Dear Editor
The writ has dropped. Let’s think seriously about the mess we’re in. Brad Wall inherited a healthy surplus, and has spent his entire mandate wasting it, while failing to put a nickel aside during the best boom cycle in Saskatchewan history. The shady deals and dirty work in evidence are just a foretaste of what may come, so reminding ourselves of a few stinkers is in order.
Foremost is the war on public service and public institutions. Include deliberately underfunding the public health system to make privatized health care more attractive, the Lean fiasco, the illegal essential services act, the gutting of education, starting with teachers’ aides and tuition increases. The smart meters that started on fire, the demise of the film industry, the blind reliance on P3 construction that has failed everywhere, and the back door deals with big oil, big business and friends of the government. Read up on the controversial GTH land purchase and add carbon capture that only captures tax dollars and votes in the southeast corner.
The power plant in North Battleford was built by the lowest bidder, is owned by out of province investors and has a guaranteed income from Saskatchewan taxpayers whether they produce power or not. Why? SaskPower had the expertise to build and run this, without importing workers from the US and Europe.
Locally we have lost major industries, GLM tanks and Maple Leaf among them. GLM’s demise may be tied to oil prices, but Maple Leaf closed in 2013, boom times. The Sask. Party will crow about the new Sask. Hospital, which is being built as a P3 project, but not to crow about is the maintenance of the building awarded to an offshore company that will get over six million dollars a year to maintain it over thirty years. This one building complex will cost taxpayers more maintenance money every year than all the other buildings in the Prairie North Health Region combined! Odd that this project should and could have been built earlier in the Sask. Party’s mandate, but proceeded only near election time.
Wall promises to sell a huge portion of SLGA to private enterprise. This, in spite of studies showing that the taxpayer will be the big losers, with good jobs lost, loss of crown infrastructure, and the loss of the millions of dollars these SLGA stores contribute to the treasury. This signals privatization of all public services, regardless of Walls’ protest to the contrary. Wall wanted to donate the two public owned casinos to SIGA, and is the person who has crippled public service, health care, social services and education, while claiming increased funding. The facts show this to be misinformation. Stop Brad Devine now, before he gives away the rest of Saskatchewan.
Lyle Comstock
Battleford
