour demand.
Labour shortages within the
tourism sector continue to challenge business growth, especially in rural and
remote areas. To help industry address these shortages, Tourism Saskatchewan
delivers programming to increase awareness of tourism careers, particularly
among high school students.
The Teacher Explorer’s Club
was created by Tourism Saskatchewan to foster a province-wide network of
educator ambassadors who dedicate classroom time to exploring tourism careers.
Members receive ready-to-use lesson plans, activities, and supplemental resources
to support career pathway exploration.
The tourism Work Ready
program, funded by the Ministry of Immigration and Career Training, works with
organizations and employment agencies to identify underemployed or unemployed
participants, offer online access to the courses, and provide networking
opportunity with industry. In 2025‑26 the program exceeded its goal of
training more than 100 participants. Through this partnership, Tourism
Saskatchewan aims to train and provide wraparound support to 75 participants in
November.
Tourism Saskatchewan is
partnering with Tourism HR Canada in a pan-Canadian training initiative to
increase awareness and access for people with disabilities to enter into the
tourism workforce. Training sessions are being delivered to reach 40 businesses
within Saskatchewan.
A series of webinars and
workshops were hosted to address a range of important topics, including digital
marketing, recruitment and retention strategies, accessibilities, trends in
social media, building teams, handling difficult conversations, and the use of
AI in business. Over 750 participants have completed online seminars and
workshops as of March of this year. These resources help businesses market and
sell their products, meet customer expectations, and recruit and retain staff.
Industry training on emerging
technologies and consumer demands is a priority to help tourism businesses
remain competitive. Over the past few months, several in-person industry
workshops have been hosted by Tourism Saskatchewan to educate participants about
Saskatchewan’s tourism brand and AI.
A skilled and competitive
workforce enhances visitor experience and improves destination competitiveness.
Combined with training initiatives and tourism career promotion, these efforts
support a vibrant tourism industry in our province.
So in conclusion, thank you.
I appreciate the time that has been afforded to discussing Tourism
Saskatchewan’s leadership and workforce. Thank you for your attention, and my
officials and I will be happy to take any questions you may have.
Chair
B. McLeod: — So thank you, Minister. I
will now open the floor to questions, and I will recognize . . . Who
first?
Don
McBean: —
That would be me.
Chair
B. McLeod: — That’ll be MLA McBean.
Please go ahead.
[19:00]
Don
McBean: —
A part of me wants to say, sounds great, let’s go home. Wow, I have pages and
pages and 18 tabs open with all sorts of possible ideas, and I feel like you
checked off lots of them in the discussion. But still I have a big number one
beside the question, was this a good year? Just a very simple . . .
Yeah, I mean every year we say, oh, this is great; we’re doing all these
wonderful things. Can I call you Jonathan?
Jonathan Potts:
— Sure.
Don
McBean: —
Yeah. Jonathan, you’ve done this for a few years or more?
Jonathan Potts:
— Yes.
Don
McBean: —
And how does this year stand up?
Jonathan Potts:
— Sure, and the short answer is, it was a good year. So for the industry, again
the industry’s over 3,000 attractions, businesses, and events across the
province. You know, we’re tracking . . . We were at being a
$3 billion industry in 2024. In 2025, as the minister mentioned, we won’t
have numbers for a couple months, but we expect that to grow. We’re tracking
ahead of 2024 in 2025.
You know, in a province as
big as Saskatchewan, there’s always stronger aspects of the industry and maybe
things that go wrong in a particular year. But this year, this past year was
very, very good overall.
Don
McBean: —
I sort of expected that. And I know when we get down to the budget numbers,
yeah, we’re up 191,000 I think this year. But still, from two years ago, we’re
down. Maybe just remind us why there was such a drop from ’24‑5 to ’25‑6
and what it is that we can do or what impact that might be having.
Jonathan Potts:
— Thank you for the question, Mr. McBean. My memory doesn’t go back that far,
so I had to talk to the smart people behind me. A few things. So as a treasury
board Crown, we do receive funding or can receive funding from partners.
Federal partners, for example, like PrairiesCan [Prairies Economic Development
Canada].
So we did have one-time
funding for a marketing program to help bolster the assets content that our
business and meeting events programs had, and the two major cities had to
promote themselves in those markets. We did have one-time Grey Cup funding in
that year as well, so of course that went away.
With Destination Canada, we
used to receive funding in the order of about $250,000 per year, along with
Travel Manitoba, who received the same amount. So the two provinces promoted
our, you know, what we consider to be the best freshwater fishing in North
America, and how we promoted it in the US. So that program went away with some
federal cuts. And just generally event-based . . . you know, when you
see fluctuations like that, it’s often event-based, so that in any given year
it can go up or it can go down.
Don
McBean: —
Thank you. And certainly we understand that there are those fluctuations. And I
think if I understood correctly, if I’d have gone back to ’23‑24, maybe I
would have seen a big bump in ’24‑5. And I understand how that goes.
There’s the question of, you know, the ongoing funding and what comes in from
other sources and who you’re partnering with. Do you project that there’s
stable funding coming from federal and other? Or is that something that we can
predict at all?
Jonathan
Potts: —
With federal funding, you know, in the current state, as everyone knows,
there’s been some significant cuts at the federal level. That certainly
trickles down to an organization like Tourism Saskatchewan. So I think you
probably have access to our business plan. You can see that the bulk of our
federal funding has currently dried up. That doesn’t mean it’s gone forever,
but just in the current climate it’s maybe not as much of a priority for the
federal government.
In recent years, especially
in and just after the pandemic, there were some federal programs through
PrairiesCan that we were able to access, and you would have seen increased
investment from the federal government. Right now tourism isn’t a priority.
There is one project that
we’ll . . . I won’t name it because it’s not anywhere near signed,
but one project we’re looking at with PrairiesCan. But that would likely be
more of a flow-through than anything.
Don
McBean: —
Thank you very much for that. I’m going to jump to hunting and fishing. I
think, you know, I made the mistake of reading last year’s Hansard and
thought, oh my God, I’ve already said all these things before. But you know, I
was a fishing guide for five summers in the ’80s, right. So hunting and
fishing, especially the fishing part. And I guess I can’t go through this
without asking about the hike or the realignment of the hunting and fishing
licensing. It’s not exactly . . . It probably wasn’t a tourism idea,
but it happened.
And I’m wondering if there’s
some sense of what the rise in or raising of hunting and fishing licence might
be, if that’s looked at, or even maybe where it came from. Yeah.
Chair
B. McLeod: — I’ll just interject here.
That largely is a question that’s more connected with the Environment side of
the file. So I think there’s some broad strokes that you maybe can touch on
there, but I’m not looking for a complete answer, knowing that it is an
environmental file that’ll be there. So thank you.
Don
McBean: —
Perfect.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Yes.
Don
McBean: —
Interesting, because it aligns with the follow-up.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Yes.
Jonathan
Potts: —
So if I may. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is definitely the context. So it’s
primarily an Environment initiative.
In
terms of demand for licences, I don’t think it’ll have a significant impact,
especially when we’re talking about the US
visitor. Our US visitor is a high-spending visitor, so you know, the cost of a
licence isn’t going to impact their decision to travel here or not.
Don
McBean: —
Because as well as the raising of the cost, there was a fairly significant —
but again, it came from Environment — the restriction of the season pass for
hunting from out of province and out of country. Again, that’s not your call. I
wasn’t so aware that there was such a virulent illegal outfitting program going
on, but apparently there was.
And it seems to be well
received, but I’m curious when that kind of decision gets made by Environment —
maybe for good environmental reasons — how Tourism feels about that. Five-day
hunting is not uncommon. Like, people like to come and hunt for a week, say. Do
we have some sense that that might impact?
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
So thank you for the question. Interestingly enough, we met with the
outfitters’ group this morning, and they actually are supportive of the changes
that have been made in Environment to try and get a bit more control over some
of the illegal outfitting that’s going on in the province.
And as Jonathan alluded to,
the people who are coming up and are taking part in this, like, the travellers
that are coming, they spend a lot. So marginal increases in the licences isn’t
going to impact them or prevent them from coming up to Saskatchewan. They come
here for the experience, and they’re quite prepared to pay for it.
Don
McBean: —
No doubt. Some of this will just be you helping me understand. In the ’26‑7
business plan, there’s a line, partnership revenue at $9,000 — page 13 in the
business plan — and that seems to be a significant decrease. And I’m not going
to tell you where to find it, but I have $70,000 in front of me and now it’s
down to nine, which either I’m misunderstanding something or something has
changed. Yes, in the partnership revenue idea.
Jonathan Potts:
— Just as I start to answer that question, I’m going to take a moment to give a
plug for our CFO [chief financial officer] who’s going to be retiring at the
end of June. So Rae Gallivan’s put in 28 years with the Government of
Saskatchewan and is, in a few months, going to be enjoying more time with her
partner, their dog Teal, and her two young grandchildren, as well as obviously
her kids. So just want to say thanks as I look back here for some of these
answers.
So in short, there’s one
significant change there. In past years we have partnered with the Ministry of
Parks, Culture and Sport on the Saskatchewanderer program. We’ve taken the
program over completely, so they are no longer a partner in the program. Doesn’t
mean we’re not promoting parks. But that’s the revenue difference.
Don
McBean: —
Well that does explain it. And that also kind of leads into a question that’s
queued up.
And I guess if there’s a
question in that, it’s just sort of a bit of an understanding of how unique or
how siloed tourism is, perhaps. And probably in my limited understanding of
financial operations — I’m sorry — the money’s coming from tourism, goes just
to . . . It’s recorded under tourism, but there’s obviously there has
to be a lot of crossover with all of this in the training, in the labour, in
all of that.
Can you give me a better
sense of how that’s working in Saskatchewan so that the comparative of tourism
per capita doesn’t look so awkward?
[19:15]
Jonathan Potts:
— Sure. I don’t have per capita numbers that you’re looking at. And you’re
right, the mandates of the different provincial marketing organizations — so
the acronym for an organization like Tourism Saskatchewan in the country is a
PMO [provincial marketing organization] — the mandates are very different
across the country when you look at them.
So you know, we have the
broadest mandate in the sense of we do have marketing, obviously. Visitor
services, destination, workforce development, policy, research, and so on are
all in our own shop. In some provinces it’s just the marketing piece. In some
provinces they also have, as you alluded to, the responsibility for things like
provincial parks. So you’re looking at very different pieces across the
country. You can’t really compare apples to apples.
Don McBean: — Okay,
which goes together with, I think there’s a reduction in marketing from
something like 51 per cent to 44 per cent of the budget this year. Is that a
function of reduced revenues or just a reprioritization of how this goes? And
maybe you already answered that. Go ahead.
Jonathan Potts:
— Again, so thank you for the question. Yeah, it’s actually a pretty simple
answer for this one. We just moved budget from one area to another. So the
minister had spoken about our MEPP [marketing and event partnership program]
program, marketing events and partnership program. We had moved dollars in our
budget from marketing over to destination development. So it’s 700‑odd
thousand dollars plus one position’s salary went over there as well. So really
you’re just looking at sort of an internal shifting of the dollars.
Don
McBean: —
I know I have a bit of a reputation; I always have to tell a story. But as a
principal, I drove my admin assistant crazy because all I ever wanted to see
was the last number on the bottom right-hand corner, or the number on the
bottom right-hand corner of the last page. And she wanted me to understand that
. . . So what I think your answer is, is that it’s about the same.
There’s still the same emphasis on marketing and effort being made. It’s just
being called a couple of different things now?
Jonathan Potts:
— That’s correct.
Don
McBean: —
Yeah. Okay, we’re chugging through this. Because in the priorities for this
year, AI is a big deal. It’s one of the two in the highlighted initiatives in
this year. I get it, you know, it’s 2026. Started in 2024, everything’s AI. I
guess if there’s a single question to start with, we know that AI is important.
We know that AI is taking over lots of aspects of what it is. Maybe you could
give a bit of a general sense of it, and then how much of it could be
considered in terms of staff reductions and salary reduction. Yeah, we’ll start
with that one.
Jonathan Potts:
— Again thank you for the question. Happy to talk about this one at length
actually, depending on how long an answer you want.
Don
McBean: —
Well the clock isn’t advancing so very quickly. Go ahead.
Jonathan Potts:
— I’ll maybe start by saying we’re very, very proud of our organizational
culture at Tourism Saskatchewan. So you know, first of all it’s a place that
people like to work. Our employee engagement surveys, you know, that are done
across government in every ministry, Crown, etc., we do very, very well in
those. You know, that’s a function of the people that I work with. So our
employees developed a culture statement. So we have words like innovation,
creativity, empowerment, collaboration, and respect in there, so we are
constantly looking to evolve.
