Dear Editor:
Greg Ottenbreit’s response to the January 4, 2017 editorial said that “controlling government spending and the careful management of taxpayers’ dollars does not harm the economy.”
It’s too bad this isn’t what the Sask. Party has done over the last nine years.
In fact, Greg Ottenbreit is one of the people who supported the Sask. Party’s absolute fiscal mismanagement of the province.
The GTH fiasco warrants a public inquiry and forensic audit. We still have yet to hear a good explanation as to why two Sask. Party donors made off with $11 million taxpayer dollars.
Who could forget the $33 million wasted on the Lean initiative — a joke of a policy that saw them spend millions of dollars — I kid you not — on consultants in the name of saving money.
It would have been great if the Sask. Party “carefully managed taxpayer dollars” in the six years leading up to the wildfire season of 2015. Instead, they made reckless cuts to the wildfire management budget, then spent over $100 million as they scrambled to replace the staff and resources that they’d cut.
They have been contracting out highway engineering services at 2 to 4 times the cost of having in-house staff do the work.
They squandered a rainy day fund of over $1.4 billion.
They’ve added three more MLAs at a cost of $700,000 a year.
And Ottenbreit has the gall to brag about his government’s fiscal management?
I would take a much humbler tone were I in government when the number of Saskatchewan residents receiving employment insurance in November 2016 increased a whopping 37.6 per cent year over year.
Some economic managers. They don’t even know the correct percentage that public employees’ salaries and benefits represents in their total budget. It’s not 60%. As columnist Murray Mandryk pointed out it’s closer to 30-40%.
They still haven’t learned anything either, if they think that rolling back the wages of 30 per cent of Saskatchewan consumers won’t have stagnating effects on the economy.
So instead of trying to justify his and his colleague’s blunders and fiscal mismanagement, he should be a big enough person to admit they are responsible for where we are today –and that their “solutions” will only exacerbate the problem.
Working people in this province should not have to pay the price of Sask. Party government incompetence.
Sid Wonitowy
Yorkton, SK
