Saskatchewan Labour Gets Black Eye

A recent labour and business meeting in Turkey has ruffled a few feathers here in Canada, more specifically in Saskatchewan.

A Toronto area businessman interrupted a presentation at the conference talking about Saskatchewan saying, "Why on Earth would you do business there? With their Labour laws and climate why would you do business there?"

Something Labour Minister David Forbes is not to pleased with. "Its unfortunate when those kinds of things surface. We work really hard in Saskatchewan to promote this as a great place. We see investment happening in Saskatchewan and we have good things happening all over the place."

Minister Forbes even referred to a recent Royal Bank report that expects Saskatchewan's economy to grow by nearly 7 per cent in the next two years.

But Opposition Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall believes this view of Saskatchewan by the international community should be looked at carefully. "Our business climate is not as friendly as it should be. It’s not as friendly as it could be if we made some changes to our labour legislative environment. It needs to be fair for employee and employer but it needs to be competitive with other jurisdictions and that’s what we've been saying and we've proposed specific measures to get it there. We need a complete growth agenda in our province for it to reach it's potential and that includes a fair but competitive labour legislative environment."