We are a part of government
obviously, but we are also in an industry — marketing generally and tourism
specifically — where AI adoption is huge. So we have to keep up with the times
if you will, and you know, not be left behind.
And frankly we try to
position ourselves — and you might appreciate this joke because I know that
you’re from southwest Saskatchewan — I say, not at the vanguard; my board Chair
says, yes we try to be Ponteix. So you know, we want to be close to the
vanguard, but not leading the way.
So we are always thinking
about ways to incorporate AI in our work. We completed a digital transformation
strategy in the last couple of years. So that’s helped guide some of the steps
that we’re taking. We actually have six or seven AI projects under way right
now. But I’ll stop and answer the first part of your question and maybe follow
up after if you’re interested.
So in terms of staff
reduction, that’s not part of what we’re looking at. What we’re looking at is
better utilizing people’s time. So if I can give you an example of, just a
simple example. On our IT [information technology] support team, one of the
staff is developing an AI tool that when people submit a ticket for a problem,
you know, that that team usually needs to solve, they’re developing a tool that
can solve the simple problems and solve the problem without having to waste the
time of our IT professionals who can better utilize their time doing something
else.
But we’re looking at all
sorts of different ways. So we had a new employee start in December or January
— I forget which — a younger person. She took the opportunity with our
onboarding materials to feed them into our internal AI processes. Developed a better
onboarding tool in her first couple of weeks of work. And obviously for
somebody that’s going through the onboarding process, you know, she’s the
actual user of the product, right. So those are the kind of things that, some
of the easy-to-understand things that we’re doing right off the bat. Happy to
talk more about that, too. So no staffing reductions, no salary reductions tied
to AI.
Don
McBean: —
Far be it for me to fearmonger on AI; I’m actually an all-in, both feet, with
the idea. But it still needs to be articulated and addressed. I’ve learned from
hanging out with tourism people this last year a bit that a lot of people are
doing their own AI, like they’re planning their own trips, they’re planning
. . . And I hear you, it’s sort of part of the marketing, it’s part
of the . . . maybe the AI part of it as well.
The packages that we’re
creating, the promotion, the marketing that you’re doing, do you feel that it’s
having the effect, or are people quite . . . Maybe this is just
anecdotal, but people plan their own trips by feeding in, “Saskatoon, three
days, two kids, what do I do?” And the free AI is all right there for us.
Do we recognize that? How do
we feel? Is the marketing that Tourism Saskatchewan is developing in
competition or in parallel or how do we situate that, I wonder?
Jonathan Potts:
— You nailed it there, Mr. McBean, in terms of how people are using AI for
searches. And that’s why again, like I say, we want to be Ponteix. I do this
myself. If I’m going to Ontario, I don’t go to Ontario’s website to look at
things to do. I’ll say, I’m going to Ottawa for three or four days, these are
the types of things I want to do, maybe the types of restaurants I want to
experience, and so on and so forth, right?
So we know that and that’s
why we’re always research driven and consumer driven. So for years it’s been
called search engine optimization on standard websites, as you would know. Now
it’s called generative engine optimization, or GEO. So what we have to do with
our content is make sure that AI tools generate answers that include, cite, or
mention tourism and tourism experiences in Saskatchewan, perhaps Tourism
Saskatchewan.
People are used to Google,
for example, where you would get the list, you get 10 items on a page and then
10 on the next page and so on. That’s not where things are going anymore. Now
it’s about getting that, like you said, that personalized response based on the
query that you put in.
So we’ve just done content
audits on all four of our web properties to see how well they appear in GEO
searches and where they show up in things like Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini,
Claude, and so on. So one of our goals in the upcoming year is to work on our GEO
rankings. I think that’s probably the main thing I want to say about that right
now. But yeah, it’s a major focus of our work that we want to improve our GEO
rankings continuously because AI continues to evolve and we’ll continue to
evolve.
Don
McBean: —
You mention, you know, you’re data driven of course. I spent a little bit of
time sort of looking at all the metrics. And you and Minister Ross, you threw
out a lot of numbers of this initiative bringing in this many million hits and
views and all of that. And the question behind that observation is, yes, we’re
data driven. But I’m curious how you see the data actually influencing the
decision. Or is it more confirmation? Oh we did this and we got 62 or 62,000
hits? Which way do you see it? Do you see data driving it, or just sort of as a
confirmation that what you’re doing is working now?
[19:30]
Jonathan Potts:
— All right, I’ll start with maybe talking a little bit about our strategies,
which you’ve probably seen in the business plan as well. So generally speaking
with our marketing strategy, again it’s very much data driven. I think I might
have said this last year, so please bear with me.
Don
McBean: —
I might not remember it.
Jonathan Potts:
— I might not either. You know, in this province we know that we don’t compete
one-on-one with California or Florida or Niagara Falls or Vancouver, whatever
it might be. We pursue a niche strategy in our marketing and in our development
work because we know that we can outcompete other destinations across Canada
and North America and often around the world on that basis. So that’s all
driven by data.
So we’ve made a number of
significant choices in our marketing and in our development work that are tied
to niches. So things like birding we can outperform. We’re already
outperforming in things like hunting and fishing, nature photography,
astrotourism — I’ll talk about that maybe in a little bit — and so forth.
All those decisions are made
from data analysis. So taking it to actual marketing, to your point, reporting
is great. That’s something that we do, and obviously we need to do for the
purposes of using public dollars and obviously in any context. But more
important to us as marketers is our ability, first of all, to use that data to
predict behaviour because tourism is all about consumer behaviour.
So we want to be able to
predict behaviour, and ideally we want to be able to prescribe behaviour. And I
know that sounds manipulative or maybe Machiavellian or something, but ideally
you want to be able to say, if we spend X number of dollars on a particular
marketing campaign using this type of messaging, we will generate Y in return.
So that’s the nature of our business and how we want to use that data.
Don
McBean: —
Okay, so then are there instances — and I’m not asking you to out yourselves —
but instances where you’re starting a project, you’re taking the data, and
you’re saying, no, this isn’t working? We need to reorient? We need to
recalibrate something?
Jonathan
Potts: —
Absolutely. One of the standard approaches in modern marketing and digital
marketing is you can course correct all the time. So you don’t make a
million-dollar investment and then — unless you’re doing something like TV
advertising, which we don’t do anymore — find out that it’s a failure.
