Saskatchewan’s growing pains could become a little more intense within the next few years. There is a price to pay when growth occurs and it seems as if our province is smack dab in the middle, or just one notch past the middle, of one of these growth spurts.
The downturn in the oilpatch that has now lasted well over a year and a half, put a slight hesitation into the pattern of growth here, but certainly didn’t halt it.
More people are employed than ever before. Granted, a majority of those jobs are now lower-paying casual or part-time positions; but they are still real jobs contributing to the gross domestic product. The $40 per hour oil industry jobs may be fewer and far between lately so that’s part of the pain.
But, as noted in last week’s article about the University of Regina, our nearest campus has enjoyed a surge in enrolments of more than 2,500 students over the past two years, both at the First Nations University of Canada as well as the U of R.
Interest in classes and programs at our regionally based Southeast College is also promising. They have a strong scholarship and bursary program that will help their students feed the growing industrial and technical sectors as identified by the college’s own planners.
Building for the future, is where our leaders will probably experience a continuation of these growing pains.
Having to accommodate more students, at the post-secondary, secondary and elementary school levels is a huge challenge that won’t be overcome by simply invoking P3 models that eagerly kick the payment schedule can down the road. A school that used to be paid for in 10 years will now have a payback schedule of 30 years and with different players taking on many of the management and maintenance responsibilities.
Same thing with the controversial Regina overpass scheme. It’s necessary, but it’s also very costly.
The SaskPower BD3 project, will cost more than anticipated before the pendulum swings back to positive cash flow.
Health care requirements will not go away. Again, the provincial government chose to kick the payment can down the road by allowing for private versus public installation of MRIs to meet the growing needs. We see this as an impending “dog’s breakfast” of health plan deliveries in an already convoluted system of public and private mix and match scenarios. The proposal for MRIs just won’t work and we can’t believe the provincial government’s stubborn refusal to see the facts will remain intact. They have to see the lights of reality soon, before the legislation is passed and they’ve dug themselves deeper into the hole.
We understand that paying bills for huge, but necessary, purchases is not fun and it certainly doesn’t win votes, but our current government does have quite a bit of leeway in the form of built-up goodwill, trust and acceptance from voters, especially in rural Saskatchewan. We just hope they will use a little of that cache to implement some stringent measures they know they have to impose on the great unwashed public, even though they don’t want to.
This government, we feel, is just now learning that politics is not always a popularity contest, and we, as adults, must also learn that we can’t always get what we want when we want it.
