The sitting of the 28th Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly has been far from business as usual.

While scheduled to currently be in the spring session, coronavirus has forced many changes to everyday life, and the provincial government is no exception.

Since legislature was suspended in March, Swift Current MLA Everett Hindley said that new methods of communication have been used more frequently by elected officials.

“It’s pretty simple for me, for example, the office that I’m in [in the Legislature Building] is literally just across the hall from both the ministers of health,” he said recently. “It takes nothing for me to just walk over there and see if the minister’s got 30 seconds to chat about an issue.”

“You can get some answers pretty quickly that way sometimes, but with today’s world of technology, cell phones, texting and video conferencing, there’s been a lot of Zoom meetings taking place these days. You can still get ahold of folks when you need to, so there’s those options as well at your disposal.”

About two weeks of scheduled sittings held MLA’s across the province for the Spring Sitting before it was suspended. In that time the recently released budget was up for discussion.

He said a focus for Legislature since suspension has been on estimates regarding revenue loss.

“We’ve worked pretty hard to get the province back to balance for the last three or four years here, and that’s been wiped out because of COVID-19 and the huge impact on revenues because of the slowdown, because of the restrictions, but also what’s been happening in the oil sector.”

Hindley said that for him, the focus has been on hearing the voice of his riding since the suspension.

“I’m here, back home in Swift Current, I’ve been so since the 18 of March when I came home from Regina, and have been focused on, for the most part, trying to gather feedback and provide information and answers in respect to COVID-19.”

In terms of the economy, he said that Swift Current was in the same boat as much of Saskatchewan.

“The longer that these restrictions remain in place, there’s a very real danger that there will be some businesses that may not be able to come back, there will be jobs that will be lost forever because they can only hang on for so long before they are no longer able to do that anymore.”

He encouraged residents to continue to support local businesses in safe ways in the face of COVID-19.