by Ken MacDougall

Two things that have continued to drive me crazy over the past ten years of teaching is, first, how little we expect our children to know before they matriculate, and secondly, how once they do have that certificate, how many believe that their educational “experience” has finally come to an end. In this age of “helicopter parenting”, a polite way to describe parents who fight their children’s educational battles, this sense of “graduation” by the child is viewed as a success. Moreover, it gives false testimony to those who now believe their children are fully prepared to manage their own lives and contribute to the betterment of society.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. What is being described here is a phenomenon of negative educational reform that promotes success through mediocrity, and where the “bare minimum” of 24 credits earned in Grades 10 through 12 earns a child the “right” to never have to strenuously think again.

I have referenced journalist Roger Miller thesis on educational disinvestment on several occasions of late, a process wherein governments have since the mid-1990’s made it a point to not provide sufficient fiscal support for educational advancement. This, in turn, has led to the destruction of whatever competitive advantage we had as a nation with one of the highest standards of living world-wide. What is equally galling is that even before our governments even started their fiscal march towards intellectual disinvestment, we have allowed ourselves to elect governments that believe whatever we might accomplish in life, it’s not really good enough, or there’s some nation in the world – usually the United States – that can do much better.

One has only to examine some of the more inept policy decisions made by predominately conservative-leaning governments to make this point. For instance, the world-renowned Connaught Laboratories, whose research efforts included the development of heparin (blood thinners) to aid in cardiac care, the manufacture of typhus and polio vaccines, as well as penicillin, was privatized by the Mulroney government in the early 1970’s, leaving Canada with no means to contribute towards the development of possible cures or vaccines against, first, Ebola, and now the pandemic induced by the COVID-19 virus.

Equally asinine military policy decisions abound. As a nation we tend to – sort of – acknowledge our military’s many achievements in world campaigns. We know our Canadian soldiers know how to fight, as was witness at Vimy Ridge in WW-I, or in the success of our sniper units in Afghanistan in the world’s first assaults against al qaeda terrorist forces, but God help us if we have to actually spend money equipping them for battle. Former Prince Albert resident John G. Diefenbaker was conned into believing that the Avro Arrow fighter jet prototypes being built in Malton, ON, were already obsolete, thereby giving Boeing an opportunity to unload their poorly designed Bomarc missile system as an “effective” way to halt potential Russian air strikes against North American targets. Then, realizing the limitation of these “advanced military weapons”, we purchased four squadrons of Lockheed’s F-104 StarFighter for use by the RCAF, an unstable craft Canadian pilots would soon come to nickname the “Widowmaker” – with good cause.

Indeed, one can’t help but marvel at how riveted Canadian conservatives are in noting that nothing is as “good” as equipment manufactured in the good United States, or – maybe – Germany. What this means, politically speaking, is that every time the Quebec or Ottawa governments provide supplementary funding to Bombardier, the St. Lawrence River will run saline for days with the anguished tears of Conservative MP’s. However, let Stephen Harper write another $10 billion cheque to fund Lockheed Martin’s “research fund” the F-35 Lightning, and it’s, “Well, at least we’re not buying $600 hammers like the Pentagon…”
Sigh…

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Our nation’s seeming contempt for Canadian intellectualism is also on prominent display here in the fly-over province. Thanks to both the Devine and Wall / Moe government’s indifference, those with impressive skills are often forced to go elsewhere to work. For instance, following a Saskatchewan Medical Association move to initiate a discussion with software developers on how to best create and store medical records, the Devine government went out and contracted SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), not to be confused with the prestigious school of art located in Chicago), a Pentagon supplier of various weapons of mass destruction, whose only link to health care was its minimally functioning recordkeeping software designed for United States military hospitals. UTLAS (University of Toronto Library Automation Systems), at that time housed in Regina, saw the writing on the wall for future developers, and moved out of province within six months of that move.

Right now, the government of Saskatchewan is sitting on a bundle of potential projects that, were we to have the “people” resources fluent enough to handle such missions, would snap our economy back to attention in a heartbeat. The problem is, it would also require the government to give some serious thought as to the restructuring and funding of education. Moreover, not all such funding need be directed to what our labour forces tend to refer to as the “geek trades”. Germany, for instance, has successfully demonstrated to the world that an educational philosophy placing equal value on the contribution to its economy of “blue collar” workers is not only profitable, but plays a large part in upgrading our standard of living. Industrial – educational “co-operative” programs have only enhanced tradespersons’ skills apprenticing for journeyman status, producing a quality of worker worthy of “Bachelor” status on a degree-based system. Germany has also been able to establish Master’s and Doctorate-equivalent programs requiring more creative and innovative approaches to trades enhancement, which in turn has motivated industry to consider key elements of their labour force as management resources – something only the most enlightened of industries in Canada or the United States would even consider.

To accomplish these reforms alone requires two major funding adjustments be pursued by our Department of Education. First, the number of credits required for graduation should be increased to at least 30, and secondly, at least one Mathematics and two Science or Technology-based credits should be appended to the Grade 12 level of classes offered in every high school in this province. In other words, we have to recruit or train many more teachers specializing in STEM-based subject areas, so that we do not fall behind in the innovative production of break-through technologies, particularly in the areas of renewal and conservation.

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For the moment, then, we will leave the need for greater language facilitation in our schools and our quest for integrating our Indigenous peoples into the economic mainstream of the Canadian economy to another column. Our Constitution recognizes the dual role both the French and English played in moving this country to nationhood, but we still haven’t really addressed the colonialist mentality of our Euro-centric citizenry we still manage to project upon our nation’s true founders. Thus, our educational reform “issues list” is still far from complete.

Skeptics who find flaws in my reasoning may be, and perhaps should be asking questions as to embarking upon the reform pathway I’ve already mapped out. Typically, their inquiry might well begin with the question, “If we go through with this obviously expensive reform, to what purpose would these newly acquired skills be used?”

Here are but a few examples:

1. We could diversity the agricultural market, expanding our services to market gardening and specialized crop experimentation to address the issues created by global warming

2. We need enhanced north-south transportation, preferably through high speed rail. Why not require those benefiting from taxpayer relief see it as their corporate responsibility to take on such a project, so that our north is finally well-looked after?

3. We might finally be able to put a full-time research team to work addressing the environmental concerns created by the Quill Lakes pollution problems

4. We could start to manufacture our own “green” and “renewable” product lines, rather than having to buy them from someone else, as we now do with solar panelling

5. We could finally allow SaskTel the opportunity to provide our rural communities with high speed, affordable Internet service, so as to make the agricultural sector more competitive world-wide

6. We could have scientific monitoring of proposed irrigation projects now being pushed by the DoD, without having to worry about turning such projects such as the Lake Diefenbaker area into another Quill Lake disaster

7. We could address the need to finally make the Port of Churchill viable by resolving construction of a high-speed rail line into the community to handle grain and passenger traffic, and develop a road service to that community

8. Instead of worrying about pipelines to the United States, we could lay the groundwork for such infrastructure to lead to the Port of Churchill, and

9. We could start to address the serious need to incorporate Indigenous people into the economic mainstream of our society, without bitterness

I guess the real question for the future should be, “Is anyone in government really listening?”

by Ken MacDougall

What with our federal budget now gaining focus from the opposition Conservatives, one would think that a federal election was to be held mere weeks from now.  The number does sound “scary”, mind you – “half a trillion dollars and growing to $1.3 trillion in the next five years” – but the problem is, not only are most people not paying attention, but they just don’t seem to care all that much. “It’s a ‘number’,” is the attitude – “Big deal.” Still, I have to laugh at the fearmongering the Conservatives are already employing in their attempt to start an economic dialogue with Canadian voters.

