Dear Editor
The Sask. Party has created a survey request, supposedly to give direction to the future of liquor retailing in our province. I took the time to complete the survey and also made comments at the conclusion.
Among other questions that could easily be described as confusing, the survey implies government dollars spent on liquor outlets (i.e. public stores), directly takes away or diminishes the amount of dollars available for other important social spending such as health care. This is total misinformation. Public record shows SLGA consistently turns a large profit.
This implication is intended only to sway the opinions of those who do not realize taxes collected from the sale of liquor in public stores are a major source of tax revenue. In no way do they affect the availability of funds for anything else and in fact should provide an additional source of funds for use by these same social causes.
The attempts by this government to privatize liquor sales may very well realize the same amount of tax paid in, but it will also create another batch of McJobs and place profits from lower wages directly in the pockets of this government's corporate bedfellows. The jobs in public stores provide an important source of decent employment in many communities, especially for women. This government talks the talk about the importance of women in the work force, but it certainly doesn't walk the walk.
Wages from public employment stay in the community, and benefit not only the employee, but the viability of other businesses in the same community, where they are spent. Minimum wage jobs create nothing for the employee other than a minimum standard of living, no workplace protection and merely put profits in the pockets of corporations. These corporations are already getting massive tax exemptions, paid for by all our taxes.
The statement that our feedback will help design the future of liquor retailing in Saskatchewan also rings false, especially when the minister responsible is quoted in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix as saying, "if people want the public stores expanded and improved, government may do this, but it won't be this government." So to intimate that they are listening to both sides of this debate is ludicrous.
This is nothing more than an attempt to misdirect attention from the pathetic job they are doing in health care, social services and other areas that really should matter to us as taxpayers. Whether the Sask. Party likes it or not, people will remember waiting for critical health care, the smart meter fiasco, an aging population increasingly left to fend for itself and a host of other gaffs that this attempt at political misdirection hopes to bury.
Lyle E, Comstock
Battleford