So
what you do is digital advertising, and you see how the market responds to the
ads you’re putting out in real time. And if they’re performing the way that you
want them to perform — maybe the way that you predicted, to my earlier point —
then you continue down that path. If they’re not responding to that, you can
pull that type of advertising or modify it to try to get a different result.
Don McBean: — And I don’t want to belabour the
point so much. I guess when we know that we have X million views and that many
hits, do we have the causal connection between that and an increase in tourism?
Because I mean I’m not pointing a finger, but I’m saying our tourism numbers
are going up a bit, and I get that there’s lots of competition out there, etc.
But do we know that the metric that we’re using is having dollars on the ground
or dollars in the pocket? Is there a way that we’re able to identify that?
Yeah.
Jonathan Potts:
— Okay, I’ll try and answer that one in a couple different ways. So we’ll start
with going back to . . . I’ll use this as an example. We did an
in-house winter campaign just over the last few months. So we started with
. . . We always talk about the marketing funnels. So you start with
more data, more content at the top. As I mentioned about course correction, you
put it all out there and you start to see what’s working and maybe what’s not
working. So over time you pare that down.
What you want to get to is go
from awareness of the experience to a perception that it’s a great experience.
Eventually work your way down, as I’m sure you know, to actually booking,
right? So that’s the ultimate metric is if somebody books a trip and dollars
are exchanged. That’s what we want. And so over the course of our winter
campaign we did exactly that.
I was just saying with Amy
that it didn’t bring those results — much to my chagrin — to answer your
question. But our team did a really great job of doing exactly those things, of
really focusing in on the things that mattered. So by the end of the campaign,
what we were focused on was snowmobiling and cozy accommodations, so you know,
kind of getaways for people to get to in Saskatchewan in the winter.
Another piece because — and
probably if you read our materials, which I’m sure you did — we do want to be
an export industry in general terms and in specific terms, so bringing in
dollars from outside the province. And we care a great deal if it comes from
within the country but not within Saskatchewan because it’s still new dollars
to the province, and ideally a true export industry in having the dollars come
from outside the country.
So we marketed that campaign
basically in Western Canada and out to Ontario. When we saw we were getting
more hits early on in Saskatchewan — I think because people in Saskatchewan
were familiar with what we were putting in front of them so they were generally
interested in clicking — we actually moved away from that so we could get more
of those out-of-province visitors from around the country, and then focused on
clicks to operator sites, so getting to that sort of “book now” option. So
that’s how we do that.
I do want to come back to GEO
for just a second because that is something that’s transforming the way we
think about our website. And it’s exactly what you described. So even up until
the last few years — and people obviously still use things like Google or Bing
or what have you to do their searches — but we used to, and we do still,
measure the amount of time spent on our website.
One of the things we’ve
noticed over the past fiscal year is that because of GEO, we’re seeing less
human time spent on our website and more AI tools spending time on our website
finding the data for those answers that you’re looking for in the types of searches
you describe. So our time spent on our website has actually decreased, partly
because it’s AI tools scraping our website to get that data as opposed to a
human spending time clicking and reading. So you know, some of our metrics over
time become, I don’t want to say passé, but the relevance decreases due to the
advancement in technology.
Don
McBean: —
Fascinating. As soon as you started saying that I thought, oh, I know where
this is going. Yeah, crazy. Okay, thank you. It’s very reassuring to hear those
answers articulated as clearly.
Little bit shifting gear, I
guess, is to go to the whole work readiness pilot — you know, well the specific
pilot project that you have, the whole work readiness. You know, I’ve met with
a number of different people. Found out that the guy with Saskatchewan
hospitality, I taught his kids, you know, when I had a meeting with him. It’s a
big deal. And I noticed that you introduced — I didn’t catch your name — but
the destination workforce development person, who I think I’m looking at.
And again there’s all sorts
of numbers that come up with this. There’s all sorts of different programs. So
let me try and start with one specific . . . Maybe just explain —
because I wasn’t as aware of the Immigration and Career Training until I read
it here just a day or two ago — how hands-on Tourism Saskatchewan is in
building those numbers of trained persons.
Tracy Breher:
— Tracy Breher, vice-president of destination and workforce development. Okay,
so I think you’ve asked a bunch of questions. To start with the Work Ready
program, for a number of years — well, almost 30 years — Tourism Saskatchewan
delivered a program called Ready to Work which was funded partially by the
Ministry of ICT [Immigration and Career Training] and partially from assorted
federal government programs. And over the last year and a half, the federal
government programming has stopped for that.
So we had a gap and we have
managed to build a partnership with the Ministry of Immigration and Career
Training to be able to provide funding that we can still provide
tourism-specific training to people within the province to get them the extra
skills they need to be able to go work within the industry. With the former
Ready to Work program, we delivered a very intense 30‑week program
teaching entry-level skills, workplace essentials, some really basic pieces to
help people who have barriers to sustained employment be able to get working.
And what we’re doing now,
instead of doing all of the entry-level training, is we’re partnering with
other groups and associations, organizations across the province who are
already doing that entry-level training. So there are groups all over the
province who are already doing essential skills training, helping people get
ready to go to work.
And it’s working. It’s
working really well. So not only are the participants coming out with national
certifications in tourism-specific occupations, we are hosting little events
after with employers and the participants as well as the programs that we have
partnered with to kind of find these participants. And they are getting hired
in the lunches. So we bring everybody together for lunch. We bring some
employers in, we bring the participants in, and people are getting hired right
in the room.
[19:45]
Don
McBean: —
The way you describe that, it makes a good deal of sense to be training people
in a very general sense with a specific tourism part at the end of it. Not sure
if this relates exactly, but there is a performance measure in the business
plan now. And again maybe just my curiosity. Number of people trained annually,
16,000‑some. And then number of individuals trained through the entry
program, 125. And I just, I don’t understand what we’re measuring there.
Tracy Breher:
— So the 125 would be the Work Ready program specifically. The 16,000 — and it
is now, our number for this fiscal year that’s just ending, is just over 15,000
— is number of people trained through all Tourism Saskatchewan programs. So we
offer a number of training programs. We deliver the Serve It Right and
CannaSell programs. We deliver customer service training. We deliver other
. . . we work with businesses around custom tourism training even.
