Title: Ken Krawetz Dies 2026 — Saskatchewan Party Co-founder Remembered at 75
Slug: ken-krawetz-dies-sask-party-founder-2026
Focus keyword: Ken Krawetz
Meta description: Ken Krawetz, Saskatchewan Party co-founder and former deputy premier, has died at 75. Premier Scott Moe announced the news Thursday.
Saskatchewan politics — Ken Krawetz, the teacher-turned-politician who helped found the Saskatchewan Party and served as deputy premier and finance minister, has died at 75. Premier Scott Moe announced the death Thursday on social media, and flags at the Saskatchewan Legislature are flying at half-mast.
By Maplestime News Desk | Regina, Saskatchewan | October 3, 2026
Sources: CBC News, Global 1 News | Last updated: October 3, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Premier Scott Moe announced Thursday (Oct. 1) that Ken Krawetz has died at age 75.
- Krawetz co-founded the Saskatchewan Party in 1997 and later served as deputy premier, deputy party leader, finance minister (2009–2015) and education minister.
- He retired from politics in 2016 after 21 years as an MLA.
- Flags at the Saskatchewan Legislature were lowered to half-mast in his honour.
- He was a champion of Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian community, helping pass the Holodomor Memorial Day Act and leading the 2015 dedication of Regina’s “Bitter Memories of Childhood” statue.
Ken Krawetz: From Classroom to Cabinet
Before politics, Ken Krawetz was a teacher. He entered the Saskatchewan legislature in 1995 as a Liberal MLA for Canora-Pelly, and quickly rose to become Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 1999. But his place in history was sealed in 1997, when he joined three other Liberal MLAs and four Progressive Conservative MLAs to create something new: the Saskatchewan Party. He served as the party’s interim leader from 1997 to 1998, steering it through its earliest days.
It was a gamble. Merging two opposition factions into one party could easily have collapsed into infighting. Instead, the Saskatchewan Party went on to dominate the province’s politics for nearly two decades. Krawetz stayed with it the whole way.
Finance Minister and Deputy Premier
When the Saskatchewan Party formed government, Krawetz became one of its most senior figures: deputy premier, deputy party leader, finance minister from 2009 to 2015, and education minister before that. Seven years holding the province’s purse strings is a run few Canadian finance ministers ever get, and he did it through the boom-and-bust cycles of a resource economy.
He retired in 2016 after 21 years in elected office, a career that spanned the Liberal benches, the opposition leader’s office, and the cabinet table.
A Champion of Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian Community
Ask people what Ken Krawetz cared about outside the budget numbers, and Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian community comes up fast. He helped pass the Holodomor Memorial Day Act and led the 2015 dedication of Regina’s “Bitter Memories of Childhood” statue, a memorial to the victims of the famine-genocide in Ukraine.
For a province with one of the deepest Ukrainian roots in Canada, that work mattered. It is the kind of legacy that outlasts any budget speech.
Tributes Pour In
Premier Scott Moe’s announcement Thursday carried real grief, not the usual press-release polish:
“This one hurts a lot… In any room Ken was in, whether as a teacher, school board trustee, opposition or government caucus member, cabinet minister or at the kitchen table talking to a constituent, Ken was always the guy who brought the logic, integrity, compassion and common sense to arrive at the right decision.”
Crown Investments Minister Jeremy Harrison put it this way:
“Ken is an icon, pillar of our party and our government who has provided remarkable service to Saskatchewan in ways I think people will never fully understand.”
Few politicians get to be called the founder of their party and mean it literally. Ken Krawetz did, and Saskatchewan’s politics still runs on the rails he helped lay down.
Maplestime will provide updates from Ken Krawetz as announcements are made.
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Which Saskatchewan politician had the biggest impact on your life — was it Ken Krawetz, or someone else entirely? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Saskatchewan resident who remembers the early days of the Sask. Party.
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