You really have to wonder what it is that Conservative wannabe prime minister Erin O’Toole expects to accomplish by drawing attention to the federal deficit.  The two provinces that most supported the messages the Conservatives delivered in the last election were Saskatchewan and Alberta, and they’re hardly bastions of frugality and sagacious utilization of taxpayer dollars.
Alberta’s Jason Kenney, who supported the O’Toole leadership bid, gave $4 billion to Big Oil just because – well, they’re “Big Oil” – adding to a deficit that of today is just shy of $100 billion. As for Saskatchewan, we’re only at $26 billion, but if you consider that we’re only 1/39th of Canada’s population, multiply that number by 39, and you get – just over $1 trillion? Man, talk about the Conservative pot calling the Liberal kettle “black”…

In the United States, President Biden is seeking to introduce legislation to begin tackling infrastructural needs that will add another $1.4 trillion to that nation’s debt. Over 70% of the nation – including 59% of Republicans – think this is a great idea. The Party of
Trump, however, thinks this is an abysmal idea, as it would eventually lead to the government re-hiking personal and corporate tax levels carved out for the very wealthy under the Trump presidency. Ironically, an increasingly outspoken group of corporate heads, instead of warning the public as to the possible negative economic consequences for such a roll-back, are lining up to support the Biden agenda.

Republican senators and Congressional representatives are also having difficulty with the way in which the Biden administration
is defining infrastructure. Instead of restricting the definition to the idea of fixing bridges, roadways, and power grids, the Democrats have added two new abut inclusive factors, education and technology.  This makes perfect sense, especially with Republicans having contended for years that China’s policies are eating an American-made economic lunch.

With the prospect of China becoming the world’s strongest economy by as early as 2030, President Biden has decided that it’s time to beat China at its own game by focusing on two key points. First, he wants the educational system to produce more graduates with skill sets compatible with industrial research and production needs. Secondly, and this is probably the more problematic
of goals to achieve, get employers to start supporting unionized labour, the premise being that, were employers to provide their employees with modernized and safer working conditions as well as a reasonable wage and better benefits, members of this work force would be able to afford the innovative products their industries would eventually start to produce.

Boiled down to its root principles, the president’s approach is not to engage in some demented tariff war which ultimately hurts American businesses and consumers alike; if the Chinese are eating the American lunch, make more sandwiches so that everyone
gets to eat a decent meal – but make damn certain that the consumer knows whose oven baked the bread.

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To quote economist David Andolfato, Senior VP of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, we should be viewing most government’s increasing debt loads merely as banks do; it’s your monies “in circulation”, with its movement providing further stimulation for growth and prosperity. Andolfato makes the point that even though interest rates and returns on investment are currently extremely low, people still buy government bonds because they are “safe”, and carry the government’s guarantee of a return on investment. The Democrats, and specifically the Biden administration, have seized upon this reality so as to justify its agenda for providing relief to those hardest hit by this pandemic.

One may recall that in the federal government’s Throne speech, Canadians were essentially told the same thing, namely, that they should not have to be burdened by a debt not of their own making, but rather be able to turn to a government better able to
manage debt so that they can better concentrate on managing their own fiscal affairs. This enlightened economic approach has created its own controversial argument with Reagan-worshipping conservatives, who for more than forty years have viewed government the “enemy” and embraced the trickle-down economic theories Republicans received from its “Great Communicator”.

Under Biden’s approach, responsible government would use this debt circulation to stimulate other areas of growth potential, leaving the individual to handle debt for which he or she were responsible. For the government, when debt repayment comes due, notification of such deadline would be met by budgetary contingency planning, be it by having already set such monies aside in its regular planning, or perhaps paid for by the release of another bond specifically allocated for such tasking, and in which investors would inevitably include in their portfolios. And when one thinks about it, this really isn’t as “radical” approach as the Republicans, and now Erin O’Toole are, making it out to be; in fact, it’s how Canada raised money to pay for World War II military needs.

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Shawn Stack, an insolvency trustee from Calgary, correctly pointed out in the April 24th edition of the Herald, that during this pandemic the number of individuals  ling for insolvency in Canada decreased by some 29%. What this number merely means is that of the entire pool of potential candidates for insolvency, being literally forced to confront their inability to properly manage
personal debt have sought means to change the way in which they are managing their economic life. To use the terms of the crisis that put us in this awkward situation in the first place, this is like the individual who, despite having already received their inoculation, still follows the health guidelines of the government.

 e length of this pandemic has given us opportunity to consider how one handles debt, and relieve us of the shackles that curtail economic growth. During the NDP leadership campaign, Guy Caron, an NDP Member of Parliament from Quebec, has published
numerous arguments laying out a possible infrastructure to which a guaranteed or basic annual income could be applied in Canada. Unfortunately, we have Conservative politicians such as Saskatoon West’s Brad Redekopp and Carlton Trail – Eagle Creek’s Kelly Block always trying to misrepresent this approach by claiming to see “virtue in the obtaining of work”, portraying its end goal would be to place still more Canadians on welfare or work relief. I personally find it funny that this was once a “conservative” proposal, indicating that were this party to again form government in Ottawa, even their “good” ideas will turn to nothing.

A federal election is coming, folks, and Erin O’Toole is stuck in the passenger train on a cut-out siding, waiting for the 200-plus freight to meander by, with his “Oh my God, look at the size of the debt!” nonsensical theme. We need politicians in Ottawa who see problems for what they are, with cause, and not as pebbles or rocks to hurl at opposing equals who are taking far more responsible positions in dealing with Canada’s political issue.

Canada, too, requires massive infrastructural modernization to be built with a vision in mind for what we can leave our children and grandchildren, not unlike the 100 year planning efforts undertaken by the Chinese.

We can no longer allow ourselves to listen to a campaign based upon hate-filled rhetoric and vacuous policies. Apparently, Mr. O’Toole never got that message from the failure of Andrew Scheer to obtain the post Justin Trudeau still holds.

by Ken MacDougall

If you have no idea as to who Victor Thunderchild is, or was, and unfamiliar with his accomplishments as a teacher and advisor to Indigenous youth, you might be thinking right now that in responding to the news of his death, I’m feeling unusually “sorry” for our premier having to face so much criticism for his handling of this pandemic. I’m afraid, however, that it’s quite the contrary; it is in times such as these that I’m still sufficiently self-analytical to be able to realize that as a teacher having the same concerns as had Mr. Thunderchild when he tweeted Mr. Moe from his hospital bed begging – demanding – pleading to start treating teachers as essential workers and have them receiving a COVID-related vaccine before returning to class, I am GLAD at not having a Twitter account at the moment.

