I was looking for an article that appeared in the Star Phoenix several days ago that suggested the Saskatchewan Party is completely ignorant of Saskatchewan urban issues (we must educate them quickly
), anyways I searched the blogosphere (the Star Phoenix search function is very limited) and here it is.
Government's actions signal trouble ahead
The StarPhoenix
Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008
If, as is generally the case, the Saskatchewan Party used its first budget to set the tone for its administration, the province has a growing list to worry about.
Rather than appear to be competent managers of the public purse, Premier Brad Wall's team has been extravagant in its spending, ham-handed in its communications strategy and incompetent in its delivery.
The latest in a series of embarrassing events include a budget-day announcement of the disruption of hundreds of jobs that now apparently was made in error, and the deliberate cancellation of a much-lauded inner-city redevelopment project in Saskatoon.
That no one from Wall to Health Minister Don McMorris to Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer can get their stories straight about why a previously made provincial commitment of $8 million to the Station 20 project, which would bring, among other things, medical, dental and community services to one of the most stressed neighbourhoods in Saskatchewan's largest city, does little to foster confidence in their ability to manage public money.
Until now, the government has requested patience from Saskatchewan citizens, suggesting the four months since it took office wasn't enough time to properly redirect the flow of cash. But this excuse is wearing thin.
Four months is more than enough time for Social Services Minister Donna Harpauer to understand how a major shakeup in her ministry would impact on the hundreds of lives affected by the "four-year modernization strategy" planned for its financial assistance division.
For Harpauer to suggest on the one hand that she approved the first year of the strategy while opposing the rest, and on the other hand to claim she wasn't by ministry officials what was going on, is to ask Saskatchewan residents to suspend all belief. It took the employees but minutes to figure out what was happening after some 400 of them were summoned to a special meeting scheduled to coincide with the March 19 delivery of the provincial budget.
If even after four months on the job the minister was still unable to grasp the ramifications in this case, it casts doubts on her ability to understand how her ministry's other policies impact on the lives of Saskatchewan's most vulnerable citizens.
At least Harpauer is consistent in her proclamations of ignorance. There, however, was no such consistency among politicians when it came to the slashing of the grant to Station 20, which was made a year ago by the former NDP government. Gantefoer offered one reason for the cut, McMorris another and the premier yet a third. Separately, they made little sense. Taken together they look more like a raft of juvenile excuses rather than part of a coherent plan to run the province.
Gantefoer believed the grant was cut because there was little chance the proponents of the project could raise the "$12 million to $14 million" needed to come from private interests. By next day he was admitting he was in error, and the necessary private funds were a minuscule portion of that amount.
Even more incredibly, McMorris suggested the money had to be pulled from a project that would make it easier for inner-city residents to access timely health care because the funds were needed to buy a fire alarm for St. Paul's Hospital and to ward off a mould attack. The decision, he assured us, had nothing to do with politics.
At least Wall's weak excuse was credible, if only because it illustrated an ideological basis to the ill-considered decision. The premier suggested the grant was killed because his government saw the inclusion of a co-operatively run grocery store within Station 20 as a threat to private industry.
But to cancel the entire project rather than deal directly with the situation is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
When the NDP absurdly castigated Wall for giving his 14-year-old daughter driving lessons on a publicly owned rural gravel road, it demonstrated just how far out of touch with rural Saskatchewan that party has become.
But Wall's clear lack of understanding about the dire needs of core neighbourhoods and the history of Saskatoon demonstrates just how out of touch he remains with urban Saskatchewan. Considering the role the province's largest city is playing in the economic revival of Saskatchewan, such ignorance could have dire consequences.
The proponents of Station 20 want a grocery store not because they want to compete with private industry but because many people in core neighbourhoods don't have the wherewithal to keep hiring cabs to go shopping. The last of the downtown grocery stores left more than a decade ago.
To ignore such realities for the sake of political partisanship and ideological reasons is an inauspicious beginning for a government that Saskatchewan people hoped could lead them to a prosperous future.
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