It's seems a good week to talk about how connected we really are in this province.
Of course, the thing that's connecting all Saskatchewan people together this week is the Roughriders' now in the Grey Cup - not just any Grey Cup, but one held on the 'Riders' home turf in Regina.
Young or old, rural or urban, left or right, north or south, east or west - the Saskatchewan Roughriders are the glue that seems to bond everyone from here together.
As a born and raised Manitoba that's lived here for 30 years, it's a phenomenon that's still not particularly easy to understand. And it's sometimes especially hard to understand in the context of people that have so many other differences.
This is, after all, a province where rural and urban interests have often battled over conflicting interests. While it was once said that everyone in urban Saskatchewan has one foot in rural Saskatchewan, anyway, the rapid growth of our cities compared with the on-going decline of rural towns and farms has made that a less common notion.
Certainly, the left-vs.-right battles in our province's history are known to all - medicare, nationalization and privatization. And with the loss of a generation of people to Alberta, one can even notice a growing gap between young and old in the province.
Yet whatever differences there may between people in this province, there are these unbreakable bonds.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are one. They mean a lot to this place. There is, of course, the weather and the landscape. We will always have our cold winters and broad horizons. There is our identity with agriculture, potash and now oil.
However, there is another bond that may be tougher to understand because it's not as apparent as the wearing of 'Rider green. We are connected simply because - in a province of this size - issues and struggles will eventually connect us all.
For example, Regina and Saskatoon have been at a near-crisis state at their hospital emergency rooms for some time now - largely driven by a shortage of ER doctors.
On the surface, this might seem to be strictly an urban problem. After all, a quick trip to a Regina ER will reveal a clientele with a lot of inner city people. But it's also here where the interconnections become obvious.
Many of those inner city people who wind up in ERs are urban First Nations people whose families came to the cities to escape the poverty and joblessness of rural reserves. Some First Nations people are becoming urban success stories, but many more have brought with them the legacy of residential schools and reserve life.
Many have found their way into the violence, addiction and bad health outcomes of inner-city urban life. Rather than seeing the local rural doctor, the city ER room is the first place where they meet medical professionals.
However, urban ER rooms do not distinguish people by their walk of life, income level or background.
City ER rooms are also filled each day by ambulances from both the city and country. Their passengers may be car accident victims from rural roads, farming, mining or oil field accident victims, heart attack victims or struggling elderly.
At one time, some of these people would have been treated at local rural hospitals ... or the Plains Hospital on the outskirts of Regina. But the Plains Hospital was closed in the 1993 along with 52 rural hospitals that no longer serve emergency needs.
All of this has placed added pressures on our urban ER rooms, making this an issue for all us. But it also demonstrates how connected we truly are.
Whether it's a positive like the 'Riders in the Grey Cup or a negative, Saskatchewan people are in it together.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