Victor Thunderchild died on Friday, April 16th from complications due to COVID-19. As COVID-19 continues to take its toll in lives in Saskatchewan, Scott Moe is probably relieved that Mr. Thunderchild’s “tweets” are just one more criticism to which he will never have to respond.
-Ken MacDougall

Feel free to speculate as to the “why” of that reasoning…

Ever since the October election’s leadership debate between Scott Moe and NDP leader Ryan Meili, our obtuse premier has repeatedly demonstrated his incapacity to differentiate between making health-based decisions whose purpose is to contain the spread of COVID-19 versus appealing tomembers of his flock who are anti-vax, anti-COVID, anti-carbon tax and anti-Science. In effect, he has vacated his leadership responsibilities to buffoons sufficiently empowered by his expressed sentiments that they feel free to humiliate us all by taking up a megaphone in front of the Legislature and waxing xenophobically and profanely upon Canada’s immigration policies – and insult the premier’s alleged friend, the chief medical officer for the province, Dr. Shahab, in the process.

One would think that a government, upon receiving Mr. Thunderchild’s death-bed plea to prioritize the COVID vaccinating of teachers, then followed so closely by his own death, one would like to believe that a compassionate Saskatchewan government would have given considered thought to acknowledging his words; instead, on Tuesday it announced that the one-dose AstraZeneca vaccine would now be given to those 40 years of age or over – but not until at least April 28th, approximately six weeks before school ending.

At this point in the province’s war against the pandemic, it’s almost impossible to understand the rationale being used by the Descendants of Devine as they lurch from crisis to crisis.

Mind you, Premier Moe isn’t exactly receiving any help from the Bombast Brothers of provincial politics, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford, parties to whom he regularly seeks guidance. Alberta’s hospital beds continue to fill with COVID-related cases, even as Kenney attempts to deflect public opinion from even thinking about increasing caseloads by pursuing a plan to decapitate a few Foothills just a few kilometers west of Calgary so as to “diversify” the province’s economy in welcoming back 19th century coal-producing markets. Ford, on the other hand, having by now realized that his own approach in allowing economic forces to be prioritized over health concerns is an abject failure, is simply looking around, shouting “Help me, please,” to no avail.
In all three provinces, the plan of action has become all too obvious; it’s “Every man for himself.”

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Six months after the leadership debate, it still rankles me when I think of the moderator, CTV’s Molly Thomas, interjecting herself and her possible personal opinions into the debate by repeating a question to Dr. Meili, previously asked by Premier Moe, “How do you plan to pay for those 1,000 teachers (the NDP was recommending in order to reduce class sizes across the province); where does that money come from?”, and for which Dr. Meili was preparing an answer.

Now, I know that politicians who live on the “conservative” side of reality see the answer to that in fairly black-white images – increased taxation – the buzzwords often spoken by unlamented and unmissed former premier Brad Wall. However, let me again quote “The Walrus” contributor Roger Miller, who in the mid-1990’s was already saying that our propensity to disinvest in our educational budgets has “destroyed a historical competitive advantage [in education] in the space of a decade”, making us “dangerously unprepared to prosper” in a modernized economic environment.

Simply put, Scott Moe and his SARM reeve friends have already had more than 20 years in dragging our educational standards, not to mention our expectations, into the chaos-filled state in which we find ourselves today. The Saskatchewan Party doesn’t believe in education; it merely wishes only to grease the economic wheel so the squeaking won’t keep us awake at night. Its leaders, won’t accept the eality of change, namely, that ours is now a technological world in which education must now play a huge role in infrastructural development, even as our farming communities must now look to government to provide them with high speed Internet so that they can remain competitive.

Sooner or later, this government has to invest in a future where our children can create the conditions for economic salvation that the Descendants of Devine pretend are only the pipe dreams of the very young. Instead, they waste your time pretending that contingencies, whether it’s in the hiring of 1,000 new teachers or restricting social movement so as to contain a virulent medical enemy, are just too bloody expensive for us to have right now.

And so, we turn ourselves back to the ravages of COVID, and the lives of many good Saskatchewanians, including Mr. Thunderchild, and we should be now asking ourselves, “Just what is it going to take before Scott Moe actually listens to the people who actually know what disease is, and the costs society must be prepared in order to finally allow us to think of a better future?”

Doesn’t it gall you that mouth-breathers such as Megaphone Man in Regina, unmasked and still attempting to intimidate us into believing that his “rights” are being infringed upon by our request for everyone to wear a mask, when there are entire nations in the south-eastern portion of Asia that faced the reality of COVID-riddance, controlled their nation’s social behaviours and movements – and since mid-summer last year have not had to worry about where they can do, and with whom, while Scott Moe it telling tavern owners to close at 11:00 PM and don’t take your drink with you whenever you go to play the slots?

It does me – because if he’d actually acted on the public’s behalf, I wouldn’t be lamenting the loss of a fellow teacher whose educational efforts gave new hope and meaning to the kids he counselled.

by Ken MacDougall

It has always amazed me that the harshest of criticisms voiced about our educational system come from people who, for wont of a better descriptor, harbour some seriously jaded and anti-intellectual thoughts. We can include in that list at least two former premiers NOT from Saskatchewan: BC Liberal leader and Minister of Education under premier Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark and Ontario’s very un-Progressive Conservative Mike Harris.

It would be a “safe” bet to say that teachers weren’t particularly “fond” of either Ms. Clark or Mr. Harris, either. Ms. Clark, a three-time failed post-secondary student (SFU, the Sorbonne and University of Edinburgh), endeared herself to the British Columbia Teachers’ Union by first introducing legislation in 2002 that stripped teacher bargaining rights, then in 2005 legislated the BCTU back to work following the union calling a wildcat strike that had the overwhelming support of parent groups, and for the next ten years imposed legislative fiat over BC classrooms that the BC Supreme Court would eventually determine in 2011 to be “unconstitutional”.

Mike Harris, golf professional from North Bay, ON, started out his post-secondary life by taking the two-year “Normal” course Ontario offered to prospective teachers wanting to pursue careers in elementary and middle school instruction, only to find out they he really didn’t like children all that much and “complaining” parents even less. His “analysis” of education? Blame teachers for not providing “complete” curriculum instruction and insufficiently “testing” their student charges to ensure their “readiness” for their next level of educational challenges. His “solution”: appoint a used car salesman, John Slobeden, as his first Minister of Education in 1995, declare war on the two major teachers’ unions in the province, and blame the educational system for creating the massive debt accrued by both the federal government and Ontario. Eventually, he would wield a budgetary cudgel of educational disinvestment that, in the words of “The Walrus” correspondent Roger Miller, “destroyed a historical competitive advantage [in education] in the space of a decade”, making us “dangerously unprepared to prosper” in a modernized economic environment.
Does any of this history of educational misbehaviour have similar patterning in Saskatchewan? If you’re a member of the Saskatchewan Party, you could make the case that the Romanow government’s restructuring of the educational hierarchy and its effects upon governmental spending are no different than those undertaken by the Harris regime – and you’d be right. However, and unlike Harris, the NDP certainly weren’t going around blaming teacher “demands” leading to an overspending; in fact, the average “per student” fee provided by the government across Saskatchewan to local school boards was one of the lowest in Canada. Their reorganization was merely the act of a responsible government attempting to find monies anywhere, in any department, that would help them to downsize a provincial debt approaching $18 billion that at the time the Devine government had left them to eliminate.

