Dear Editor
Most people of Saskatchewan have an almost instinctive feeling that crown corporations here exist for the benefit of the people, that they are ours. Right-wing conservatives, on the other hand, have a hard, deeply imbedded, ideological belief that governments are inherently bad, while private business is inherently good, and that all crown corporations should be privatized.
During the provincial election of 2003, those two beliefs collided when the leader of the Saskatchewan Party (now mostly a forgotten man) made the mistake of admitting he would like to privatize our crown corporations. The Sask. Party had been expected to defeat the NDP, but the return of the NDP to government after that election showed most voters here didn't buy that hard-right belief. For Brad Wall, it was his chance to become the leader of the Sask. Party, along with a lesson regarding the necessity to sometimes refrain from honestly admitting to hard-right beliefs, especially to admitting a dislike for crown corporations.
Since then, Wall has been quietly and generally unobtrusively chipping away at the viability of the crowns in various ways, such as limiting their fields of operation, draining much of their profits and inviting private business into their areas of operation, as, for example, in the Northland power plant near North Battleford, and in the new rule that all newly-built liquor stores should be privately owned. Now, he feels emboldened to float the idea that, somehow, selling off our crown-owned liquor stores might be a financial boon for us ordinary folks. (Note "Wall dangles liquor sell off" on the front page of the 12 June Saskatoon StarPhoenix.)
I remember, after moving to Canada from the United States in 1967, I was told that one of the differences between the two systems was the fact that in Canada we have crown corporations that work for the best interests of the people, the environment and the over-all good in areas where the pure profit motive doesn't always do so. Since then, I've discovered the truth of that idea, and have noted the gradual weakening of crowns under pressure from corporate and right-wing interests.
As he did in his plan to greatly limit the viability of labour unions in the province, Wall is once again resorting to the ploy of pretending to solicit the opinions of us ordinary citizens to try to obtain some kind of cover for what he intends to do eventually anyhow. I hope the good sense of our citizens will enable them to see through that subterfuge.
RussellLahti
Battleford
