As Trade and Export Development Minister, Melville-Saltcoats MLA Warren Kaeding says he has one of the best jobs around right now.
“I have a very exciting job where I get to talk about all the positives of the province, and there are many,” he told the World-Spectator. “So I try and be as enthusiastic as I can. And it’s easy to be enthusiastic about the opportunities in the province.”
He has a lot to be excited about, with numbers from Statistics Canada showing an increase of 27.8 per cent in building construction investment in Saskatchewan for March 2025 as compared to the same time last year. It also puts Saskatchewan first in the country for year-over-year growth, something Kaeding calls “an exciting stat that shows the confidence that people have in our economy here.”
“The most interesting part of that is its covering both residential and commercial, so not only do we have families that are feeling confident in our economy, we have businesses that are feeling very confident in the economy and are willing to build, expand, and just do more with what they’re working with now,” he said. “To me, that just shows we’ve got long-term confidence in the economy, and that is exciting in itself, because when you’ve got confidence like that, it spurs other folks to also participate in the economy.”
Both residential and non-residential construction were up 29.8 per cent and 24.2 per cent respectively when comparing March 2025 to the year previous.
“It does take some planning, and hoping that the incentives that you create are there for business to take advantage of,” Kaeding said. “It takes a while for all of that to resonate with everyone and where they now have that confidence in doing more.”
The question now becomes one of how the province can keep that momentum going, and according to Kaeding, the answer isn’t specific to one area.
“I know the Premier has been on record by saying, ‘policies matter’,” he noted. “And policies matter if they’re bad policy—as we’ve sometimes seen at the federal level—but they also matter when they’re good policy, and that’s where I think you see growth like this is a result of good policy.”
“Whether it’s low business tax rates or even graduate retention programs, where there are programs that are here to keep our young people in the province, investing in opportunities, working in sectors that have nothing but growth in front of them,” Kaeding continued. “They’re feeling comfortable, they’ve got take-home pay that they now feel comfortable they can build a house and then plan a family. That’s what we like to see, too, is growth.”
That growth in the construction sector also translates to physical growth as Saskatchewan officially hit 1.25 million people this year.
“That 300,000 people have moved here just in the last 15 years, that’s an incredible statistic as well,” Kaeding said. “We even predict it’s going to grow more. Part of our growth plan, I believe, is to hit 1.4 million by 2030, so we were very encouraged by the stats that we’re seeing, but are looking forward to where this is going to end up in 2030 for us as well.”
Another key contributor to the mixture of success lies in creative thinking and working together, something Kaeding is happy using a local example to explain.
“What goes with that is the ability for an area to get together and take a regional approach to this,” he said.
“I continue to use Moosomin as that shining example across the province that when you get a number of municipalities working together, having a strategic plan, and then doing everything they possibly can to realize that plan, it results in growth that you’re seeing in southeast Saskatchewan.
“We have definitely have a sense of community in the province, and we consider the province to be one community,” Kaeding said. “You know, you look at all the things that we’ve rallied around, specific things, and that certainly supports growth and development when we’re taking care of each other.”
Kaeding also credits past policies for some of the growth being seen today.
“Some of those policies that got initiated and planted in 2007 are now coming to fruition, and that’s what we’re seeing in some of these very positive statistics,” he said.
Looking at all-time high GDP numbers—reported to be $80.5 billion 2024 and an increase of 3.4 per cent ($2.6 billion)—Saskatchewan finds itself again ranked number one among the other provinces. With private capital investment anticipated to hit $16.2 billion this year (up 10.1 per cent over 2024), there’s obviously something intriguing about doing business in Saskatchewan.
“We’ve heard from a lot of businesses that say, ‘business success also breeds more business success’,” Kaeding said. “Now you see businesses from outside the province looking at their competitors or their suppliers developing, evolving, and building a better business in the province. They’re looking at it as an opportunity to come here as well, and we’re certainly trying to provide them the incentives—whether it’s in small business incentives, small medium enterprise business incentives or value added incentives, whether it comes to ag or manufacturing—we’re trying to support any sector that wants to build and develop here in the province.”
As a result, international mining giants like BHP and K+S are attracted to the province.
“Companies from outside of North America, they’re looking at Saskatchewan as a tremendous opportunity for investment and building some pretty significant capital projects as a result of that,” Kaeding said. “One benefit that we’ve got as a province is we have a very diversified economy. We’re starting to see even more resource development in some of the other critical minerals that we’ve got in the province, but even the evolution of the tech sector, the manufacturing sector—those are flying under the radar right now, but are significant contributors to our economy. It’s all of those sectors are all contributing to the growth in our province.”
Ryan Kiedrowski,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The World-Spectator