And thus, the larger school divisions were born.

Fiscal critics had for years railed at the sheer numbers of really small school “divisions” that existed in Saskatchewan, with Board officials seemingly being “elected for life” by a cadre of parents only too willing to impose their moral directive upon teachers. What these critics failed to see is that the schools were in fact fully meeting the needs of the community, and took considerable pride in that accomplishment. Indeed, excessive public influence being placed upon the school and staff alike was a rarity, as parental political clout was counterbalanced by a seemingly tenured coterie of teachers providing mentoring to the occasional new teachers at the school, while acting as a firewall in disputes between new recruits and any parent daring to voice their “helicopter” concerns in such negotiations.

Once the larger divisions were created, however, it did not take long for the rural municipalities’ fiscal hawks to impose their governance by applying one-size-fits-all “policy” management criteria to all schools, irrespective of size. It was through this rigidity and philosophical conformity that would eventually cost smaller communities their sense of ownership and decision-making capacity they’d long enjoyed under to the previous budgeting system.

It was here that the new “reality” to which Miller had referred in 1996 was born. “Educational disinvestment” took many forms, with consequences that the NDP could never have foreseen. When a school was slated for closure, seniority clauses within the STF’s contract were ignored, as teachers were forced to make a choice between selling their current homes and moving to a new community, or retiring. The hiring of new staff was based not so much upon experience, but upon what forensic accountants would describe as “cost benefit analysis”, namely, what flexibility did the potential teacher have in their ability to teach different course offerings versus their payroll “burden” – a process that too often resulted in budgetary “concerns” being prioritized over teaching needs. This, in turn, usually meant that the person most likely to get the position was the person having the least, or even no teaching experience whatsoever, and in the end came close to destroying the ability of new staff to be mentored by those with seniority who fully understood their responsibilities to pupil and school alike.

Other factors would eventually emerge that would eventually isolate parents from regaining faith in their voices being heard at the Board level. For instance, as a school would be closed – a decision that was made at the division level – trustees would turn their attention to other matters, as though that school had never existed in the first place. Previously proactive parents upon whom a closed school community could rely upon to inject life into extracurricular events found themselves no longer welcomed to contribute to their child’s new school programs. To make matters worse, under pressure from SARM reeves seeking to keep mill rates low, school divisions would accede to their demands despite allegedly being “autonomous”; this, in turn, left school administrators shuffling monies allocated to school supplies, textbooks or library expansion into extracurricular activities, just to maintain a presence within the SHSAA calendar – then frantically begging teachers to supervise such activities simply to justify their expenditures.

The eventual emergence of the “24-course-fits-all-graduates” should therefore not have been unexpected, especially when reeves and even trustees to this day continue to question the necessity of offering so-called “frill”-courses such as French, Music, or Art History. Unfortunately, with school administrators literally beseeching teachers to participate in extracurricular agenda meant that Physical Education graduates became preferred new staff as opposed to those capable of teaching STEM subjects, particularly in Physics, Chemistry, Grade 12 Pre-Calculus, Workplace Mathematics and Technology.

During the 2019 NDP convention in Prince Albert, I approached STF President Patrick Maze with the intention of exploring whether or not the STF bargaining unit could adopt a similar approach taken by BC, irrespective of the costs involved and objections that would obviously be put forward by the Descendants of Devine Party currently calling the shots in Regina. Unfortunately, given that the STF really isn’t a “union” so much as a professional guild, despite Mr. Maze expressing sympathy for the approach, I seriously doubt that the conversation ever returned to the issue once he returned to Regina.

Our schools need to be returned to centres of excellence, much as Walter Murray and Bedford Road Collegiate have created with their housing Saskatoon’s academically talented programs. However, that’s not nearly enough to clear away the twelve years of anti-intellectualism fostered by the DoD and Premier Moe’s unwillingness to seek treatment for the resource revenue addiction crippling his government’s agenda.

These thoughts, however, I’ll reserve for a future column.

by Ken MacDougall

This was supposed to be the week in which I FINALLY put to rest the tearing apart of the Descendants of Devine Party, alias the Saskatchewan Party, for their ongoing mentions of “152 hospitals and 178 schools closed” during the Romanow / Calvert era of restrained yet effective fiscal policy. Mind you, they did this for no other reason than the fact that they had no well-defined policies that would restrict their continued plundering of the provincial treasury, were unwilling to cite the many reasons as to why then-Premier Romanow found such action both urgent and necessary, why the DoD hasn’t done anything in the past thirteen years to reverse Romanow’s changes, if they were so draconian, or why they hadn’t gone through the same review of the deteriorating state of education and health care costs when they were provided such opportunity during the ACTUAL Devine reign.

Now, however – or at least until Premier Moe calls another election – we can temporarily “forget” about fact that the DoD has no access to a Thesaurus in order to properly describe the process Romanow’s Cabinet went through, that being “restructuring” as opposed to “closure”, as the Supreme Court has now given the premier another “poor Saskatchewan, the rest of Canada is against us (TROC)” moment by concluding in an not-even-close verdict of 6-3, that the federal government’s imposition of a carbon tax, in the absence of the DoD doing NOTHING in a five year warning period to develop a plan to help this province reduce its carbon footprint, was in fact constitutionally correct.

The March 26th edition of the Herald provided me with ample fodder by which to rip this government’s position on the carbon tax to shreds, not the least of which were the lame and utter banal choice of words spoken by the Premier. The “I will never, ever apologize for standing up for what Saskatchewan people believe in” headline kicker was particularly nice, considering the fact that as a Saskatchewan-born resident living here for over forty years, I certainly didn’t agree with the government’s plan to oppose carbon emission regulation and ignore his own government’s foot-dragging on tackling this issue, along with a few hundred thousand more who, unlike the climate deniers, voiced similar objection.

I’m also getting a little bored at the premier constantly using the “standing up for the province of Saskatchewan” as the major descriptor of the government’s action in taking the case to the Supreme Court.

It also galls me that the same people keep acting as Premier Moe’s personal lapdogs, especially when their being in a position to help formulate a carbon reduction policy that would have met the federal government’s criteria, their inaction signifies their indifference to the very problem itself. SARM President Ray Orb, for instance, fails to differentiate how this tax is “unfair to Saskatchewan’s rural municipalities, farmers and ranchers, and will continue to put Saskatchewan producers at a competitive disadvantage.” What’s the “difference” between Saskatchewan farmers and, say, Manitoba’s farmers, ranchers and rural municipalities, especially when Manitoba first was a part of this same fight, but decided in the long run that it was better for them to collectively come up with a policy that met the federal government’s guidelines?

