There are many who would argue that the worse thing about Saskatchewan people — particularly rural people — is their long memories.
For example, decades after the Dirty Thirties Dustbowl permanent scars on the psyche of Saskatchewan folks were still visible, as many clung to the notion that this was a place of significant limitations.
In fact, many on the right argue that Saskatchewan’s long memory caused the province to cling to this mentality. This not only gave rise to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation that would later become the NDP but also explains the province’s risk adverse personality.
There are those who even say the CCF-NDP exploited this fear, causing Saskatchewan people to remain depend on government for far too long.
Of course, others argue that this is what’s best about Saskatchewan — that the long-memory of tougher times caused people to developed a sense of caution, caring, community and personal and collective responsibility.
Co-ops and Credit Unions still thrive in rural Saskatchewan partly because the lessons of the free market were hard-learned by grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
Whatever this province’s set-in-one’s-ways approach truly means, what it surely doesn’t mean is that rural Saskatchewan has been tied to left-wing philosophies.
Much of western and southern rural Saskatchewan never embraced the CCF-NDP approach. Rural Saskatchewan was the first to welcome the free-enterprise alternatives offered by the Ross Thatcher Liberals in the 1960s and the Grant Devine Progressive Conservatives in the 1980s.
Moreover, rural Saskatchewan’s long memories over the last NDP government’s closure of rural hospitals in the 1990s have been apparent every election since when it has overwhelming endorsed Saskatchewan Party candidates with massive wins.
Whatever we think about the long memories of rural people, it should be noted that memory is a very complex thing.
Rural people may be conservative in their thinking, but that definition reaches well beyond a political label to a system of beliefs that touches on long-held values of community, doing the right thing for a neighbour and being somewhat risk adverse when it comes to wasting one’s own hard-earned tax dollars.
It is for that that reason that the conservative-minded Sask. Party government might have a tougher sell than it thinks when it tries to sell its recent debt and borrowing as a good thing.
Since announcing in this 2015-16 budget that the province would be borrowing $700 million to pay for infrastructure in the coming budget year and that public debt would increase by $1.5 billion, Finance Minister Ken Krawetz has been been selling this as the “tough choice” or the only choice.
Obviously, this isn’t the case. There are always choices in government. His government could of made other choices heading into the election that would have been tougher.
As opposed to borrowing, the government could have looked at some tax increase alternatives that were clearly on the table. Krawetz insisted, post-budget, that his government seriously examined everything from a gas tax hike to offloading the financial problems on to local governments by either reducing the municipal revenue sharing pool or increasing the local share of residential property taxes.
Credit the Sask. Party government for not dumping their problems on another level of government, but is it really all that much better to dump problems on future generations? This is where Krawetz’s sell job gets tougher.
If Saskatchewan people do have long memories, it’s a useful trait in recalling the billion-dollar a year run up by the Grant Devine Conservatives in the 1980s. Well, debt will be $1.5-billion more in a year and we are borrowing $700 million — often for urban projects like the Regina by-pass that don’t have much to do with a building an economy.
Yes, interest rates are lower than they were in the 1980s and Krawetz has been quick to note the money isn’t going to pay salaries — just to build things.
But if rural people remember the NDP hospital closures, they likely also remember they were the consequences of deficit and debt.
Rural people do tend to have long memories
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
