Some residents of northern Saskatchewan where their community has been decimated by wildfire are expressing outrage over the Saskatchewan Party golf tournament scheduled for Tuesday in Elk Ridge. The Saskatchewan Party golf tournaments can serve as fundraisers for the party.
In a statement presented via the opposition NDP, Linda Lowe, who has lived in Denare Beach for 31 years, pointed out that her family isn’t golfing, boating or taking a family summer holiday because they are picking up the pieces after the Wolf fire. She also says, “During the height of the fires, the support from the provincial leadership was inconsistent, delayed and quite simply embarrassingly inadequate.”
Rhonda Werbicki’s family home of 26 years burned to the ground at Denare Beach and in her statement she criticizes Premier Scott Moe for not having gone north to see the devastation for himself. She says, “You are our Premier. This is a job you wanted. Now do your job.”
Those impacted by the fires say the resources to recover have been limited with residents and the municipality taking on the financial burden of clean up, repairs, and the fees for lifting SaskPower lines for each of the replacement homes. They also note that while $20 million was allocated for recovery there are questions about how that money will be distributed among the various communities impacted by wildfire in the summer of 2025.
The NDP contends the golf tournament should never have been planned and now should be cancelled. More than 200 homes in Denare Beach were destroyed in the Wolf fire. As of 11:30 a.m. on Monday there are 87 wildfires in the province and 17 are not contained.
There are several more golf tournaments planned this summer including the Meadow Lake Constituency 17th Annual Golf Tournament which takes place this Saturday, the following Monday, on August 18th, is the Regina Saskatchewan Party Day of Golf where it costs $1,400 for a team of four to participate. Finally on September 3rd there is the 2025 Saskatoon SaskParty Golf and Networking Event which is $295 a person to take part.
