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Posted Mar 28, 2008, 3:35 PM
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working stiff
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Woodlawn Cemetery
Posts: 2,583
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20th Street 'mall' not a priority: gov't
Lori Coolican and James Wood, The StarPhoenix
Published: Friday, March 28, 2008
Health Minister Don McMorris says broken hospital fire alarms and mould-infested care homes -- not political games -- are the motive for the Saskatchewan Party government's decision to pull $8 million in funding from Station 20 West, a non-profit development under construction in Saskatoon's inner city.
But Premier Brad Wall added another reason, saying the new government has a philosophical problem with devoting provincial funds to the project, likening it to a "shopping mall."
Meanwhile, organizers say they'll keep trying to change the government's mind and will explore all avenues to keep the project alive.
"Since I've been in the minister's office in the last four months we realized that there's some huge capital needs in the province, as well as in Saskatoon. So we felt that it's more important right now -- a priority is to make sure that the acute-care facilities that we have here in Saskatoon, for example, are equipped properly," McMorris told a crush of reporters in Saskatoon Thursday morning.
"You know, the chillers at RUH, they need to be replaced, the fire alarm doesn't work at St. Paul's (Hospital), there's a CT scan that needs to be added. There are a number of challenges, immediately -- safety challenges -- that we hold the liability on," he said.
"For example, a fire alarm -- I mean, they've hired more people (and) it's a human fire alarm now -- that's just not acceptable in today's standards, so we have decided to move the money from Station 20 to make sure that our facilities are properly equipped. So that was a decision that was made by our government."
Withdrawing financial support for the project was not a political decision, McMorris insists.
"I can tell you that we didn't look at where it was being built, we looked at it as, what is the need of our infrastructure as far as health care is concerned. We have a lot of long-term care homes that the roofs are leaking and there's mold growing in the rooms and they're having to move patients out. Those are priorities."
The non-profit groups behind Station 20 West "needed to raise about $4 million," McMorris said. That's a far cry from the $12- to $14-million private fundraising goal suggested Wednesday by Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer, whose office later confirmed he'd been mistaken about the numbers.
Nevertheless, McMorris said organizers were having "limited success" collecting donations.
At a press conference later in the day, Station 20 West project manager Paul Wilkinson said organizers needed to raise about $3.5 million on their own, and had already received commitments worth about $1 million. They knew they would be able to obtain a mortgage to cover a further $1 million, and felt confident a public fundraising campaign could net the remaining $1.5 million within the next few months, Wilkinson said.
"We have a large number of very significant partners in this project."
The University of Saskatchewan's college of dentistry had planned to open a clinic at Station 20 West to offer low-cost care using faculty and senior students as part of their training. The West Side Community Clinic also planned to move there, along with some public health programs for immunization, addictions and mental health. The Child Hunger and Education Program (CHEP), Good Food Junction Co-op grocery store and Elizabeth Fry Society were also expected to join the multi-purpose centre.
"Everyone believes the project is critical to improving the health and well-being of the core neighbourhoods," Wilkinson said. "We're not folding."
In Regina, Premier Brad Wall acknowledged the concept of the project was "problematic" for the Saskatchewan Party. He dismissed Station 20 West as essentially a "mall development" in an interview Thursday.
"I believe that this particular project was supposed to have about $3 million from the private sector in it and $75,000 had been raised over a number of months," he said.
"We ought not to be in the mall business and it's just, it's a different approach. We don't think that the government of Saskatchewan should be opening up basically a mall development, where we'd be competing with grocery stores, competing with others who are already renting (facility space) now to community clinics in the area."
Wall noted an affordable housing development which formed part of the Station 20 West concept "is going to continue." The 55 duplex units are near completion.
NDP Leader Lorne Calvert said the discrepancy in the numbers put forward by Gantefoer, Wall and McMorris raises basic questions about the government.
"Just set aside partisan considerations here. You're making decisions about people's lives and apparently you don't even have the numbers," he said. "It's either a question of competency or this is a smoke-and-mirrors excuse."
Calvert bristled at Wall's description of the project as a mall and at Wall's opposition to a grocery store.
"I know the premier has a problem with any kind of community-based economic development initiative. This is a private-sector co-op, no different than any other co-op that you would find in a small town or a large town," he said.
"Maybe (Wall) thinks everyone should shop at Wal-Mart. I guess that's his concept. Well, I'm sorry, the folks that I met on 20th Street yesterday maybe have little kids and carriages and they can't get over to the Wal-Mart. Even the Giant Tiger is a reach for some of them. And anyway Giant Tiger is not particularly a grocery store."
Calvert said he hoped the government wasn't playing politics, but said he was beginning to get that feeling.
The Station 20 project is across the street from Calvert's Saskatoon Riversdale constituency, in the Saskatoon Centre constituency of his fellow NDP MLA David Forbes.
"This is all affecting the inner-city of Saskatoon, represented by New Democrats," he said. "Surely not even Brad Wall can deny the need."
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Incompetency or partisan politics, which is it? Maybe it is both, oh Sask. Party how far you've come 
We all enjoy hearing what the Canada West Foundation has to say about economic issues, but how often do they voice their perspective on social issues affecting Western Canada's cities? Let us listen to what they have to say.
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Originally Posted by Addressing Street Level Social Issues in Western Canada's Big Cities
.............The time has come for all actors, public and private, to recognize that key social problems are uniquely urban problems, and that they must be dealt with in an urban context. One barrier is that many social problems go largely unseen or ignored, at least until they reach a difficult and possibly irreversible boiling point. The quality of life in large cities is surprisingly fragile. As numerous American cities illustrate, if social problems fester unchecked, cities can become ghettos surrounded by gated suburbs. The challenge is to act quickly, before street level social problems spiral out of control or, where such decline already exists, to act decisively based on the best information available. Indeed, many North American cities have reportedly seen success in avoiding significant street level social problems by adopting a proactive approach.
A second barrier in dealing with urban social problems is that there is no single government or agency responsible for dealing with social needs. Cities are multi-jurisdictional sites, and the federal, provincial and municipal governments, as well as the nonprofit and corporate sectors, each have a role to play. This can be a barrier to progress, as senior governments can be tempted to "pass the buck" on complex social problems, and municipal governments currently lack the resources, capacity and expertise to assume full responsibility for these problems.
Finally, a lack of information about the full extent of street level social problems, the current responses to them, and the best practices for addressing them is a third barrier. Information exists, but it is often difficult for policy-makers and stakeholders to pull together and make sense of it while putting out daily fires. Anecdotes abound, but resources and coherent strategies are not always readily accessible.
Western Canadians and their decision leaders need a better, more fulsome understanding of street level social problems in our large urban centres and the best practices for addressing them. We need to know not only what the problems are, but also the implications of these problems for our cities. Western Canadians need a greater understanding of which governments are responsible to address which particular urban social problem, where government responsibility ends, how the nonprofit and private sectors can contribute positively, and what efforts are (or are not) being taken to improve urban society and by whom. And, western Canadian policy-makers and stakeholders need information to learn from one another. What works, and what doesn't, in dealing with particular street level problems? Are there best practices to address the unique problems faced by big cities that can be shared so that each city does not need to "reinvent the wheel?" ...........
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CWF's position on urban issues certainly suggests there might be more to the Saskatchewan Party's decision than simply a reallocation of health funding.
Now a question for the Saskatchewan Party, was the decision to pull funding worth the costs?
Completely unacceptable.
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