And so those numbers, and then including our webinar numbers, will hit just
over 15,000.
Don
McBean: —
The disparity in those numbers kind of struck me. And again there’s probably a
good reason that it was 125 and now it’s 75 is the target. Is there
. . .
Tracy Breher:
— It’s a pilot program. We started as a pilot program. We’re in year two of
kind of a pilot program and we are working out all of the bumps along the way.
So what we found the first year was that there was some more administration
than what we had thought. So the second year we’ve managed to make sure that
we’ve got the staff resources to provide the support to the agencies that we’re
working with to be able to do a really good job.
Don
McBean: —
But it’s the same program. You still have the same target. It’s going to work
better with a lower number of people that you’re going to be working with.
Okay.
And again I’m not sure how
this can be answered exactly, but you don’t have to have paid very much
attention to know that tourism is a very seasonal thing. And this is what I
heard from just about everybody that I might have spoken with. You know, how do
we turn it . . . And snowmobiling and niche marketing might be part
of it. But is there a sense of what can be done to keep people working in
tourism 12 months a year? Is there a target for that?
Tracy
Breher: —
We will always have a seasonal industry, but we are doing a lot of work to help
businesses expand. And we’re doing that in multiple ways.
So the diversification
funding program helps businesses expand into, like expand their operating
seasons. We help businesses fund . . . like we fund businesses to
winterize cabins as an example, which all of a sudden means that they can be
open year-round instead of just over the warmer spring-to-fall seasons. And
those sort of pieces will help with the seasonality.
The rest of it, you know, we
talk to employers about innovative business practices, thinking about HR [human
resources] a little bit differently. We have, you know, an industry built of a
lot of part-time positions, and we know that that is difficult. But there are
ways to think about positions differently by partnering with another business
in your community and offering a full-time job where you might have two
part-time jobs. And there are ways to I guess modernize how employers are
thinking about employment that way. And we’re doing lots of work that way
through the webinars, through coaching with businesses to try and talk about
creative solutions to the challenges.
We know there’s lots of
challenges. Recruiting workers I guess is the largest challenge facing tourism
businesses globally, and we see that. I mean what is going on in Saskatchewan
certainly parallels that. Younger workers are less likely to accept those
unpredictable work schedules that come with tourism jobs, and seasonal demand
increases the reliance on those part-time, temporary, and kind of multi-job
workers.
So combined with all of that
I think we have a widening skills gap, especially around digital and leadership
skills. So technical and digital literacy is one of the fastest growing skill
needs across tourism roles, and proficiency is pretty low. So there are ways
again training-wise that we can address some of those things.
The other piece is that
tourism jobs require a lot of soft skills, so those interactions, to be able to
talk to people, to be able to think on your feet, respond to questions. And
those again are a bit of a challenge with some of those kids who are growing up
living on their phones.
And a phenomenal opportunity
— 7 out of 10 workers get their first jobs in tourism. And so whether you stay
in the industry or whether you go to work somewhere else, the skills that
you’re learning in those tourism jobs are transferrable to other careers and
other occupations that people might take on. So those are certainly some of the
places.
And Jonathan was worried
about, you know, you unleashing a lot of response around AI. I’m sorry because,
you know, our passion towards this I guess comes through here.
Don
McBean: —
Yeah, no. No, that I guess I already said it. I’m very comfortable with the
idea that we’re adopting this. Maybe a bit of, kind of jumping around for a few
different more little specific things.
Minister Ross, you mentioned
some big-ticket events coming in. The Grey Cup. You reminded me about the
Brier. So the Grey Cup’s in 2027. Is that started? Is Tourism Saskatchewan
involved in the Grey Cup or is it a CFL [Canadian Football League]-Roughrider
thing? I’m curious. Is there money from the government going to the Grey Cup at
this point already? How that might be working, and the Brier and the few others
that you mentioned.
Jonathan Potts:
— So again, thanks for the question. As you know, the minister mentioned and I
mentioned in some of my earlier remarks, event funding is part of what we do.
And helping local partners get their bids over the finish line with the
assistance of government is a big part of what our team does.
So for big events
. . . And I would suggest that the two biggest events that
Saskatchewan really is best suited to realize from a sporting perspective are
the Grey Cup and the Brier. The Brier is the biggest curling event in the world
and has, you know, 8 or 10 days of national eyeballs turned on Saskatchewan —
millions of viewers and great opportunity for exposure but also great revenue
opportunities for the host community, in this case Saskatoon.
Grey Cup is certainly a
similar thing, as you well know. So yes, part of our role is to work with the
Roughriders, the city in the case of the Grey Cup, Regina Hotel Association,
and so forth to help put together the bid and to help work it through government
to receive some government funding to bring that event here. And that’s
standard across the country.
Don
McBean: —
Yes, okay, which kind of tags in with another line of thought that I’ve had.
And some of the learning that I’ve benefited and enjoyed this year is all the
different destination groups — the Discover Saskatoon, the Moose Jaw one. And
anyway they’re everywhere.
And the question behind that
is, you know, how much of that is a partnership? How much of that is a
competition amongst them — I get the sense that there’s a certain amount of
competition between the various centres, the urban centres — and what role Tourism
Saskatchewan has in coordinating that or partnering with all of that?
Jonathan
Potts: —
Yeah. So you know, in Saskatchewan there are two major . . . I had
mentioned that the acronym for an organization like ours is PMO. For Regina and
Saskatoon they’re called CMOs, or city marketing organizations. The structures
are very, very different in Regina and Saskatoon.
So in Saskatoon there’s
Discover Saskatoon that does a lot of that work. And then a lot of its funding
support comes from the SDMH [Saskatoon Destination Marketing Hotels], the
Saskatoon destination hotel . . . sorry. SDMH anyway, the hotels association.
So in Regina there’s a separate hotels association and Tourism Regina. Tourism
Regina is part of the city of Regina. Certainly they compete for things like
business events, sometimes sporting events. Typically though each city has its
own specialties or things that it does better perhaps than the other.
If you think of business
events, often that’s tied to even just different aspects of the agricultural
sector that one city or the other might specialize in, different types of
mining, you know, forestry, etc. We talked about some of those, you know, areas
of strength for the province. If you think about our universities — natural
sciences — there’s different strengths at each university as well.
