The new Premier of Saskatchewan will be announced January 27th once the mail-in votes and in-person votes at the Saskatchewan Party Convention are totalled.

With ten days to go, Leaders of Weyburn are sharing their thoughts on what the priorities should be for the new Premier, affecting Weyburn.

"I have picked three specific priorities in no specific order," said Twila Walkeden, Executive Director, Weyburn Chamber of Commerce.

"Keep expanding our relationship with Asia and explore new trade opportunities."

"There are so many opportunities for us to increase our trade capacity with Asia and those countries that are growing. We need to keep in mind that we need to keep building on our considerable global strengths in three things, food, fuel and fertiliser."

Weyburn and Saskatchewan farmers produce peas and lentils and other crops which are sold to Asian countries such as India who are more focused on plant-based proteins than meat.

"I think that the world is moving in that direction, away from the animal protein, more to the plant protein sources. We are the bread basket but I guess you could say the pea and lentil basket of the world."

The second priority on the list for Walkeden is to continue to move forward with the 'Made in Saskatchewan' plan to reduce Carbon emissions. She would like to see a balance of environmental and economic goals and go from the strategic plan already in place to an action plan.

The third priority is to protect the North Amercian Free Trade Agreement.

"We need to take action on the preservation of NAFTA. Obviously, This is a very important thing in terms of trade. That agreement is crucial to our continued growth as an economy, and as a community and as a province. Really the prosperity of our province and Canada as a whole is impacted by the future of NAFTA.

Walkeden said that Weyburn is sitting within the North American trade corridor which spans from Mexico up to the Northern Arctic.

"We are along that corridor as well as the Global Transportation Hub. I can see us being impacted directly even just by the traffic, once that transportation hub gets going."

The U.S., Canada and Mexico need NAFTA.

Walkeden also said that due to the geography of North America, It will be difficult to form an agreement between Canada and Mexico without the US being involved.