But, hey, the DoD court case has already cost every Saskatchewan taxpayer the next four years of their federal carbon tax rebate. What we really need is a translator who will interpret Premier Moe’s own words, “I will never, ever apologize” into Prairie English. Mad Magazine’s own Alfred E. Neuman has the perfect translation: “What, me worry?” – as the provincial debt approaches $26 billion…

Even people who are instinctively “pro” in support of DoD policy keep stumbling over the problem without realizing its obviousness. For instance, CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, Steve McLellan, makes the point that “we really need climate change policy where emission-intensive and trade-exposed industries, the foundation of Saskatchewan’s economy, are not penalized by one-size-fits-all carbon pricing.” Isn’t the point of the carbon tax legislation to LOWER the output of “emission-intensive” industries, such as, say, the province giving tax incentives for industries to equip refinery stacks with algae scrubbers? How about using subsidies to the oil industry to instead be directed towards helping farmers on the brink of fiscal disaster reorganize their practices to smaller “market garden” enterprises where their crops are guaranteed sales, even as the principal California sources find their operations scarred by the effects of climate change and increasingly dangerous summer fire seasons diminishing their crop sizes?

Come to think of it, why isn’t the Chamber of Commerce putting more pressure on the Moe government to diversify our economy? Isn’t that the problem that got us into this economic mess in the first place, namely, that we have grown fat and used to feeding upon non-renewable resource royalties?

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The truth is, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives already knows what the outcome of this decision will be in enabling the DoD to continue its foot-dragging in developing a more sustainable and carbon-free market mentality – blame it all on the feds. Simon Enoch, its Saskatchewan director, maintains that “The carbon tax debate has proven far too useful to Conservatives as a cudgel to bash the federal Liberals at every moment, and certainly our premier and the premier of Alberta have been more than happy to use that cudgel.”

I find it remarkable that the Conservative Party of Canada, having just gone through a policy convention in Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s back yard, STILL haven’t gotten the message, particularly from its younger members, that IF the party had a better and more INCLUSIVE climate change policy and agenda, the prospects of Erin O’Toole replacing western Canada’s favourite dart board covering picture, that being one Justin Trudeau, as the next prime minister of Canada. However, with Alberta and Saskatchewan still all-too-willing to vote “Hate”, and the three playboys of the Saskatchewan Party, founders of the Koch-like Canada Growth Council and its PAC offshoot, WestWatch, will be right there, insuring that both provinces elect only “true” Conservatives, turning off the more climate-enlightened cabal of central Canadians whose beliefs are “conservative”, and thus guaranteeing Mr. Trudeau a third term in aimlessly managing the economy.

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Back in 2018 when the DoD was making a big fuss about the carbon tax and promising to fight it in the Supreme Court, I couldn’t stop laughing at how absurdly self-righteous the party’s Justice spokesperson at the time, Don Morgan, in outlining their intentions.
Having on occasion being assigned the Grade 11 Law course to teach, and recalling only vaguely the shared responsibilities of the federal and provincial government’s taxation duties, I decided to make a point of expressing that knowledge, and put into bold print in my December 14, 2018 column the following challenge:

Should the Saskatchewan Party inevitably win this case in court (after appeal), I will donate $1,000 to Mr. Morgan’s favourite charity.

Having now had it confirmed that my initial prediction was correct, I have decided to provide the money to my granddaughter, so as to pay a part of her university tuition fund.

Mr. Morgan, I hope you don’t mind.

by Ken MacDougall

This column was supposed to be my last commentary respecting the smokescreen issues of school and hospital “closures” that the Descendants of Devine Party (DoD), alias the Saskatchewan Party, have been using to cover up their fiscally weak policy agenda for the next four years. This has only highlighted the fact that they have wed themselves to a base that once were rural soulmates, but in actuality now consist mostly of the disaffected roiling at the collapse of non-renewable resource sector employment opportunities, particularly in Alberta’s Oil Patch.

These folks don’t have the faintest clue how to interpret this reality, so they look for bogeymen such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his carbon tax initiative to blame for their economic plight.

Let’s face reality for a change; Devine’s decadents and their DoD offspring, despite adhering to outdated doctrinaire and a seemingly unshakeable belief in the tenets of unfettered capitalism, are incapable of balancing a budget, and have yet to propose any economic initiative that would eventually provide some fiscal relief. Ronald Reagan, B-grade actor, former president of the United States and saint of a seriously drifting Republican party, once claimed that the real enemy of democracy was government itself; with the Moe government now embarking on a set of directions wherein the province is being allowed to be exploited by Alberta carpetbaggers contributing to the Saskatchewan Party’s campaign coffers and get-rich-quick “entrepreneurs” from England and France, no truer descriptor could describe our government’s behaviour. In effect, we’re being “managed” about as well as a failing Trump enterprise.

Were it not for the fact that the 2020 campaign was conducted while a pandemic raged in the province, Premier Moe’s “yuk-yuk” for the third campaign in a row about closed hospitals and schools should have been sarcastically reacted to as though one were watching Boss Hogg chasing the General Lee in The Dukes of Hazzard. Premier Moe, his driving ability and similarity of management notwithstanding, might just as well be Boss Hogg soothing public concerns over health care by proclaiming Daisy Duke as the new town’s gastroenterologist, or “former” Sheriff Coltrane, having finally found a forger willing to “doctor” the blank medical certificate he found when he and Clint Eastwood were busy chasing fifty Cuban soldiers around Grenada, now specializes in surgically repairing deep flesh wounds with the aid of gunpowder recycled from the shells of his former service revolver.

I really have to ask this question: what IS the “difference” between Boss Hogg extolling the virtues of medical practice in fictional Hazzard county, or Boss Hogg – sorry, Premier Moe, laying on the schtick by trying to convince his rural constituency that they could still get a triple bypass or spinal surgery had hospitals in Aberdeen or Meath Park not been “closed” by those “tax and spend” NDP socialists?

I’ll wait for your response…

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I’ve been writing this column off and on for about five years now, and the only time I’ve ever garnered “Letters to the Editor” commentary was when I focused my critique upon local politicians trumpeting the delivery of sound “business” decision-making processes such as the cancellation of STC service by local SP MLA Joe Hargrave. However, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that the Editor of the Herald receives far more calls from frothing DoD supporters proclaiming me to be nothing more than a “left-wing extremist, NDP supporting armchair blowhard” who’s too cowardly to put his name on a ballot.

When it comes to education, however, I do have people occasionally calling me at home or stopping to talk outside Safeway whenever I offer an opinion on health, and more particularly education.

As a teacher, I have often expressed concern about the deteriorating state of educational delivery in rural Saskatchewan, a view having recently been expounded upon by Glenn Wright (M.Eng.), soon to be lawyer, graduate of Saskatoon Bedford Collegiate’s ACTEL (academically talented) program, and former NDP candidate in Eston – Elrose.

Wright’s concerns focused upon the budgetary constraints of having returned to the curriculum such programs as Music that years ago would have been available to his own children, and of the efforts required by parents to have such options returned as high school offerings. As a father who has seen his youngest two children travel through the same ACTEL journey, I can truly empathize with his sentiments. However, there’s a problem, not only here, but in urban schools as well, in that so-called “gifted” students can fend for themselves, and so there is no need for “special education” budgets to be burdened with the expense of a school providing “enriched” instruction, especially when the public seems to believe that teachers are already devoting less time to the 3-R traditions in “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic”.

In rural Saskatchewan, SARM reeves, almost always elected for their views on petty slights and fiscal restraint, only embellish such anti-intellectual contempt by, say, listening to corporate agribusinesses claiming that it’s “unfair” for their firms to pay educational levies in the first place. Equally jaded are the rural residents who, having seen the size of their educational divisions grow while their voices provide less influence upon school policies, now hold the view that our schools are either “failing” in their delivery of educational product or becoming “political and left-leaning” factories breeding future social upheaval.