So where we love to see
things go is when our partners are really focused on their strengths. That
doesn’t mean they don’t end up competing for certain events. But if, you know,
Saskatoon will be hosting the Brier here in relatively short order, it’s more
likely to be Regina’s turn next time, right. So that’s typically the way things
work with the rights holders like the Canadian curling association too.
Don
McBean: —
Again I warned you I’m going to start sort of jumping around all over. This was
already a question, and then during the Parks . . . Sport, Parks and
Culture — I really should learn how to say that properly. You know, there was
talk about Globe. And I know within Tourism and working in partnership with
other shadow . . . You know, we’ve met with any number of local
organizations, from the Wonderhub to the Jazz Festival. All these different
things, and in my mind these are Tourism.
[20:00]
Jonathan Potts:
— Yeah, so again it’s a bit of a multi-part answer, so please bear with me. You
know, it’s something that certainly I’ve dealt with throughout my career and
our team has dealt with through their careers as well.
You know, first of all I’d
say Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan communities, Saskatchewan people are very
good at putting on events. In communities big and small you can find, you know,
very well-organized events that draw people in from the community and also from
beyond in some cases.
We are Tourism Saskatchewan
so our focus is always going to be on those things that generate tourism
dollars, so generate people travelling, spending more money on things like
restaurants, accommodations, you name the activity when they’re in the community.
So for us one of the things
we look at is the distance that an event draws people from. Ideally, and a lot
of organizations do this, but ideally we look at, you know, it’s very helpful
if an event tracks its visitors. It doesn’t have to be an in-depth survey, but
if they have the ability to ask people where they’re from, how long they’re
staying, if they’re staying in accommodations, if they’re eating out, those
kind of things, it really helps us in our metrics.
We
also look for things, you know, like I said . . . So that leads to
economic impact. But we also look for things like brand alignment. So there’s
literally hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of events in theory we could
support, but we do have to draw the line somewhere because our budget is not
infinite. So we do look for things like brand alignment, things that are going
to help tell the story of Saskatchewan. And as I’ve talked about our
data-driven marketing approach, we’re looking often for events that help tell
the story of Saskatchewan, help tell the story of our communities.
So some of the events that
you mentioned too certainly receive funding, and there’s a broad spectrum that
do right across the province.
Don
McBean: —
And I wouldn’t take that any further because then I would be outing people who
are complaining, you know. Heaven forbid we should do something on that order.
I had Wanuskewin down as
something, but I believe, Minister Ross, you pretty much addressed that. You’re
aware of, obviously, and supporting the UNESCO. I’ve been out there a few
times, partly because my riding goes right up to the edge of Wanuskewin. Again
the question would be, you’re aware of Wanuskewin. You know how important the
UNESCO heritage would be. How do you feel their chances are at this point? And
is there something that Tourism Saskatchewan is doing to ensure that they’re
moving forward? Is there collaboration? That sort of thing.
Jonathan Potts:
— So I’m not going to speculate on their chances. I don’t think that would be
appropriate. But I think they’re high. I’ll just leave it at that. We work very
closely with Wanuskewin, and we have for a very long time. We really enjoy
working with their team, and I mean that most sincerely. We did sign an MOU a
few months ago with the intention of supporting Wanuskewin in its bid to
becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The purpose of that
. . . I mean I just stated the purpose of that, I guess, but you
know, by doing so we are agreeing to support Wanuskewin in terms of marketing,
in terms of training and education, in terms of experiential development. It’s
a very complex bid, and in a way I’m grateful they’re doing it and not me,
because it is extremely complex and multi-faceted. But any of the facets that
we can lend a hand on, we are trying to help with.
So that was the purpose of
the MOU, to make sure that, you know, we can provide that support and are aware
of that support that is needed, and needed at different times as they push to
become a heritage site.
Don
McBean: —
An MOU that the government signs with Wanuskewin, is that something I should
have noticed? Are those publicized? Am I not just looking in the right place?
Jonathan Potts:
— We didn’t . . . I’ll be honest. We didn’t put a news release out
with it. Really it was a formalization of many things that we were already
doing, but just clarifying the intent as opposed to having, you know, just
various actions and tactical steps that we were doing. We wanted to say this is
part of a coordinated effort to make sure that we get there.
Don
McBean: —
Yeah, and I didn’t say that in any sort of accusatory tone. It was more like,
you know, I’m just not looking in the right places always. But you say that
it’s a complex application. A few of us were out there — and I forget the
woman’s name who seems to be the lead on it — and at one point, for the other
members, I’ll say I’ve learned, or if we didn’t know that provincial
bureaucracy was long and arduous, UNESCO bureaucracy I think is tenfold or a
hundredfold. It’s just insane what they’re having to do. So that’s very
reassuring to know that we’re all on board with that, because it’ll be a big
deal.
And again, kind of almost
jumping around randomly at this point, I had drafted up a thing about, you
know, the whole French tourism. There’s a bit of . . . And then, you
know, maybe I clicked a little further into Tourism Saskatchewan and said, oh
yeah, it’s there already. But you know that that’s something that has become
important to me, and it seems like a niche. And so I’m going to specifically
ask if there’s efforts — without going back into reading the web page — but in
the francophone, Fransaskois French.
Jonathan Potts:
— Yeah, really happy to answer that question. So just starting with our
customer service team, we receive over 10,000 customer service requests in a
given year. So that can come in a variety of forms. It could be a phone call,
it could be in person, it could be email, it could be live chat, you know, any
number of forms.
So of those 10,000 or so we
receive roughly 20 inquiries in French. So that works out to 0.5 per cent if my
math doesn’t fail me. And I don’t say that to say that providing service in
French isn’t important. I just want to give a sense of the scale and the effort
required to service those requests.
You know, of those 20 or so
requests, interestingly, typically about half of those come from French
speakers who are not from Canada, often from France, so who are travelling
across the country, maybe heading to the mountains. And we always resolve those
types of requests adequately. But you know, whether it’s providing information
in print, we’re able to translate.
We’re able to work with the
ministry you were speaking to before, and they do help us translate our visitor
guide, which is now all digital. Francophone affairs helps us with that. You
know, we are able to use things like AI now and translation tools to assist us
if the going really gets sticky. But we’re always able to resolve those
requests.
You know, Tracy was up here
before talking about our training and education program, so I just do want to
touch on that. All the courses that we deliver are available in French, and we
do have a French-speaking contracted facilitator who can deliver training
programs in French. And we do receive occasional requests for that.
Probably there’s two more
things I want to say. And one of them is we do work with the conseil, the CÉCS
[Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan], on a variety of
opportunities. And typically they come to us. For example they’ll market Saskatchewan
in Quebec, something we’re not — to my earlier point — maybe well-suited to do
in terms of doing so in French, but they are able to do that. So we supply them
with content and marketing materials and so forth, and then they translate that
and use it for their purposes.
The last thing maybe I want
to say is if you’re familiar with the Économusée program, which is something
relatively new to me but something that I had the opportunity actually to
participate in one of our Saskatchewan businesses with the Chair of this committee
with their launch as an Économusée a couple of years ago.
So it’s a working artisan
business that combines traditional production — I’m reading this now — with
interpretation and visitor education, so allowing the public to see
craftspeople or producers at work while learning about history, skills, and
cultural heritage behind the product.
So we have six Économusées
across Saskatchewan, which I won’t name right now but they range from, you
know, honey making to distilleries to pottery-makers and so forth. So they’re
places where, destinations where service can be provided fluently in French.
But there is also that cultural heritage component, typically a food component
or something tied to food or perhaps liquor or some other craft beverage. And
yeah, it’s a growing area and something that’s recognized certainly by
French-speaking travellers.
Don
McBean: —
Thank you for that. And I’m going to find out what the Économusée is because I
think it’s exactly what I was thinking could be such another one of those niche
things.
Again jumping around, the
other one is the Back to Batoche, you know, which has just . . . In
my limited exposure to it, what I knew was Back to Batoche. And then I went
there this year and was like, oh my goodness, it is such a huge piece.
And it ties in to what you
already identified, Minister Ross, with the, you know, the tourism group that
starts with a “P” that I can’t pronounce yet either until I practise it a
little bit more. Those priorities in terms of niche, in terms of the idea that
it’s a multi-day trip and travelling. I guess there’s not a question there
because you’ve already told me that, or told us, that that’s what’s going on
and that’s part of the effort.
I’m starting to wind down.
I’m not sure how long your final comments will be. My partners are looking at
their . . . yeah. What was I going to say though? I said the French,
the increase. All my scribbled notes are getting crossed off.
This has been very
. . . Yeah, I enjoy this. It’s not, to me I don’t feel like I
. . . Within tourism at least it’s just more of a learning and
understanding the work that you’re doing. There may be things of controversy,
but mostly it’s just very reassuring to hear from you and your team how well
this is going.
Oh,
I know. The final question was, and the way I wrote it down here was, if you
had an extra $10 million what would you do with it? And then I went, like
I said, I read Hansard from last year. Last year I called it the magic
wand question, which is always . . . So if you had a significant
amount of money that fell from wherever, what would be . . . I guess
I’m looking for something more than just doing everything you’re doing a little
better. Like what are we missing? What’s not on the table that could be if we
had some unlimited fund?
[20:15]
Jonathan Potts:
— All right, well again I’ll give you a bit of a multi-part answer. I did
consult with the team so I didn’t try to get consensus on one single issue. And
we’ll cheat a bit because a little bit of what’s new is what’s old.
You know, we talked about
niche marketing. That’s been a strategic focus for the last number of years but
something we could do a lot more of, and a lot more of around the world. We
know that our astrotourism work is really resonating.
So we do work with the
largest publisher of tourism content in the world. It’s called Matador Network.
We released a video online in January on astrotourism in Saskatchewan. So it’s
primarily in southwest Saskatchewan: Cypress Hills, which is a dark-sky preserve;
Great Sand Hills got in there; and I want to say that Grasslands was in there.
Grasslands might not have been in there judging by the look that Amy just gave
me.
So in any event it’s an
amazing, amazing video. It is outperforming every other video on Matador’s
worldwide network right now. So think of places like Santa Fe, New Mexico, the
Black Hills in South Dakota, and so on that are much better known certainly within
the US market. So think of, you know, a factor of 10, how much larger the US
population is than ours. Our content is outperforming them on the astrotourism
front.
So you know, with more money
would we take that story and tell those stories more around the world?
Absolutely. We know we have incredible product here and incredible experiences
here to sell. We’re getting more and more industry members that are taking people
out that, you know, maybe have done this as a hobby in the past or have some
expertise and are . . . We would certainly promote things like that
more.
You know, you asked some good
questions about AI. So one of the things that helps improve your visibility in
AI, in the AI world, is earned media. So you know, our budget is what it is,
and our budget is sufficient. But if we had a lot more money, we would
certainly — to my point about things like astrotourism and birding — bring even
more media from around the world to Saskatchewan to experience those things;
get that content published on our website, again so that we are the trusted
source for that content; and ensure that people, wherever they may be, are
learning more about those experiences being told by people that are relatable
to them. So if they’re from the US, you know, maybe an American writer or video
producer. If they’re from Europe, same thing. Asia, same thing. So you know, we
would certainly use dollars on that front.
And lastly you did talk about
events towards the end. We would want to incubate some events, especially
business events going forward. So talking about our sectors of strength and
talking about, you know . . . I’ll use the U of S [University
of Saskatchewan] as an example, and you know, all the great things that happen
there. We have a company that we work with out of the UK that helps us search
for, find . . . What’s the word I’m looking for, Amy?
Amy McInnis:
— Lead generation.
Jonathan Potts:
— Lead generation. Thank you. Sorry, my mind went blank there. It helps us with
lead generation to bring events tied to our sectors of strength or research
areas of strength, so we would amplify that work as well.
So there’s crossover in the
tourism industry, you know, with the university community, with the business
community. Anything we can do to help elevate Saskatchewan in different
business spheres and in different academic spheres by bringing, you know, the
best people in the world in some of those fields here, we would absolutely do
with more dollars.
Don
McBean: —
Thanks. Yeah, I think you sort of encapsulated something that I’ve been saying
for the last year, which is, well yeah, when you’re shadow minister for Tourism
or Minister for Tourism, it really applies to everything. Like everything can
be spun.
A couple of quick ones, and
now I’m going to take us right up to the clock perhaps. You mentioned, and I
had made myself a note that I see again, about the access, you know, our travel
access. Yeah, we’ve got a couple of wins for Regina into some of the major
. . . Does Tourism Saskatchewan have any influence over getting
. . . Maybe even Saskatoon can get some international flights going
and things like that. Or how viable of a target is that within Tourism
Saskatchewan?
