Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill. (File photo/battlefordsNOW staff) 

By Angela Brown

HOPE AND THE FUTURE

Hope and the Future: despite a challenging past year local MLA remains hopeful for 2021

Jan 4, 2021 | 2:00 PM

The COVID-19 pandemic makes 2020 a year many may prefer to forget, but there is hope for the future. We’ve decided to make that the focus of our series of end-of-year stories.

Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill is hopeful 2021 will be a more promising year, with the COVID-19 vaccines starting to roll out.

He said Saskatchewan has been fortunate during the pandemic to have kept numbers down, compared to other provinces.

“The people in the front-line positions, both in the healthcare facilities, and also if you look at retail, all these other sectors, people have been doing a pretty amazing job,” he said.

Cockrill thanks everyone for following the province’s protocols – sanitizing their hands, wearing a mask, and “doing all these things that allow businesses to stay open.”

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He also commends hospitals and healthcare workers for keeping up with the demands on them.

Cockrill encourages everyone to keep following the province’s COVID-19 protocols, to help Saskatchewan get back to normal, sooner rather than later, in the year ahead.

“The key thing right now is now is protecting lives and livelihoods,” he said. “We talk a lot about that in the [Saskatchewan] Legislature, just making sure that as we deal with the public health challenges, that we can keep as much as our economic activity going in this province, and keep things as close to normal.”

Cockrill is pleased Saskatchewan’s back-to-school plan implementation has gone well overall, and children have been able to continue with their studies during a challenging time.

He also spoke of the province’s efforts to try to ease some of the financial pressures on people.

“We have tried our best to support Saskatchewan people and businesses through the pandemic. We talked a lot about that in our election platform,” Cockrill said.

That includes reducing small business taxes for the next couple of years.

As well, the SaskPower 10 per cent rebate on customers’ power bills, from Dec. 1, 2020 to the end of November 2021, known as the Saskatchewan Economic Recovery Rebate, is another financial relief available.

The province has also been able to offer the Saskatchewan Small Business Emergency Payment (SSBEP) program.

The province also provides the Strong Recovery Adaptation Rebate, established to reimburse eligible small businesses in Saskatchewan for their additional expenses.

“If there are expenses incurred for businesses in terms of putting up plexiglass or adjusting their operations due to the pandemic, there are some reimbursement funds available there,” Cockrill said.

When the COVID-19 situation is finally in the rearview mirror, the province has a plan to recover financially and be able to balance the budget for 2024-2025.

Looking ahead, Cockrill is optimistic for the future.

“We have a couple of vaccine options now we’re just rolling that out – the pilot program for some of the health workers and then getting into Phase 1,” he said. “It is going to take time to make that available to everybody in the province, but we are certainly focused on trying to make the vaccine available to the vulnerable populations, and our front-line healthcare workers. That is going to be first on this road back to normal.”

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW