Closing in on the final weeks of 2012, some moments of reflection have led us to a point where we feel it is time to put some sort of stamp on this current provincial government and its messages.
It appears the majority of the citizens in Saskatchewan generally approve of most of the Brad Wall-led activities, with a few exceptions. And for the most part, we do too. It's difficult to build an imposing argument against a regime that has been fed excessive resource revenues and population increases that are striving mightily to stay in step with economic growth.
In fact, the only criticism one could mount with any realistic intensity is perhaps one of inconsistency in terms of governmental ideals.
To say that our citizens received a somewhat mixed message on occasion from the Sask Party government would be an understatement. And again, not all the mixed messages were to be read negatively. It's just that after they were delivered, we had to stand back and say, "huh?"
We illustrate this state of inconsistent behaviour by noting that this government, which claims to be in the same corner with free enterprise pursuits from a right wing perspective, actually cut their own Saskatchewan Enterprise regional concept before it was allowed to gather momentum, thus cutting the feet out from under several regional projects and delaying others while local economic development groups were quickly forced to re-engage after being disbanded earlier in favour of Enterprise Saskatchewan. It was a crazy cycle of inconsistency.
The axing of the Saskatchewan film tax credit program was another decision that arrived on doorsteps unannounced and unexpected, sending up a whirlwind of knee-jerk reactions on several business fronts. A fledgling industry was kicked down the road. Why this was done, we'll never really know. Whatever the reasoning was, it eliminated lucrative business and it wasn't done in the name of free enterprise.
Then, in another head-scratching move, Tourism Saskatchewan, the free enterprise arm of that industry, was suddenly reverted back to Crown corporation status while Information Services, a Crown corporation, was put on the sales block with the argument that it needed to be in the private sector. Other Crowns were told to pull out of international outreach businesses and focus only on what was at home. Again, we were caught with puzzled looks on our faces.
In making the tourism switcheroo, the government fired front-line leader Lynda Haverstock and immediately hired the recently retired Queen City mayor Pat Fiacco, their darling spear carrier who will now extend his love of Regina to include the entire province. Skeptics, of course, could suggest that the "fix was in" with regards to this bait and switch business, but we won't go there at this juncture. After all, governments of all levels and stripes are masters at deniability games and really, the subject wasn't all that compelling. They dumped a good CEO for their own good CEO.
Cutting funding for provincial agencies like archives, museums and agriculture, while adding funds in other directions could be accepted if there had been some forewarning or consistency to the moves, but there wasn't. Other sectors received unexpected boosts in finances.
But as we noted at the outset, not all these activities were negative in our assessment, they just seemed to be a bit confusing, which in our books means that not only does the official Opposition in the legislature need to be on their toes, but so might the general electorate and business community.
As the introduction line goes on the popular television reality show Pawn Stars, "you just never know what's going to come through that door."
Next year could be even more interesting and mind boggling than this one.
