REGINA – The flooding situation in central and northern Saskatchewan has alarmed MLAs on both sides of the political aisle.
On Monday and Tuesday, three members of Cabinet — Community Safety Minister Michael Weger, Agriculture Minister David Marit, and Minister of Energy Chris Beaudry toured sites and met people impacted by flood damage.
Weber told reporters at the Legislature that on Monday, he and Minister Marit “jumped in my truck, and we headed over to Canora,” where they met with some community leaders from the surrounding RMs.
They then drove over to Quill Lake and met up with Minister Beaudry, and from there met with a large group of individuals from the Quill Lakes area.
Weger said they had “a good meeting, discussed what steps SPSA can take to assist, made sure they had the correct contact information, depending on their concerns, and it was a good meeting overall, well attended. And we were able to, on the tour, see significant water, especially as we approached Quill Lake.”
He said they had to go up the 640 grid road north of Wynyard to Quill Lake, and were “able to see the water right on the edge of the town of Quill Lake and, of course, witness firsthand the devastating effects of the water.”
Weger said they also met with a family “whose son is really seeing some significant consequences from the water, and we discussed their concerns and how they may have to proceed most likely through the PDAP process to look for some compensation there as well.“
In terms of resources Weger said the individuals had been in contact with Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency and had picked up 20,000 sandbags. He reports they were able to receive the resources they needed at that time.
On Tuesday the group was in the Melfort area at a meeting to “talk about the ability to actually go on the Water Security Agency website and see what the levels are in the lakes and rivers as far as the flow rates and what the levels are. So just providing some education there as well to assist with sort of monitoring the situation," said Weger.
Weger said his job is "all about learning, so that's all we did the whole trip.” What he did learn shocked the Minister.
“I've witnessed flooding before, but not to that extent,” Weger said.
"And a lot of the roads we travelled down, down the highway, you look left or right down the grid road, and there's a barricade with a significant amount of roads that have had water go over them or have had to be cut to allow the water to pass through."
He said of the communities that he feels "they're coming together and they're making sure that their residents know what's happening, and making sure the awareness is there of what they're going through. It's sort of a watch and see.”
Weger pointed to the importance of talking to people directly.
“I've said when I got into this job that I don't really prefer to have someone tell me what someone told them. I'd rather hear it firsthand, and that's exactly what we did on this trip.”
Latest update on the situation
On the flood situation itself, Weger said in some cases it “seems like the water has maybe hit its peak, but we know we're hearing from the Water Security Agency it could be four, five, maybe even seven, eight days yet for the peak flows to go through some of these communities.”
As for how many people are out of their homes right now because of flooding, Weger said that from the update he had in the area they were, in the RM of Connaught there are two to three families that are out of their homes.
Weger also said they were aware that Red Earth First Nation, and Shoal Lake First Nafion, has “significant evacuations happening as we speak at both of those communities.”
He said currently SPSA is not assisting with any of the evacuations, but is assisting with providing sandbags, sandbaggers, and some pumps. He said the communities all were provided a number to reach out to SPSA if they needed those items, or staff if needed.
Minister of Highways Kim Gartner was not on the tour, but was asked at the Legislature about the situation facing highways in the province.
He urged all motorists as they head out to “make sure that they're checking the Highway Hotline, check their route, make sure that they're following a path that is deemed safe.”
“We do have barricades up. We have flag persons out there, and we also have ministry employees that are out on the highways as well, directing motorists through the night hours. Some of them are working 24-7 trying to make sure all of our motorists are safe.”
Gartner did not have a precise number of how many Highways staff have been sent in, but did say that they've “pulled resources from all across the province, from every district, in to help with this.”
McPhail blames highways budget cuts for making situation worse
Meanwhile, NDP MLAs have been criticizing the government in the Assembly, calling them out once again for what they called a $36 million cut to the northern transportation budget — from $122 million to $86 million.
The Highways ministry has previously attributed the discrepancy in numbers to a bridge project completed in 2025 between Air Ronge and La Ronge, and have said usually the northern highways budget fluctuates around the $80 million mark.
Still, thus week the NDP nevertheless were blaming highways underfunding for making the flooding situation worse.
“This is just wrong,” said Cumberland MLA Jordan McPhail. “I think the Minister needs to come out here and explain to people why they've made these cuts in this year's budget, and not invested in our highways infrastructure the way that it should have been, so that way… when we do see that excess water and whatnot, that it can be dealt with properly here in the province of Saskatchewan.”
As for what he is hearing from residents in the North, McPhail said their team had been “reaching out to people that have been affected by this.”
“You know, I think of the community of Patuanak,” said McPhail. He pointed to flooding impacting roads including Highway 918, leaving no highway to get in or out of the community. There is also no way to get in or out over the nearby lakes, he said, due to ice conditions.
“The lake has not completely thawed out yet, so we can't use the water on waterways,” said McPhail. “It's still at that breakup period in places like Patuanak where, again, there is no way to get into that community to provide services and to provide the supplies that that community needs by way of even an emergency ice road, now that the main… highway is gone.”
He called this the “same thing that we saw last year in wildfires.”
“When that highway infrastructure is gone, there's a lot of worry that starts setting in for community members wondering, you know, how long is their grocery store going to have enough supplies to be able to feed the community if they're not able to get groceries into the community for folks that need to get out into maybe the land and do some hunting or fishing. They need to have fuel in their vehicles, their quads, their snow machines to be able to access those parts of the land. And if they know that their fuel trucks aren't going to be able to make it in and there's no real timeline on restoration, that panic can set in for sure.”
He said that such information on time of restoration and detours “needs to be clearly communicated to communities,” but made it known he didn’t think the government was doing a good job in that communication.
“Talking to the leaders that we had and what we saw from last year's wildfires, I don't think this government has learned a whole lot of lessons from what we've seen,” McPhail said. “Again, if they would have learned the lessons, they would have invested more in the highways infrastructure, making sure that… these roads are safe to travel on — not only, you know, in the fall, the winter, but even in the spring.”
