The throne speech delivered Tuesday by Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor Vaughn Solomon on behalf of the government was short on, well, everything.
What it did do was hint that the upcoming (June 1) budget may be the beginning of what Premier Brad Wall called “transformational” change.
Wall must realize the next four years is probably his last kick at the can, either by his own design or at the hands of voters. As Mark Twain famously quipped: “Politicians and diapers must be changed often and for the same reason.”
Nevertheless, a last-term government, or at least a last-term premier, presents both opportunities and dangers to the province.
On the opportunity side is eliminating some top-heavy governance structures that hinder efficiency in delivering provincial jurisdiction public services, namely the two biggest government ticket items, health and education.
Saskatchewan has an obsession with local control. This is a hangover from the silo mentality that developed in horse and buggy days, but does not make sense in a modern society with cars and highways and airplanes and the Internet. The traditional justification of sparse population spread out just does not fly anymore.
This province has 13 health regions for a population of 1.1 million. Ontario has 14 for 13.8 million people. Alberta has one health authority. Now, we are not saying what holds for Ontario should hold for Saskatchewan or that we should aspire to be Alberta, but we must get over the marching to our own drummer seemingly just for the sake of being different syndrome.
So, when Wall says everything should be on the table, he is correct in the sense we need new ideas to improve service and save money.
That does not mean everything should be on the table, though. Saskatchewanians don’t seem to realize how good we have it when it comes to Crown corporations.
There is no saving the SLGA. What the government wants to do with that company may be short-sighted and is unlikely to provide the benefits they say it will. Privatization is more likely to take money out of provincial coffers and put it in the offshore bank accounts of private individuals, but the party ran on privatization and it seems Saskatchewan residents either want cheaper and more accessible booze, which they won’t get, or it just wasn’t a big enough issue.
In any event, there is no sense crying over spilt whiskey, the ‘L’ in SLGA. Perhaps a bigger issue is what happens to the ‘G’? We will see.
There is also the danger of what happens to other Crowns such as SGI and Sasktel. Wall has promised not to turn these over to private interests because they didn’t campaign on it, but he has hinted they are willing to look at it and public control of for-profit businesses is unquestionably an ideological sore spot for Wall.
Losing the other Crowns would be very bad for Saskatchewan residents. These companies benefit us in more ways than just providing quality services at competitive prices.
The bottom line is, voters gave Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party a huge mandate with a weak Opposition. There will be good and bad results for the province. We must be vigilant to maximize the former and minimize the latter.