Jonathan Potts:
— Yeah, so we have a role to play. It’s not the most significant role, even
within government, in that sphere. You know, we work very closely with the two
airport authorities in Saskatchewan. We have two very capable teams at each of
those airport authorities.
In trying to bring more air
routes to Saskatchewan, it is a very challenging field and for a variety of
reasons, most of which are out of the control of anyone in the province, I
would say. So it could be market conditions. You know in the US, if they’re
favourable in the US, you tend to see those American carriers stay within the
US. There’s all sorts of regulations on the Canadian side or on the American
side at the federal level that make it a little more sticky to bring some of
those routes here.
So you know, to compete for a
plane — and sometimes that’s what you’re doing is competing for an actual plane
to fly on a route — to compete for a plane is tricky because it’s much easier
and more friction free for an American courier to serve the American market
than it is to serve a transporter market like Regina or Saskatoon.
With that said, I think, you
know, the government does pretty well in supporting those routes and trying to
bring them here. And it certainly helps the tourism industry.
Don
McBean: —
Thank you. Again, lived in Saskatchewan long enough to know that most people
just fly over or drive through. But it’s still worth putting on the record that
it’s an important thing for us.
And then the other important
thing that was probably on two or three of my other pages was just, we know the
wildfire season impacted . . . Minister Ross, you made reference to
that in your opening comments. I guess what I don’t know, and maybe if I’d done
a little more research, is sort of the support that you were able to bring to
some of those most impacted.
There was reference to
Waskesiu and that area, but really we’re talking about other lodges that would
have been very significantly . . . with the road closures and all of
that. So maybe just a bit of a specific on that regard.
Jonathan Potts:
— Yeah, I can certainly take that one. Yeah, I mean last year was certainly a
challenging year for a lot of operators in Saskatchewan. Particularly in kind
of the centre of Saskatchewan, if you will, from the forest fringe up maybe to
around the Churchill River.
So on the concept or on the
question of, you know, damage that they might have received to their property,
to their businesses, etc., the first thing I’d say is they have to go through
and have been going through — I think in all or most cases — the insurance
process and then the PDAP [provincial disaster assistance program] process, the
disaster program, the provincial disaster program.
So for Tourism Saskatchewan,
our role then is a little different. So we don’t provide, you know, funding
support for that type of thing. And I’ll break it down two ways.
So one was the direct fire
impacts — both the answers boil down to the same thing — but we’ve done some
work this winter with Ashlyn George, who you may know. She’s a former
Saskatchewanderer based out of Saskatoon, has her own program called The Lost
Girl’s Guide to Finding the World, which is great and has tons of followers. So
in partnership with Travel Manitoba, which was obviously . . .
Manitoba was obviously also very affected by some of the exact same fires. She
went up and produced some great content — some of which has been published,
some of which will continue to be published — in the Denare Beach, Creighton,
Flin Flon area.
So the minister referenced
that in her opening remarks, I think. So again there’s some content out
already, and you’ll continue to see that roll out over time to provide
marketing support to that area which was obviously very hard hit.
The other one, which was a
little different . . . and again the minister made reference to the
Waskesiu-Prince Albert National Park area. So there was no fire damage that I’m
aware of to any structures, to any businesses in the park. As everyone knows,
it’s a very large park though. And the year prior there, the fire in Jasper
which did obviously cause tremendous damage.
So Parks Canada updated its
protocols. And even though the fires in Saskatchewan this past year were
burning in the northeast corner of the park, or just outside the northeast
corner of the park for quite some time — several weeks if not a month — it was
close enough to the community that, based on their protocols, they called for a
voluntary evacuation, or a non-mandatory evacuation.
So that had a significant
impact on the businesses in the community obviously that all rely on tourism.
So a little different than direct fire impact, but because that order was
issued, then the businesses were impacted. So again our response to that is a
marketing one. We did do a small marketing campaign once the fire situation had
eased in late summer and into the fall to support especially Saskatchewan
residents going back to that community and that area.
And we’re doing the same
thing again this year to get that, again, consumer behaviour back on track and
get people going back up there. Because that’s an iconic destination for
Saskatchewan and generates hundreds of thousands of visits every year. Lots of
overnight stays, restaurant spending, and so on. So really generates a ton of
economic impact for the province.
Don
McBean: —
You usurped my opportunity to say, “What about next year?” because
. . . but it’s all about promoting the message.
Just because it randomly
popped into my mind, I think you heard about us, it might have even been my
friend beside here, talking about Reesor Ranch down in the southwest. And I was
just amazed because he . . . I say, how do you do this? And he says,
oh, we book up a year ahead of time from Germany. And I was like, okay, this is
what I don’t know about, you know, little treasures in Saskatchewan. So
whatever part you might have had in promoting Reesor Ranch and all those other
niche things, good on you.
That’s got to take us real
close to 8:30.
Chair
B. McLeod: — So having reached our
agreed-upon time for the consideration of these estimates, we are going to
adjourn consideration of the estimates for Tourism Saskatchewan. So thank you,
Minister Ross and all your officials. I actually very much enjoyed listening
and learning and having a good interaction with us all here, so appreciate that
so much.
[20:30]
I’ll invite you to proceed
with any closing comments that you may have.
Hon.
Alana Ross: —
I’ll just thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the committee and for the
insightful questions that you asked. And thank you to Hansard, to the
Legislative Assembly staff who get to remain here as long as we’re here. And
thank you, Jonathan, and thank you also to Tracy, Rae, and Amy because you’re
very, very knowledgeable in what you do. And thank you for the wonderful work
you do for the province of Saskatchewan.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Excellent. Any closing
comments from committee members?
Don
McBean: —
I would repeat all of the thanks to Hansard and other committee
. . . And I hope it’s not untoward for me to congratulate Tourism
Saskatchewan. You know, as I say, it’s a fascinating learning experience. And
again, as was just mentioned, you know, the learning that we have when we actually
get to sit down and share and ask and answer questions is very positive. So
thank you, everyone, and see you next year or maybe before.
Chair
B. McLeod: — So that does conclude our
business for today. The only thing left is a motion of adjournment. A member to
move a motion?
Brad
Crassweller: —
I so move.
Chair
B. McLeod: — I’m going to take MLA
Crassweller has moved. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Agreed. And that’s
carried. This committee stands adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, March 31st,
2026 at 6 p.m., same location. Thank you so much.
[The committee adjourned at
20:31.]
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