September 1st, 2011
Saskatoon

Thank you, Trent, for that introduction.

Good morning everyone and thank you for coming.

As Trent has just mentioned, Saskatchewan has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources: potash, uranium, oil and gas.

And these resources, in turn, have generated an abundance of wealth.

For many months, the NDP has been proposing that this wealth must be shared more fairly by everyone, and so we’ve been proposing positive changes to ensure that all Saskatchewan families benefit from our resource-driven prosperity.

We’ve proposed a review of potash royalties to ensure that Saskatchewan’s people—the owners of the resource—get the best return possible on this world-class non-renewable resource.

We’ve said that when there’s a “new norm” in the potash industry of growing demand, rising prices and larger profits, then the owners of the resource should benefit from the new opportunities to prosper.

We think that’s only fair.

But when we’re talking about a fair return of resource wealth, we also think it’s important to remember not only the families of today, but also the our children and grandchildren in the families of tomorrow.

Families who deserve to benefit from Saskatchewan’s non-renewable natural resources just as much as those of us who are here today deserve to benefit.

We know that, once they’ve been taken from the ground, sold and consumed, non-renewable resources like potash are gone.

And the same goes for a barrel of oil or a cubic meter of natural gas.

And, if the government has no long-term plan to invest the money it receives from these non-renewable natural resources, those dollars are gone, too.

So what our province needs is a plan to ensure that the prosperity generated by our resource wealth is enjoyed not only by those of us who are here today, but also by future generations of Saskatchewan families.

So we’re proposing today a Bright Futures Fund, a sovereign wealth fund aimed at ensuring our children and grandchildren share in the prosperity our natural resources are generating today.

It’s an idea we heard during our policy renewal process, and we believe it makes sense as a way to ensure that future generations benefit from the non-renewable resources that are being extracted and consumed today.

There will be more details about the Bright Futures Fund to announce in the weeks ahead, but let me lay out today some of the guiding principles of our vision for how it would operate under an NDP government.

The first principle is long-term investment.

We would dedicate a portion of the royalties collected from the companies that mine our potash and uranium, or produce our oil and gas, and place that portion in the Bright Futures Fund to invest for the future.

The second principle is independent and transparent management.

An independent board would manage the fund, prudently investing the money to generate a return for Saskatchewan families for years to come.

The third principle is freedom from political interference.

The Bright Futures Fund will be protected by law so that the government of the day would not be allowed to withdraw the principal to cover short-term deficits or day-to-day spending.

It’s a model that’s already working in various forms in other jurisdictions such as Norway and Alaska, and we believe it can work here, too.

While the model is at work already in other countries, the values and philosophy behind our own, unique Bright Futures Fund are deeply rooted here in Saskatchewan.

In fact, the Bright Futures Fund’s most important principle of all is one Saskatchewan families understand very well: putting something aside for the future.

Every family in Saskatchewan knows the importance of planning for the future.

We know we have to budget carefully, pay our bills, reduce our debt, stay within our means, but we also know it’s important to invest for the future as well.

It’s the principle of planning ahead.

When families are making their budgets, the parents know that in addition to buying the groceries, paying the power bill, making the car payment, and paying down the mortage, they also have to put some money aside for when their son or daughter is ready to go to university or SIAST.

When their son or daughter is still in kindergarten or elementary school, post-secondary education seems like a long way off, but they still put a few dollars a month into the savings account at their local bank or credit union.

And bit by bit, the money builds up over the years and by the time their son or daughter is 18 or 19 years old, they’ve built up a sizeable fund to send that young person off to post-secondary education and the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow.

Our Bright Futures Fund would work according to a similar principle: we would dedicate a portion of the money we receive from non-renewable resource royalties to the Fund.

Over time, that fund would grow, and over time it will be there to help future Saskatchewan families meet the opportunities and challenges of their tomorrow.

We know that non-renewable resources—by definition—don’t last forever, so we have to plan ahead and invest today, to make sure that future generations of Saskatchewan families have the fair share they’ll need to meet the financial and economic and other challenges they’ll face in the years to come.

So that’s our vision of what we hope and believe the Bright Futures Fund could be for Saskatchewan: our opportunity to invest in the future, to ensure that the families of tomorrow enjoy the same kind of opportunity to benefit from our province’s resource-driven prosperity that we all should enjoy today.

It’s an optimistic vision of the kind of positive change the NDP is proposing, and it’s one we believe will help ensure a brighter future for all Saskatchewan families.

Thank you very much.