MLA Randy Weekes, Delisle mayor Rita Pfoh and the Hon. Carol Skelton after this morning’s announcement of shared federal-provincial infrastructure funding of $175,000 to reroof and upgrade the insulation in the Delisle Arena. It’s one of 56 such projects being announced for the province. (Biggar is their next stop, where they’ll announce funding for the town’s aquatic center.)
The only apparent media on the scene arrived late.
Update – as requested, a photo of the Delisle Centennial Arena.
Johnny, Lucy, Ted, Manny. Here’s a news flash kiddies; The Infrastructure grants programs in all of their various incarnations were in fact introduced by the Liberal government in the early 1990s. All project applications are forwarded to a board which reviews them and decides whether or not they merit funding. While it may have changed since I was a town councilor, at that time the project was cost shared, 1/3 by the Feds, 1/3 by the Province, and 1/3 by the Municipality. Not at all unlike the programs that built the roads, bridges arenas and stadiums in larger urban centers for many, many years and indeed still does.
To infer, let alone state, that small town Canada rinks are only for hockey displays a hopelessly out-of-touch attitude. In this small town, there is indeed hockey. Boys, girls, adults, rec league, beer league, lots of hockey. There’s broomball, men’s, mixed, rec. and participants from this small town have played with the Provincial team at the National level. There’s Can skate, powerskating and figure skating. There’s recreational skating for those who enjoy the exercise, but no longer want to play the game or work for the competitions. There’s curling, men’s womens, mixed, Juniors and Seniors. High school and Competitive Men’s and Women’s. There’s walking programs in the lobby every day for those who need a little exercise, but can’t brave the elements anymore due to various health concerns. I’m thinking that these activities likely decrease health care costs (physical activity and healthy living), cut back on policing and court costs (because an involved youth is less likely to be a bored restless youth), builds self esteem, and promotes teamwork. In summer it hosts wedding receptions, socials (Yes, I’m from MB), serves as a display building at the local fair, hosts auctions, and myriad community events.
So for a once in, lets say 40 year cycle, that would be about $4375.00/yr. Seems like a good investment to me. It probably saves that much in reduced wellness costs, and less disaffected youth. And as the Lib-left likes to say “If it saves just ONE life, it MUST be worth it.
Manny, one more thing. Your farm subsidy whine is really getting tired. Please explain how what you do for a living receives no direct or indirect subsidies from any level of government. Because you can’t if you’re in Canada.
And, BTW, I don’t farm. Or run a business that is directly dependant on farming.
Ted, you’re a mess of contradictions, not surprising, there’s a lot of it going around in the Liberal Party these days. It’s the Party of befuddlements. Fuddle Duddle, to quote a Liberal Leader of the past.
Sober, I don’t have a problem with infrastructure spending in general or the Delisle roof in particular. I was responding to Kate’s holier than thou retort to Ted, in which she alluded to the trivial sums involved in adscam while showcasing two participants in farm scam, both of whom are in the top 1% of income earners, both of whom regularly receive big fat checks in the mail just for being farmers. To my knowledge, there is no one in any other walk of life with this arrangement. Lucy may need a map, but you so-called “conservatives” need a moral compass.
Sober:
Thanks for reinforcing my point, and for throwing in the kudos for a good Liberal program.
Some of you folks are so much wrapped up in being contrary, you seem not to recognize when someone is in agreement with you.
Or, to put it a little more accurately, when you come around to agree with them, since it was as you point out a Liberal program that Kate and other conservatives (despite their ideological inclinations) indirectly praise in this post.
This is government doing the work that it should to make our communities better. Not pie in the sky or abstract 50 years from now priorities, but stuff that ordinary Canadians from every region need or want and that benefit most everyone in some way. That is the lesson today’s Liberals have forgotten and a Liberal past that Dion seems to want to erase.
Manny, as asked, what do you do for a living. Until you explain to me how you receive NO benefit from any government subsidy, I would advise you not to counsel me on MY moral compass.
You see Ted, it is just that old saw that keeps getting trotted out: The job of the opposition is to critique the government, not mindlessly oppose it.
The big thing is that conservatives are much better at it than liberals.
But, hey, thats one of about a dozen decent Liberal programs since the early 1960s. Not much of a legacy for a party that governed as long as they did.
