Dear Editor:
If there was ever any doubt that the Sask. Party government’s cuts and privatization agenda is ideologically-driven, look no further than Brad Wall’s eagerness to hand money to big corporations, most notably his recent sales pitch to Alberta energy companies.
Fighting the deficit is the rationale for slashing funding to schools, libraries, and health services, firing hundreds of public employees, and shutting down STC. But at the same time, Wall is offering incentives to oil companies to relocate to Saskatchewan. This, on top of a new corporate tax cut that will put our province’s tax rate at the lowest in the country.
If Saskatchewan is so strapped for cash, why is Wall so willing to give handouts to big business?
Maybe the current financial mess – which government created by its own reckless spending – has provided an excuse to gut and sell off public services and Crowns once and for all.
If government were not determined to undermine public services, it would consider other obvious alternatives to its slash and burn budget. It could ask corporations to pay more – not less. It could reduce the deficit over six years, instead of three. It could rein in its own spending on consultants and mega projects.
But those options won’t be considered by a government determined to hand more public services over to for-profit businesses, and sell off Crowns to corporate interests that know little about our province, and care even less about its people.
Sid Wonitowy,
Yorkton, SK
