Kaeding named legislative secretary to new environment minister
September 5, 2023, 4:41 pm
Sierra D'Souza Butts, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
As part of Premier Scott Moe’s recent announcement on changes to the provincial cabinet, MLA for Melville-Saltcoats Warren Kaeding was named one of the nine Legislative Secretaries for Saskatchewan.
Kaeding will be the Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Environment, Christine Tell, who was formerly the minister in charge of corrections, policing and public safety.
Kaeding explained a few of the different responsibilities he will be involved with in his new position.
“It was just announced, we’re sort of letting everyone get their feet beneath them, but I’ve reached out to both the minister and the chief of staff to let them know I’m available to focus on whatever they think is going to be necessary there,” said Kaeding.
“There’s quite a few things that I know the ministry of environment does, it’s a very broad-based portfolio. Everything from waste management, to natural resource management, to permitting for resource exploration, environmental assessments for all of these new projects that are going on, and certainly on emissions reductions and climate change initiatives.
“There are a lot of things to do in environment, I expect I’ll be busy focusing on certainly a few of those.”
With many different projects to focus on, Kaeding said his new role, in addition to being MLA, will be quite busy.
“It depends on the project or the priorities you’ve been assigned as legislative secretary,” said Kaeding.
“I know some of the other people, Daryl Harrison was the Legislative Secretary to Agriculture and he’s very busy when going to look at a number of different areas that Ag focuses on.
“The one big thing with legislative secretaries is supporting stakeholder engagement. The minister just can’t get out to all the stakeholder groups, or certainly stay in contact with all of them as much as necessary.
“That’s the one big role I know all legislative secretaries fill is to help support that stakeholder engagement, energy and resources will be one, trade and export, immigration, the legislative secretary there has been very busy engaging with a number of stakeholder groups.
“It really depends a lot on the ministry, and responsibilities of the ministry. I expect I’ll be busy.”
Kaeding shared his thoughts about the premier’s overall changes to the provincial cabinet.
“We expected a cabinet shuffle because of the fact we lost two folks that weren’t coming back,” he said.
“We pretty well knew that was going to be the start there, that we needed to see some changes there.
“The legislative secretary position is where the premier feels that some extra focus needs to be done on different projects. That’s always exciting as well.”
Kaeding said he is excited to start his new role as Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Environment.
“There was a lot of good stuff we were working on when I was in the ministry of environment, and I think this allows me to stay in touch and certainly follow through on some of those projects that we initiated when I was there,” he said.
“It’s a big deal to me. We talked about a lot of interesting things that are going on in environment. I found it a very fascinating portfolio because it was so diverse.
“I’m invigorating in helping out the environment minister in anyway I can.”