Manny,Ted, et al;There is a weekly paper published in Saskatoon called the Western Producer.In the classified section there is a heading called Farms and Ranches.Under this is a sub heading called Saskatchewan.These are farms listed for sale in our province.These farms range in size from a few acres to one of over 11,000.Pick the one you like.There are over a hundred listed.I would recommend that you buy one and get on the gravy train.In the same edition there is a 2005 JD combine for only $216,900 at Farm and Ranch in Saskatoon to get your crop harvested. You better be smarter than you are to take my advice.
As a former president of a community club in the prairies, I can tell that Lucy and others have never been anywhere near a community facility or activity. You don’t have to play hockey to realize that this facility is an important part of the community. Also this government money wasn’t delivered by brown envelope. The community also has to put in a lot of their own monies and sweat equity in order to even be considered for a grant. Chances are that the roof or whatever project will employ local labour and materials. An all round good “waste” of taxpayer’s dollars if you ask me. Maybe Lucy has a better use for those tax dollars.
Way to go Delise. btw, I thought Kate was the mayor…
manny you left out Nettie Wiebe, Bernie Wiens {government irrigation system} and the rest of your socialist crowd. Why? Complete you list if you are going to throw dung at the farmers who feed your sorry ass.
Only people like Manny/MaryJane, Ted who supported a party so corrupt that it would make John Gotti blush would have the unmitigated gall to preach to conservatives.
Conservatives will punish those who leave integrity behind rather severely as the Progressive Conservatives found out when they were decimated to only a few seats.
These sociopaths have a demented world view and project their own behavior on everyone and every situation without ever taking responsibility for the slime they stand for.
They insist that everyone else is stinking up the room when in fact the stench is coming from underneath their own skin.
“Howie Meeker is all for the whippersnappers getting a good roof so they can use the rink and all learn the fun-da-mentals of sound hockey….skating,passing and shoot the puck! This is a great Canadian story :-)”
(Howie Meeker, 2:29PM)
“I won’t go into the disillusionment that kids aquire in believeing that somday, they might play with the NHL. ”
(Lucy, 2:31PM)
1943 N.H.L. Scoring champ… Doug Bentley
1946 N.H.L. Scoring champ… Max Bentley
1947 N.H.L. Scoring champ… Max Bentley
Both Delisle, Saskatchewan boys.
1000 people in Delisle?
Let’s say there are 250 full time workers working in the town, or commuting from Saskatoon each day. Oh, maybe $30,000 gross annual salary each. Say, $4000 per head on average in federal income tax –just Ottawa’s share– makes for $1,000,000 in income tax collected from ONLY Delisle tax payers in a single year.
I think the townspeople have paid for the rink upgrade all on their own. How about it, manny?
Sure as hell beats spending $100,000,000 for exactly 4/5s of 9/10s of sweet bugger all in the P.A. area.
[quote]They didn’t use artificial ice, thus the energy bill was low. Today they’re the biggest waste of electrical and gas energy on the planet, not to mention an environmental disaster.[/quote]
Lucy,
Don’t the Pll of Sask “OWN” Sask Power/GAS. Your not suggesting that the PPL’s Municipal facilities are paying FULL rates for their own power (double dipping). What is the incremental generation cost factor for a Kilowatt?
Do you think the Rinks are destroying energy? maybe we just need to create some new energy!
Environmental disasters are portrayed in the Movies or Video Games. I haven’t actualy been to an environmental disaster.. when is it playing?
Lucy you are right that they used to play hockey at beaver Creek. That was about sixty years ago from the pictures I’ve seen. But because of the bends in the creek you would have a hard time getting a full length arena at any point. Then you have the problem of an arena only ten to fifteen feet wide unless the beavers are left to do their magic. As far as the Delisle kids using Beaver Creek. As the crow flies it’s not far, about 30 min. BUT there is that river the kids have to make a flying leap across to play their hockey, as long as someone brings a shovel.
Good on Delisle on the new roof soon.
“I would recommend that you buy one and get on the gravy train.”
Sorry, Spike, but I prefer to make it under my own steam. Somewhere along the way I developed an aversion to living off of the hard work and effort of my fellow taxpayers. Maybe my Anglican mother is to blame, but being a parasite is just not my style.
