The vote count was set to begin as polls closed Monday night in Saskatchewan’s 30th general election. Polls closed at 8 p.m.
after a campaign that had Scott Moe's Saskatchewan Party seeking a fifth-straight majority to add to its 17 years in office. Carla Beck's NDP was looking to take back government for the first time since 2007. In the month-long campaign, Moe promised broad tax relief and continued withholding of federal carbon levy payments to Ottawa.
Beck pledged to spend more to fix health care and education, pause the gas tax, and remove the provincial sales tax on children's clothes and some grocery items. Political experts have said Moe is favoured to win, given his party's strength in rural areas, but polls suggested a closer race. To win a majority in the 61-seat legislature, the NDP would need to sweep the 28 seats in the three largest cities — Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert — and hope for help elsewhere.
At dissolution, the governing Saskatchewan Party had 42 seats, while the Opposition NDP had 14. There were four Independents and one seat was vacant. Beck cast her ballot Monday morning in her constituency of Regina Lakeview, along with her husband and three children.
She wore a T-shirt that read, "Prairie Living," and thanked election workers. Moe and his wife cast their ballots last week at an advanced poll in his hometown of Shellbrook. Beck told supporters Sunday in Regina that she's ready to deliver the change people were asking for.
"It's time f.