REGINA - The accusations and finger-pointing were still going at full blast at the Legislature Thursday over Monday’s pro-Palestine protest that disrupted proceedings that day.
The Sask Party was fired up in Question Period as they again alleged involvement by opposition New Democrats in the protest. This time, Premier Scott Moe focused his attention on what he and other government members characterized as a ‘secret meeting’ held at Tommy Douglas House in Regina on Nov. 14 involving several of the protest participants and NDP MLAs.
Moe made the accusation after Opposition Leader Carla Beck once again led Question Period with the issue of a member of his caucus -- Cut Knife-Turtleford MLA Ryan Domotor -- being “caught in a human trafficking investigation.” Moe responded that Domotor had been removed, and they would be updating the Human Trafficking Act.
“That’s the transparency that this government is providing… We wish that the same transparency would be provided by the leader of the Opposition”, Moe said.
Moe then noted that Beck had said to the media that no members of the NDP caucus had been involved in organizing the Nov. 20 protest.
“We’ve now been informed that on Nov. 14 that the governing caucus actually hosted this group at Tommy Douglas House. Why did the Leader of the Opposition not disclose this to the media?”
In her answers, Beck responded by accusing the government of being “desperate to change the channel, ”of “flailing from crisis to crisis,” and of having “simply lost the plot.” Meanwhile, Moe didn’t let up as he hammered the opposition on why they hosted organizers in a “secret meeting” at Tommy Douglas House.
Moe offered “free advice” to the NDP that their caucus should focus on “being straight with Saskatchewan people” and indicate “why they held a secret meeting with organizers of the group that shut down the work of government in this legislature … tell Saskatchewan people which members of her caucus attended that meeting, what was discussed, which demands were made and what they agreed to.”
In speaking to reporters afterwards, Moe doubled down on the accusations and what they had heard.
“This came to our attention that there was a meeting with part of the NDP caucus with organizers on Nov. 14. Ultimately it was a day later that we saw the post about a visit to the legislature on Nov. 20 being shared by one of the caucus members and then we also had on November 20 the unprecedented shutdown of government operations here in Saskatchewan. The question really is for the opposition leader and the opposition members of caucus is: why did you not mention this in the scrum with all of you?… I don’t know that the opposition caucus members have been straight with the people of Saskatchewan so that’s a question that I have to answer.”
On Wednesday, the government majority backed a motion for an independent investigation into the Nov. 20 incident. Moe called what happened “unprecedented” and said he thought there should be an investigation “as to why that was and other things that can be improved so that it doesn’t happen again.”
“When you have, whether it be extremist activists or self proclaimed radicals that may be involved in a meeting that they certainly don’t want to talk about with organizers, or groups that come and do shut down the operations of government, if there’s involvement of members of the Legislative Assembly in that kind of an organization, that’s something that somebody should get to the bottom of because that’s not proper conduct for elected members.”
When asked how this was different from the convoy situation where MLAs had met with some participants who are now before the courts, Moe said his advice always was “have your voice heard, follow the law.”
As for Opposition Leader Beck, Moe continued to call on her to be straight with people, adding “this is someone who’s vying to lead the province, and she cannot even be straight with those she intends to represent.”
The Nov. 14 meeting wasn’t the only controversy raised by the government. During members’ statements in the Legislature, Minister of Advanced Education Gord Wyant pointed to a video posted online of the demonstration in the Legislature, in which the phrase “from the river to the sea” was clearly heard.
Wyant noted this phrase was regarded as anti-Semitic, and then took aim at Saskatoon University MLA Jennifer Bowes. "Instead of denouncing it, the MLA from Saskatoon University liked it on Instagram," he said.
“It’s a comment often associated with the ethnic cleansing of Israel,” said Premier Moe, who denounced the use of that comment by those in the protest.
“Put yourself in that position with that chant happening in a public building, a building of governance, as a Jewish-Canadian,” said Moe, who thanked security for their actions in that situation.
In speaking to reporters Beck again reiterated "we were not involved in the protest." She again accused the government of attempting to change the channel.
"You see a tired and out of touch government that is increasingly grasping and desperate to take attention away from the issues in their own caucus. This week, they had one of their members criminally charged in a human trafficking sting, you know, and it's incredibly frustrating to see this. We have many meetings. One of them was with a group of students who were concerned about what is going on in Israel and Palestine. I take probably hundreds of meetings every month and none of these meetings are secret... Every time they are on the defence you see them attack. We saw this with the pronouns law (in) the emergency session. They're desperate to distract and frankly the bar continues to be set lower and lower by this government."