Not that it’s any of your business, Sober2nd, or that it is in any way relevant, but I am employed in the residential construction industry. Now connect the dots for me. Show me where there is anything even remotely comparable to the annual $5 billion plus in direct subsidies that end up in the pockets of the Skeltons and Weeks’, the Hermansons , the Toths, the Stewarts, the Boyds, the David Andersons, etc., etc., etc……
Manny, Sask has only ONE non Conservative MP in the Federal House of Commons – Goodale from Regina. The ‘pockets of pork’ cover the entire province! If the $$ have been so lavished on Sask., why did so many Sask. people move out? Sask has FINALLY elected a responsible government – things are already improving…do you have a problem with IMPROVING?
There is alot to be said for living life in a small town. I grew up in one. I got to skate and play hockey in an old rink, play baseball on good diamonds, tennis on paved courts and so on. Maybe there are some who think that small town kids shouldn’t have these amenities. Some may think that its better for kids to have their nose stuck in front of a computer screen or Game Boy 6 hours a day.
As for “ignorant coaching staff” to this day I have nothing but gratitude and admiration for the fine gentlemen that coached me in hockey and baseball (usually the same ones). They may not have been the most “competent” men as coaches but the life lessons us kids learned play sports and being mentored by good people are far more important than anything I ever learned about making an nice pass or laying down a good bunt. It is shortshighted in the extreme to putting it all down to skill in sport and the cost of heating and lighting a sports facility. The cost to society as a whole is much greater for not having amenities for kids in towns big and small.
From ontario; you guys need alife Mginntee pisss 5 times that much away to his buddys soccer club before breakfast.
manny;I repeat,buy a farm and pay for it with after tax money.Better still,if your in the construction business,start one of your own! Hire people,buy trucks,get contracts.Risk your own money,you may have to mortgage your home for start up money but if your any good you will make it.You are a parasite when you work for somebody else,more so if your unionized.When you bad mouth farmers,you better look at the drop in the number of farms in the last 70 years.If Saskatoon took the same hit it would be the size of Delisle now.Trudeaus cheap food policy didnt apply to Ont.and Quebec.
This is government doing the work that it should to make our communities better. Not pie in the sky or abstract 50 years from now priorities, but stuff that ordinary Canadians from every region need or want and that benefit most everyone in some way. That is the lesson today’s Liberals have forgotten and a Liberal past that Dion seems to want to erase. -Ted
–Thank you, Ted, for your warm praise of the Conservatives’ performance as government. And for your courage in expressing your long-bottled-up contempt for the Liberal Party of Canada as it today has become, likely irreversibly.
You’re welcome to defect, my friend. We’re always having folks coming over to us who’ve had epiphanies.
“stuff that ordinary Canadians from every region need or want”
And have paid for, over and over and over again, through tax dollars that leave and are damned slow about returning.
I happen to agree with those who wish that such projects were completely self-supporting. And I happen to believe that if our various levels of governments weren’t pulling 50% of income out of the pockets of the average taxpayer, they’d have the money to contribute to local projects like this themselves, through donations or user fees.
And one thing that larger centers can’t say about similar projects and facilities – the residents of these small towns provide tens of thousands of dollars worth of volunteer labour, during both the construction process, and the functioning of the facility, year in and year out. (The golf course adjacent to the arena was built on volunteer labour).
That’s a contribution that is non-existent in urban centers, and it’s one reason you’ll be long in waiting for any apology when they receive matching grants for infrastructure projects like this.
“through tax dollars that leave and are damned slow about returning.”
Cities pay more
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/
archive/June2007/07/c2033.html
Whoops
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/07/c2033.html
Lotteries take Millions out of rural areas on annual basis easily dwarfing grants like Delisle received.
They barely return even a tiny fraction back to rural areas.
This also even holds true for excellent charities like Telemiracle.
Point being those fussing over this relatively tiny grant as if it was somehow unfair to someone else is a moron.
Couldn’t connect those dots, sober2nd? Thought so.
A feel good story.
The residents of Delisle, as well as taxpayers throughout Canada, have been footing this bill for the non-taxpayers.
http://www.vch.ca/sis/faq.htm#qa7
**Sorry!! I mean #11 highway, I was referring to the Grasswood Esso Station. Forgive me if I have sinned, Dear friends of Jesus. ** Lucy
Well, here’s your problem, then. You don’t realize that between the Grasswood Esso (and the mentioned rinks) and Delisle there is the South Saskatchewan River, and one must use the Idylwyld Bridge until we get enough PORK from some different levels of government to build the new South bridge. Adds considerable time to one’s commute from Delisle.
