It’s been a while since a provincial election was decided by an exclusively rural Saskatchewan issue.
The campaigns that elected Premier Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party were decided by question of Wall’s more free-enterprise vision – an issue undoubtedly important to rural voters, but not necessarily one that could be described as an exclusive rural.
Prior to that, it the wins by Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert were pretty much determined by the competence of their NDP governments versus the corruption, incompetence and privatization agenda of the former premier Grant Devine’s Progressive Conservatives.
Privatization — especially when it comes to MRIs, surgical clinics and liquor stores — will be 2016 election issues, but this is hardly exclusive rural issues, either.
One would have to do go back nearly 30 years to 1986 to see such rural issue determine who formed government.
We somewhat learned of this issues because of the thin walls of Kelvington’s Sportsman Inn when StarPhoenix reporter Earl Fowler was awoken by the sound of an animated Grant Devine negotiating with then PC prime minister Brian Mulroney on a billion dollar payment to Saskatchewan farmers.
This is unlike anything we see in today’s politics for a couple of reasons.
First, issues that determine who governs here – or at least, by how big a majority they can government – has to impact both rural and urban voters.
Sure, the 1999 election (the one that produced the NDP-Liberal coalition) produced the residual impact of 52 rural hospital closures.
But the fact of the matter is that while both rural and urban seats hold sway, the relative balance between rural and urban seats for the past three decades means both still have a significant say in this province.
Second, issues that now determine both votes in Saskatchewan are generally more about how much the government wastes than how much it’s being asked to spend to buy votes.
The lessons learned from the 1980s is that we can’t afford to waste any tax dollars any more. Issues like Spudco — wasteful government spending in rural Saskatchewan if we’ve seen it — clearly helped do in the last NDP government.
Perhaps there is nothing quite so damning in the Sask. Party government record, but one issue bubbling on the outskirts of Regina must have some potential.
It will cost all Saskatchewan taxpayers $1.8-billion-plus (not including land purchase costs that will push the total costs to $2 billion) to build a by-pass around Regina.
Yes, you read that right. That’s $2 billion for a by-pass to be built within city limits through a public-private partnership.
This would be the same by-pass that the Sask. Party government said was studied to death for decades, but somehow vaulted from about $800 million to likely over $2 billion in a ridiculous short period.
Far worse, about all we truly know about this project beyond the global pricetag (which, by the day, keeps rising) is that the Paris-based conglomerate gets a 30-year maintenance deal that includes the cost of snowplowing, grass cutting repairs and replacement.
Unfortunately, we also don’t know what the true maintenance costs may be because they say confidentially within the contract prohibits them from telling us.
But we do know the contract labels about $680 million over the 30-year life of the contract for “risk transfer”.
Given we only talking about a 20-kilometres stretch of road and that entire snowplowing budget for the province is $29 million a year, all this money can’t be for maintaining or fixing up this stretch of road.
The kindest thing one can say is the $680 million risk fund is a nice cushion to avoid accusation of over spending.
It’s not a rural issue or maybe one that will necessarily define the next election.
But it’s enough to give all Saskatchewan voters — regardless of where they live — reason to be more than a little suspicious.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