When I came back to my home province in 1979, interest rates were at 20% or higher, and already school boards were feeling the need to restrain their budgets. Things only got worse during the Devine years; I can remember being interviewed by school boards who challenged the very premise of education that a course’s curriculum is a good “start” towards children receiving a complete education.

One principal from North Battleford even laughed at my having even taken mathematics methodology classes, claiming that his school had “survived for years” by hiring Physical Education teachers to teach mathematics, with the advice that they simply keep their lesson plans at least a chapter or two ahead of student progress.

Other boards went further, finding some pretense to lay off teachers with seniority and larger salaries, then replacing them with first year graduates who could show “flexibility” in the number of courses they could teach on demand. The Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, more of a guild than a union and at the time principally staffed by ex-administrators, sympathized with the school boards, claiming that such fiscal “necessity” could only bring about a better educational process where budgeting was no longer front-and-centre to the Boards.

In the meantime, university professors watched as a steady stream of less well-prepared students entered their programs, only to either fail outright or find themselves in need of preparatory class that had been previously offered at the high school level. Finally, in what seemed at the time an almost desperate move, University of Saskatchewan mathematics professors called the STF’s bluff, and in 1997 gave the same final examination to all of the over 1,100 students enrolled in the Calculus 100 program. Just over 100 students passed that test.

Outraged, the STF took up parents’ requests and demanded that the university not only investigate as to how this test was administered and marked, but that certain members of faculty be disciplined for this academic “outrage”.

Faculty, having anticipated such a feedback, immediately released a copy of the test to the media and STF officials.

A friend on faculty also provided me with a copy, and I’m happy to say that it took me only six minutes to complete, resulting in a 100% grade – probably because it was only an old Department of Education provincial examination from 1936…

For Grade 10 students…

Right now, also as a result of cut-backs, a majority of high school administrators are having to explain why they are telling students and parents alike that they can still get into college or university by obtaining the 24 minimum credits needed to graduate with a Grade 12 diploma.

Equally embarrassing, a considerable number of boards do not demand their high schools offer the two-tiered mathematics curriculum starting in Grade 10, while in Science the only program found consistently in all schools is Biology 20, with Chemistry and Physics only given second or tertiary consideration as course offerings.

In the past three years I have witnessed sweeping changes provincial governments have made in order for the educational process to re-stabilize. In next week’s column, I will attempt to outline in what direction places like British Columbia are moving, even as our own Department of Education remains rudderless and leader-less.

Jokes about “closed” hospitals and schools are no longer punch lines the electorate should have to listen to coming from the Saskatchewan Party.

I just wonder who’s actually now prepared to listen to such reason, even as Premier Moe and Cabinet are quietly saying, “Who cares?”

Guess we’ll see in 2024…

by Ken MacDougall

When you’ve lived in almost every province in Canada, you tend to have flashbacks as to events that occurred there during your tenure, even to the point of remembering the politicians in power at the moment who gave you the greatest pleasure by living up to your expectations of them – good OR bad.

My fondest memories occurred while teaching in Quebec after graduating from Dalhousie University in 1976. At that time there were five premiers in Canada, including Allen Blakeney, who had obtained Law degrees from that institution, Quebec not being one of them. However, they did have respected leaders named Bourassa and intellectually brilliant Rene Levesque, leader of the “separatiste” Parti Quebecois, who became premier less than three months after I started teaching in the north-central part of the province.

Now, Monsieur Levesque I would probably remember if for no other reason than, while attending a function at the Student Union in Halifax a few months previous, he’d started hitting on my wife. Equally memorable was “the little man from Shawinigan”, Jean Chretien, MP and future hand-to-hand combat trainer for the Prime Minister’s RCMP escort, who specialized in choke holds. No, after all being considered, my favourite politician was Jean Drapeau, Mayor of Montreal, dispenser of many favours to Montreal’s east side, and overseer of the summer Olympics of 1976.

Now, those of you who are slightly longer of tooth than the average Saskatchewanian might remember that the mayor was exceptionally fond of “monument building”, and with Montreal hosting the Olympics, he had ample opportunity to indulge in his fetish on a slightly greater scale than, say, Brad Wall, former leader of the Descendants of Devine Party (DoD), now living in exile in Alberta, or Premier Scott Moe, who is now overseeing the building of hospitals in the River and Queen cities (and soon, Prince Albert, if we can believe election promises) as though he were a mother hen keeping her eggs warm before hatching.

What is most interesting is that Monsieur Drapeau and our hardly missed former premier Brad Wall share similar values, not the least of which is their love for a more “European” architectural elegance to our provincial infrastructures, in particular firms with head offices in Paris, France. His Worship, the Mayor, would eventually choose one Roger Taillibert (pronounced “Roe-jay Tie -bear) to design the Stade Olympique, the venue that would host the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics. Premier Wall’s needs were more “pedestrian”; all he wanted was a firm with an international reputation for excellence in road construction so as to design the Regina Bypass. VINCI SA would eventually be chosen to meet these exacting standards.

In fairness, both of the Montreal and Saskatchewan governments should have anticipated cost “overruns” to their projects. However, when first confronted with the reality of the Olympic Stadium (eventually referred to as “The Big Owe”) going more than $1.5 billion into the “red”, Mayor Drapeau dismissed that reality out of hand, maintaining that the Olympics could no longer run a debt than “man could have a baby”; Terry (Aislin) Mosher’s cartoon showing Drapeau “with child” would only serve to let Montrealers know that they would eventually be servicing that debt for another thirty years, when it was finally retired in 2006. When an intersection of the Regina Bypass had to be rebuilt due to design deficiencies, however, the Saskatchewan government’s $1 billion price “fix” created little more than a yawning “So what?” mentality on the DoD’s benches – a silence that would never have existed had the NDP – the so-called “tax and spend” monsters of the Saskatchewan Party’s Fairyland – been in power.

Ironically, both cost overruns occurred for the same reason – a lack of familiarity with Canadian business practices and climatic conditions that might affect construction design or cost from the Paris-based firms. In Taillibert’s case, his design failed to take into consideration that concrete will contract more in Montreal’s much wider range of temperatures encountered in winter. As a result, concerns were elevated when some of the concrete sidings fell away from the structure, miraculously with no one obtaining serious injury. In Saskatchewan’s case, an entire intersection had to be replaced when it was found that it had design deficiencies rendering insufficient room to take turns properly in one’s own lane by larger vehicles such as the Co-op’s three-trailer and up to 175’ length petroleum tankers or a much wider FlexiCoil air seeder, regular vehicular traffic found only on our Prairie roads.

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Under normal circumstances, were any government or agency to have such fiscal anomalies occur during their terms in office, the first item that taxpayers would demand would be an “accountability” for these indiscretions. For Mayor Drapeau, however, few citizens in Montreal cared; after all, they were hosting the Summer Olympics and the world would be coming to their doorstep; Jean Drapeau did that – and so Quebec taxpayers forgave him – eventually, at least.