So, you really don’t know the area, so why comment? Which is a moot point, since, as others have mentioned, the rinks at Grasswood are already fully booked. Besides, what on earth do you have against Delisle having their own facility? My, what people will pick on. $175,000 is peanuts to our government. Good on them for finally helping out a still-vibrant rural community.
So manny, now you want your industry to receive as much funding as farming or you don’t qualify as a parasite living off of government handouts hmmm? Typical. What you said was you weren’t a parasite and survived on your own. Not that you weren’t as big a parasite as others, but that you weren’t a parasite and you received no subsidies.
No subsidies to the mills that produce dimensional lumber, no subsidies to the plywood mills, or the OSB mills. No subsidies(or property tax incentives) to those people who wish to build new commercial buildings, or to build new housing. no subsidies(kickbacks) to the builders/developers who set up the subdivisions? No subsidies to the builders of new houses in rundown areas for revitalization. No subsidies to the manufacturers of windows and doors. No subsidies to the people who buy said energy efficient windows and doors and get the trade to install them. No subsidies to the cost of your education in your chosen trade. No subsidies for the people who employ 1st and 2nd year apprentices. No government funding to the unions that represent said trades. That’s the obvious ones. I’m certain it won’t take long for the list to get bigger, but it doesn’t have to. The point is moot.
Now apply these subsidies across the country, and I think you will find a level of funding not far from the level you seem to despise that agricultural producers get. So climb off of your high horse, and admit it manny. You are no more or less a parasite than 99% of the rest of the population.
I would apologize for the delay in my reply, but we don’t all work 8:00am – 3:00pm Monday to Friday trade union positions. Replied as soon as I could, once I got done work for today.
I now await your customary whiny-assed reply. The one where all us conservatives only pay lip service to free enterprise and where every farmer is filthy rich and doesn’t deserve protection from predatory and punitive practices carried out by every other agricultural producing nation, while these same nations rail on self-righteously about how subsidies are unfair. (For everyone but them)
So think of two words manny, involving sex and travel. And that would be my summation.
[deleted. Learn to stay on topic. -ED]
Attention all;The Arcola rink complex(Prairie Place)was financed 100% by the people of our district.There was NO govt funding and its paid for.Now ,lets talk about those projects in Ottawa financed by taxpayers with not a dime raised locally.I was at an air show and the wing walker was sponsered by the guy that installed the stone work on those projects.
I see socialism is alive and well in rural Saskatchewan! 😉 Just kidding. Seriously, it is good to see the fine folks of Delisle finally get back some of their hard-earned taxdollars.
That’s hilarious!! Lucy, and a many others (including myself) who believe in “Conservative” policies speak out against blowing money on replacing the roof on an aging rink, and all of a sudden, we’re the darkest of heathens. I thought this was an ultra-Conservative blog!!
What the hell did we elect a Sask Party government for anyway? The same goes for the federal level? It was to stop insane spending! Does anyone really beleive that replaing shingles on a rink should become a federal or provincial issue? Gimme a break. A community of 1000 should be able to raise that in a year! I live in a small town as well. A group of seniors, the youngest who was 77, knit Afghans for “Telemiracle” and they raised $2700 in 40 days.
How about the old addage, “Let it end with me.” You want to skate and throw rocks, pay for your own ice. There’s less than 2% of the pop. who skate and play hockey!
JJ;Less than 2% skate and play hockey,Hmm,lets see,how many Sask residents play pro football?Very few? What did it mean when a bunch of Canadian and American football players won the Grey Cup for Sask and what percentage of those players were from Sask? 99% of the people in the Arcola area use our facility regularly and very few skate.These facilities should also be supported by local RM taxes to make the non residents support them.
Spike!! Delisle is hardly the home of professional hockey. I support the idea of RMs and towns paying for their own rinks. “Infrastructure” should mean roads, bridges, streets and other facilities that are accessible and that serve the general public. The rink in Delisle is not an institution that serves the general public of Saskatchewan and/or Canada. And by the by, why do we have the 649 and other Lotteries?? I believe they are the ones who should support arenas. Now, could we get on with another topic SVP???