MOE TO SHARE GROWTH PLAN,

SASKATOON The Saskatchewan government is signalling that its ambitious new growth plan could include a “permanent presence” in foreign markets, “trade offices” aimed at boosting the value of the province’s exports.

That is expected to be one of multiple targets in the new Saskatchewan Plan for Growth, which Premier Scott Moe is set to unveil at a Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday morning.

While the government has been tight-lipped about the policy document, Moe has indicated it will include a population target of 1.4 million by 2030 as well as the goal of adding 100,000 new jobs over the next decade.

Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison said the aim of the plan, which is expected to form the centrepiece of the Saskatchewan Party’s re-election strategy, is to guide government over the next decade.

“In a very significant way, the last growth plan that we had really did inform the development of government policy at different levels,” Harrison said of the new plan’s predecessor, which was released in 2012.

“Every document that we had drafted, consulted on, from ministries to stuff that went to cabinet, had as its centrepiece how that fit into the targets that were set out in the growth plan. It’s a very important document for how government functions.”

The last growth plan, entitled “Saskatchewan Plan For Growth:

Vision 2020 and Beyond,” included 20 specific goals. Over the last eight years, some were achieved while others were abandoned or not met.

For example, the province’s population increased to 1.1 million rather than 1.2 million, while the economy added around 44,000 jobs — falling short of the target of 60,000 set out in the plan released by former premier Brad Wall.

The government also failed to balance the budget every year between 2012 and 2020, failed to halve the public debt from 2007 levels by 2017, and failed to add $10 billion to the total value of all exports.

Harrison acknowledged that the new plan, like its predecessor, is ambitious; he said the province is not afraid to set goals and work to achieve them. The important thing is “clarity as to direction,” he said.

Speaking generally, Harrison said other areas of interest in the new plan include the energy and resource sectors, agricultural and other exports to foreign markets and further diversification, particularly into technology and manufacturing.

In the throne speech, delivered last month, Moe’s government touted the province’s oil and gas sector as essential to the economy and signalled that it wants to increase value-added agricultural exports by $10 billion over the coming decade.

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Ryan Meili panned the priorities laid out in the throne speech as “myopic,” and questioned whether the premier has a plan for growth beyond crossing his fingers and praying for a commodities boom.