wall long term

Premier Brad Wall during his announcement on the status of a new Long-Term Care facility in Swift Current on Friday

The first session of the legislature for the second term of the Saskatchewan Party government is now in the books.

While the government has come under some fire for cuts to programs like the Saskatchewan Film Tax Credit, Premier Brad Wall says it was one of several tough choices.

"We made choices in the budget on the drug plan for seniors, we made choices on economic development regions and funding for that," Wall said. "That's what budgets are all about. At the end of the day, we want to be able to to have a balanced budget, to keep our taxes competitive, to invest in the expansion of colorectal cancer screening, to invest in more homes for the intellectually disabled, and then we had to make some choices."

Another contentious issue for the government was a plan for adding three new MLAs to the legislature, but Wall says it won't be a financial burden: "It's not going to cost any more money, it's about $750,000 total annually and we've said we're going to find the money in existing budgets. We have a track record of doing that, actually, we've cut government advertising by $5 million and cut government political staff by $3 million."

Up next for Wall will be a major cabinet shuffle and restructuring of government which could happen as early as this week.