Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan releases platform, promotes more autonomy from federal government

The newly-formed Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan unveiled its platform at a launch in Warman, Sask., on Monday. The party was formerly known as Wexit Saskatchewan.

The Buffalo Partydescribes itself as a western independence party. Its platform promotes more autonomy from the federal government, with proposed changes to GST and PST, the Canada pension plan and the use of the RCMP.

Wade Sira, interim leader of the Buffalo Party, is running forMLA for Martensville-Warman. He said the new BuffaloParty is separate from the other western provinces, and is solely for the Saskatchewan people.

"We came out of frustration. It's time that we get a better deal and a fair deal for Saskatchewan and we want to be able to sit at the table and negotiate a better deal,"said Sira.

The party has 13 candidates running in the 2020 election so far, the majority of which arein ruralconstituencies.

Sira said Buffalo Party is concerned that Saskatchewan's economy is stagnant. The party's platform promotes taking control of natural resources and taxationwithin the province.

"Quebec, when they got all their rights and they took over full control of their destiny,they started as a provincial party first. And we want the same thing in this province. It's not necessarily separation, but separation if necessary," Sira said.

"The federation, the foundation is cracked. But there's a potential to fix it. And we want to at least try to fix it before we take drastic measures."

Sira said he is not concerned that Buffalo Party's presence this election seasonwill split the vote in regards to the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP.

"Currently all the constituents [we] are running in is a pretty heavy handed constituency to the Sask Party. Even if we did take 50 per cent of the vote, none of those constituencies there have a chance where the NDP will come up."