Former Saskatchewan Party candidate Nevin Markwart said Brad Wall and Scott Moe did not prepare for the population boom … but there’s still time to fix this.
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The outcomes we are experiencing in Saskatchewan education and health care are directly related to our provincial government’s mismanagement of immigration and capital expenditure policies over the past 15 years.
By measuring Saskatchewan’s “success” based on population growth, both former premier Brad Wall and current Premier Scott Moe ineptly managed the consequences of 20 per cent population growth over their combined tenures — namely, way more students and patients.
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Without anticipating the obvious increases in health-care services and kindergarten to Grade 12 learning demand associated with its population growth strategy, the government is now impeding the quality of life for every Saskatchewan resident.
Patients are suffering or dying and students are not being prepared to become sustainable adults. The fix is not easy but very apparent: We need to run the prosperous Saskatchewan economy in ninth gear — not second gear — and increase the capacity of our health care and K-12 facilities, equipment and staffing.
We can do this. Stop wasting time and money on useless mega-projects (Boundary Dam carbon capture, Regina bypass, the Global Transportation Hub (GTH), Saskatchewan Riders stadium and the big, super-wasteful one on the horizon, Diefenbaker Irrigation) and materially increase funding in Saskatchewan agriculture’s intellectual property and the province’s rare earth element bounty.
For our oil and gas industry, initiate policy to either transport or consume every hydrocarbon molecule beneath our province over the next 25 years. Utilize our generally chilly climate and build artificial intelligence data centres. (This should be an easy policy decision given Alberta just announced their $80-billion focus on this emerging area and our penchant to copycat Alberta’s initiatives).
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In short, we need all economic cylinders running full speed in our large-geography, low-population-density province to fix the health care and education policy follies of the past 15 years. Let’s get started today!
Nevin Markwart, Regina
Better ways to fight climate change
Fighting climate change with everything we have available to us is not an optional platform for the upcoming year and decades ahead. The facts are clear. It is an existential threat to all life on this planet.
We see forest fires, hurricanes and trends to hotter and longer summers. Our northern latitudes are warming faster. Wildlife is migrating to find food. Others that cannot move die.
This country and many others have been attempting to steer their “Titanic” away from hitting the iceberg that is fast approaching. Among others, like Premier Moe and Conservative Leader Poilievre, are fighting every measure put forward to give the people of this country a fighting chance to survive into the next century.
The introduction of a price on carbon pollution was simply the floor of many options to curb dangerous pollution that is heating this planet. What will be our politician’s commitment?
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Jim Elliott, Regina
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