To live in rural Saskatchewan these days means to do without something else.
Perhaps this isn’t so different than the norm in rural Saskatchewan for years.
This has become the sad reality in a place that’s faced declining population, and thus, justification for a consecutive government to take away services.
But what’s always been commendable about rural people is their determination to face such cuts with an intriguing combination of finding a way to develop alternatives or finding ways to confront government to demand better.
In these tough budgetary times when much is again being taken away from rural Saskatchewan folks, they clearly appear to be finding ways to make sure their displeasure is known.
The latest issue of worry for rural Saskatchewan is actually a federal-based problem; changes that might affect the cost of landline telephone services in rural and remote areas.
Last December, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decided in December to phase out subsidies to certain landlines, a move that may impact 100,000 people in this province.
“It’s just another bit of money or cash flow off our bottom line, off our profit line. Every time we turn around we’re paying more,” Wynyard Mayor Erling Brakefield told Jennifer Ackerman of the Regina Leader-Post.
Noting that he already pays $200 a month for landline telephone services, Brakefield is worried about rising costs without any options.
So what are Brakefield and other rural Saskatchewan people doing? They’re fighting back, making submissions to the Canadian Radio Telecommunications/Telephone Commission (CRTC) to make their case known.
Ackerman in her story wrote that Cutworth area farmers Adeline and Edward Palchinski, don’t have cell phones or the Internet, but are getting their daughter to make a CRTC submission for them.
“It’s getting to the point that anything you want, it’s always higher in price,” Adeline Palchinski told the Leader-Post.
For its perspective, the CRTC claims a change in subsidy rates automatically means a rate increase because it still regulates customers’ rates.
What seems certain is the CRTC is running headlong into determined rural Saskatchewan people who know all about fighting to keep their way of life.
We’ve seen it before and we’re seeing a lot of it now in the opposition to 2017-18 budget, not the least of which is its decision to shut down the 70-year-old Saskatchewan Transportation Company.
By now we all know that STC hasn’t made money in 38 years and required massive subsidies.
But that mean its shuttering wasn’t a big blow to rural people; older people and disabled who may not drive, First Nations people who don’t have vehicles and farmers, business people and others who required parts and other things that came through STC parcel delivery.
Admittedly, we’re not seeing a letter-writing campaign from rural Saskatchewan regarding STC.
Some might even observe the anti-STC-closure protests seemed to be generated in the cities; the sit-in protests on the last buses, the challenges before the province’s Highways Traffic Board and the pot-banging protests in front of the Premier Brad Wall’s latest fundraising rally.
But make no mistake that rural people have found a very effective way to make their feelings known. A recent Mainstreet/Postmedia poll shows Wall’s Sask. Party tied at 46 per cent with the NDP among voters outside Regina and Saskatoon.
Admittedly, this represented voters in Moose Jaw, Prince Albert and the north, where the NDP has more traditional support.
But given that three out of four rural voters, proper, voted for Wall’s candidates, one might think there is a message in all this.
Years of fighting to keep what is theirs has made rural folks very good at finding ways to get their message across.