In Saskatchewan’s case, I do not understand the tepid response, almost to the point of having given up, of rural voters not seeing that the DoD’s arrogance in providing the electorate with their “Couldn’t care less” response towards this $1 billion boondoggle is a fiscal slap in their face, not in urban Regina’s. As for Prince Albert and vicinity, we’re not deriving any benefit from having bon vivant international traveller and former Cabinet heavyweight Joe Hargrave as our “in” to state our needs to the provincial government – and yet this one individual was the “explainer-in-chief” providing reason as to why it was so “urgent” that we cut the STC’s $10 million annual subsidy from the provincial debt yoke.

Indigenous leaders know that the DoD couldn’t care less about their concerns; for years they’d listened to unlamented ex-Premier Brad Wall sending out his “taxpayer” dog whistles and redirecting their concerns to Cameco officials. Do the voters in Prince Albert not understand how far $1 billion could go in turning our city into a location with a voice as strong as Regina’s or Saskatoon’s?
Let’s take a look at how these monies could have better been spent in the north:

• We could have built Prince Albert’s much-needed second bridge,
• We could have restructured the current bridge to accommodate proper traffic width and walk-way security for pedestrians,
• We could have built the long-awaited bridge north of La Loche that would have allowed for smoother commercial truck traffic access to Fort McMurray’s Oil Patch,
• We could have twinned most of the roads – Highways 3, 55, and 155 – that would have allowed commercial and worker traffic to gain faster access to this same Oil Patch in Fort McMurray,
• We could have completed the all-weather road into Wollaston Lake so as to accommodate the commercial fish export business now on hold in the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation,
• And we could even have been able to re-start STC, and start paying closer attention to their future transportation needs.
  In performing only this bare minimum of tasks, one has only to sit back and contemplate the supplementary savings we would encounter by giving northern Saskatchewan residents greater access to meaningful jobs, while simultaneously cutting social welfare costs.
  
  Obviously, we of the real “north” need to find some way to commemorate this extravagant faux pas, while simultaneously telling the premier that we’re not interested in future promises of “maybe” hospitals and toll bridges. Thus, in true James Joyce fashion, I offer up this modest proposal that truly captures the spirit of the Saskatchewan Party’s legacy…
  
  Let’s ask the good people of Regina to “do us a solid” – and rename the Regina Bypass the Jean Drapeau Freeway.

by Ken MacDougall

Generally speaking, I enjoy having political discussions, preferably with people having a serious grasp of policy and principles; when you’re part Ukrainian, you’re born with this “need”, it seems. My personal experiences have led me to conclude that a good politician enjoys being challenged, a trait you won’t find in, say, the cultists slavering to the insane mutterings of Donald Trump and sycophants such as Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Mark Levine, Lindsay Graham or Marjorie Greene.

When it comes to Saskatchewan politics, there number of pols expressing their fealty to the Descendants of Devine Party and willing to take on all comers has dropped to incredible lows of late, even to the point of total apathy. It seems as though the three play-boys having way too much money and time on their hands (Tyler Willox, super-donor; Eric Clark, Director of the Saskatchewan Party until he stepped down in 2019, and Derek Robinson, former communications director for Premier Wall) are calling the shots these days. First, there was the WestWatch plot to unseat the highly respected former Liberal MP, Ralph Goodale. Now, however, we have Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe reacting in an almost puppet-like fashion to Regina City Council’s consideration of restricting energy companies from advertising in, or sponsoring, city events.

Moe’s immediate response to Council’s proposed motion was to threaten to direct the $30 million the Queen City annually receives from SaskPower and SaskEnergy for municipal billing to communities that are more “grateful” and “sensitive” towards the province’s economic plight.

Since the ouster of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the world has once again found itself a leader in President Joseph Biden who seems committed to supporting initiative and co-operation in solving global problems, be they climate change, human rights or world food shortages. In the same way, Regina City Council appears to want to change its image to one showing more sensitivity and awareness of global issues such as climate change. More to the point, this stance indicates an increasing concern by the municipality that the Saskatchewan Party may not have the ability to right our economy once the economic stimulus currently being provided by the federal government ends –that we may well be dragged further into a stubborn reliance upon the non-renewable resource sector for monies to fund much-needed future diversification of our economy.

Unfortunately, our post-election analysis indicates that the DoD will continue to receive American PAC-style funding to promote its one-way street solution. The Canada Growth Council, the organization that directed the poisonous rhetoric of WestWatch towards unseating Ralph Goodale, is but part of the cancer that continues to stifle and suppress ideas supporting a renewed and vital Saskatchewan presence in Canada.

The Canada Strong & Free Network, formerly the Manning Institute, claims the CGC “believes in free enterprise, small government, low taxes, trade, wealth creation, and supporting key economic industries in Canada”; however, when one gets down to the nitty-gritty of why it perceives such need in Saskatchewan, its whining tone only rails at myths for economic failure, as opposed to assessing progressive strategies for renewal before condemning them outright.

The three playboys of the CGC refer to themselves as “leaders” in the fight for economic prosperity, yet are only too willing to blame their failures upon “anti-growth propaganda, foreign-funded activist groups, and the absence of strong voices that advocate on behalf of free-enterprise and prosperity in Canada.” The question, however, is why in God’s name would anyone want to listen to their ideas when their entire approach delivers only the one message: hate for those who do not “believe” as they do.

It’s about time for the three CGC creators and their sycophants in the DoD to face harsh reality – neither Justin Trudeau nor Rachel Notley created your economic crises; Stephen Harper’s good friend, Saudi Arabia, was responsible for what happened.

The world itself is moving away from utilizing petroleum for transportation purposes, but that does not mean that the need for its refined derivatives and by-products will disappear any time soon. Having the provincial government focus its business plan upon exploiting these opportunities of the future may not only be a good idea, but may well be the ONLY way of achieving this goal. As for the product itself, our “oil” is extremely dirty, and therefore requires further refining. We knew this to be the case fifty years ago, but instead of using existing royalties coming in from product export to deal with this problem, our governments, both federal and provincial, took the typical Canadian banker approach that maintains you only lend money to those that don’t need it, and waited around for someone else – preferably an American entrepreneur – to step up and do the job for you – in Canada.

We’re still waiting…

Ah, yes; such dreamers – free enterprise and prosperity in Canada – but for whose benefit?

More to the point, what ideas have the CGC brain trust suggested as a viable pathway towards recovery?

We’re STILL waiting…

The problem is that an economic philosophy that can only generate hate as its message has become our nemesis. We may have started down this pathway with a Devine government cynically wanting to kill or suppress the economic ideas brought forward by successive NDP governments, but where is it now taking us? Every supporter of unrestricted and uncontrolled free enterprise has its myths and a political whim that generates divisiveness. Be it our increasing number of fanatics – who still believe that Donald Trump was actually “doing God’s work”. As for the rest, there’s still “Justin” to kick around, right?

Please explain this train of thought; you hate Justin because…???…because his father was Pierre Elliot…??? the guy who told our farmers to sell their own wheat (just like Gerry Ritz) and punctuated that statement with what is now politically correctly referred to as the “Salmon Arm Salute”? Come on, really? At least Justin bought Alberta a pipeline; doesn’t that account for anything at all?

All right then, here’s a history lesson for the CGC sycophants they may have missed. In the early 1980’s, Marc Lalonde, a Minister in Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government, came out west to offer Albertans and Saskatchewanians an investment opportunity called the National Energy Program. In that plan, pipelines would be built to service eastern Canadian markets, the product could be processed by the refineries of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, AND we could have a safe and SECURE source of energy upon which Canadians could rely for the next 200 or more years.

What’s more, the province of Quebec was on board with this initiative, as that province’s “Three Wise Men” – Trudeau, Jean Marchand and Gerard Pelletier were there expressly to deliver that message.

At the time, Canada was busy trying to fight a recession brought about by OPEC and its founders, one being Saudi Arabia. Alberta premier Peter Lougheed may have seen the sanity of that proposal, but not Grant Devine – even though it could eventually create tens of thousands of new jobs across the entire nation.

How did our “Canadian” citizens living in Alberta and Saskatchewan treat this proposal?

Let’s give it the descriptor it so richly deserves: just like the family that hates every other member of the family, save perhaps at Christmas, and is now set to do battle with kith and kin because the senior patriarch just died and didn’t leave a will as to how to disperse his multi-millions in accrued wealth.

“Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark…”

Who’s freezing now, Premier Moe?

by Ken MacDougall

I’ve always been stunned at the propensity of taxpayers here on the Prairies falling for the machismo nonsense of conservative-thinking politicians whenever they start mentioning an individual’s “right” to be able to do things on his own – which, translated, means that you’re going to have to pay for this sooner or later, and since our corporate friends want you to start “now”, let’s get the con job underway, the sooner the better.

Gerry Ritz, probably the most ideologically driven of these, and his good friend Stephen Harper, pulled off what to me has been the greatest theft of farm assets when the Conservatives effectively pulled the chain and flushed away the Canada Wheat Board.

The Board, a federal agency that had been selling both barley and wheat on behalf of Canadian farmers since the end of World War II, found itself in courtroom in August of 2012, the beheading sword to be delayed for a few more years as the “Marketing Freedom for Farmers Act” was proclaimed. Harper, to the cheers of a few of Ritz’s farmer friends around Kindersley, even “pardoned” those poor schmucks who’d been unfortunate enough to get fined or jailed when they tried to sell their produce on to buyers in the United States.

Now, one would have thought in listening to Harper and Ritz stress the “importance” of this Act to the farming community that the number of their brethren convicted under previous administrative procedure totalled numbers that Donald Trump alleged were complicit in voter fraud during the 2020 Presidential election; as usual, though, they were more Biden-like– ten, in all.

Was this Act even necessary? Of course not; all 10 convictions were registered prior to 1998, when enraged by one of its members having received sentence merely for having delivered grain to a 4-H Club FOB, legislation was introduced to give farmers full management rights over the CWB and elect its own Directors, so that such stupidity could never happen again. In the fourteen years following much-needed changes to legislation, the CWB functioned as it should have, selling grain for its 150,000 or more members at the highest possible prices, treating each producer as “equal” irrespective of operational size and crop produced– that is, until the Harper government gave away the $17 billion in CWB assets to a company supported by a Saudi prince, just so the Saudi regime would buy Canadian LAV’s to use in further incursions into foreign lands such as Yemen.

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OK – I “get it” – the part where the producer wants to be recognized for his contribution to keeping Canadians from starving, at least. However, all that this Act did was speed the demise of the small grain producer. Today, most farms are little more than massive corporations, with their land holdings in production measured in “townships”, not mere “sections”.

But if ANY of these producers feel that, with the size of their operations, a senior official from any of these American agribusinesses buying their product is going to even remember their name, much less greet them at the door with a case – or even a bottle of 50-year-old Scotch, they’ve just been conned by Gerry Ritz.

In 2014, these farmers who’d “fought so hard for the right to market their own crops” found out what “individuality” brings as an award to their efforts. Now even lacking the Crow’s Nest agreement with CP Rail on the subsidization of grain transportation, American agribusinesses started the buying season off by offering lowest price possible, withholding information as to the premiums buyers were prepared to pay for prompt delivery of quality product, and using whatever means necessary to have their shipments “prioritized” over others, creating the biggest backlog of Canadian grain movement in our nation’s history.

The subsequent penalties and fines for delayed shipment, ALL by the way passed on to the producers, ended up costing EACH and EVERY ONE of our 43,000 provincial producers an average of $118,000 – a point that neither our good MP Randy Hoback nor his good friend Gerry Ritz challenged when I first commented upon that reality back in 2014.

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Now, I’ve only brought up the CWB because over the next two columns, I’m going to tear apart the fictional literature of the Descents of Devine Party, aka the Saskatchewan Party, for their ability to publicize the fables of two premiers, Brad Wall and Scott Moe, making light of the NDP governments of Roy Romanow, and later Lorne Calvert, in their a valiant attempt to restructure health care services and education in our rural settings, where the population was trending downward in a big hurry.

Did these changes implemented by the NDP not save us money in the long run? Of course they did.

Was the Romanow government unaware of the drastic need to inject monies into, in particular, the provision of health care services, as opposed to “cutting back” on such services, as was being PERCEIVED by rural-based Saskatchewanians?

Of course they were; however, what they FAILED to do is explain to rural Saskatchewan that in order to be able to deliver increasingly costly health care services at affordable prices in the future, they had to FIRST find some coin that the Devine government hadn’t squandered so that they could address this issue with confidence, WITHOUT in that near future having to raise taxes, as premiers Wall and Moe have had to do.

The issue here is one of “contingencies”, or what has to be done during crisis management situations.

The DoD Party seems totally incapable of planning for some future downturn; for instance, wasn’t it the moderator of the leadership debate who closed the program down by stupidly asking Dr. Meili WHERE the NDP would get the funds necessary to implement the much stricter intervention they were calling for now, working on a “theory” that the spread of the COVID virus would get worse as we approached Christmas?

The situation DID worsen – and our premier, instead of announcing the need for a more strict imposition of limits to gathering and mask-wearing, leaves that announcement to Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shahab.

There is no point now in noting that Dr. Meili was correct in calling for increasingly stronger measures; asking Premier Moe that question now would be like, as Jason Kenney would put it, interjecting an “NDP bias” into this health care issue. But in an election, isn’t the point of the campaign for the public to analyze which party is better prepared to handle the future concerns of our province or nation?

For two elections now, 2011 and 2020, the Descendants of Devine Party have found it amusing to keep pointing out the “results” of premier Romanow having imposed their organizational skills upon both educational and health care services, while ignoring the future benefits such actions created. We should be celebrating the fact that both Romanow and Calvert found money to reinvest in health care, as these reforms even allowed Saskatchewan to provide more expensive – and expansive – services for an ageing Baby Boomer society. In 1997 and 1998, every other government in Canada, and especially that of PM Mulroney, didn’t think “boomers” were the issue; there was just too MUCH “health care” available to the public, and it was the fiscal responsibility of our leaders to “cut back”.

Now, as the “boomers” absorb the worst of the COVID pandemic, we’ve a premier managing this crisis by worrying more about whether his “base” have to wear masks in public or their celebrations further curtailed by “social distancing”.

With friends like the premier, one can only hope that Dr. Shahab hasn’t many “enemies”.