Highlights, along with reaction from the Opposition, Taxpayers Federation and others is available at CKOM.com.
(Too much on my plate today to dissect it, other than to note generalities: business tax reduction being well received, but as yet, nobody seems able to explain how, in a province with a long time trend towards lower population, spending by the NDP manages to go up… up … up… )

My hopes of returning home to find daffodils poking their heads up in my garden have been cruelly dashed.




Taken on the last leg of the trip home yesterday, at various locations between “Saskatchewan’s Blizzard Capital” Kenaston and Delisle.
(Click on the thumbnails to open a full sized version.)

I have way too much going on at the moment, so leave you with a few links for consideration:

• From my perspective (as a non-family-member of the deceased, anyway), I see this as either (a) taxi driver error (chose to ignore the warnings & roadblock for some personal reason, including ignorance which is pretty hard to believe if he’s a taxi driver in Kandahar) or (b) passenger error (i.e. “screw the roadblock, I’m in a hurry for whatever reason). Sorry, but I’m thinking if I heard “stop or I’ll shoot” I’ll stop, thanks.
• The term “chickens coming home to roost” come to mind; the fact that there has been a change in gov’t also comes to mind re: timing. Just a thought.
• “Stupid is as stupid does” – Forrest Gump. I’d love to give the guy kudos for cajones, but if he was my brother/father/husband I’d be pretty pissed at his decision to stick around for more.
• This is going to be interesting. A “developing story” as the MSM like to say.
• May he burn in Hell.
• Jane Creba is not resting well.
• Andrew Coyne manages to blog about something other than Emerson. Thank God for small mercies.
• This is just revolting.

Hopefully life will lighten up over the next few days. In the interim, I’ll pop into the comments as time permits.
Crossposted at Waking Up On Planet X

Live blogging Premier Calvert on the issue that has finally been brought to a head by a tax revolt of over half the rural municipalities in the province – over the disproportionate percentage that rural residents pay in the school tax portion of property taxes (up to three times that of neighboring Alberta farms.)
Speaking now, crudely paraphrased – “The most significant change in decades… (to rural taxation) … making it in advance of the SARM convention so that it can be cleared away to focus on other issues, as we work with the new federal government…. everyone is aware of the pressures on the family farm… even with the opening of the borders, the good outlook for moisture, StatsCan has advised another year of negative farm income is ahead because of commodity prices… the playing field is anything but level, farming in competition with the treasuries of Europe, farming in competition with very low wage jurisdictions… today’s announcement will not solve the farm income crisis… will offer tangible support.
Will restore a level of fairness in how we fund education of children… long term and sustainable…. argued 3 years ago that the level of education tax on farmland was unfair and too high. In the past 3 years he’s been “actively involved” in a solution.
They’ve restructured school boards, blah blah blah.
Decided to act immediately where the need is greatest, which is Saskatchewan farmland..
April 1, 2006, government is adding 52.8 M dollars targeted to tax relief for farmland, which should mean a 38% reduction to the education portion of property taxes for farmland and will be permanent funding. This will bring the percentage to a 60 – 40 split of provincial to local funding (for agricultural land only).

Hotel beverage room in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan raided by RCMP on suspicion of card playing by patrons…. proprietor warned that no card games of any kind, including any and all types of poker, hearts, cribbage or go fish! are permitted in any establishment that serves alcohol… card playing ring has been in operation for years …. developing

Or – “First day at math class”.
Heh.(pdf)
That’ll teach him for blocking Saskatchewan government computers from accessing SDA… (or so I”m told).

Further to the story from Wednesday via the Taxpayers Federation, (that the Saskatchewan NDP dumped $15 million into the Meadow Lake pulp mill while it was filing court documents seeking protection from its creditors) – Documentation is up on the net for you to peruse for yourself.

A body found a few weeks ago in the Qu’Appelle valley near Southey, Sk has been identified as Melanie Dawn Geddes, who has been listed as missing sine Aug. 14, 2005.

Just over local news, there has been a fire in one of the underground potash mines near Esterhazy, SK. Initial report is that all miners are accounted for and OK, and they’re currently working to get them out. They have 36 hours of air and water.
Update: It was a transformer fire. All miners are in “safe zones” and a rescue team is already underground.
11:30 pm local time update via local radio: 70 workers still underground, but they’re still safe. The fire (which started at 3am) is still burning, and there are 7 rescue teams underground (they’re being rotated). The Rawlco Radio reporter on the scene says that officials are confident that this will be “a good news story”.
Morning update: All are safe.

A little sports news for you Saskatchewan expats – Bobby Jurasin is going to the CFL Hall of Fame.
(Surprisingly, photos of Jurasin seem nearly non-existant on the net. If anyone has one to pass along from his Rider days, I’d appreciate that.)

Brad Farquhar has reduced Ralph Goodale’s 33% lead in Wascana to a statistical dead heat.
What used to be one of the safest Liberal seats in Canada is now a horserace.

From a Statement of Claim filed yesterday in Federal Court against the Attorney General of Canada, alleging malicious prosecution of 15 farmers who were charged (in March 1996 and several occasions after) for exporting wheat or barley to the USA without a Canadian Wheat Board LIcense;

The Plaintiff Ralph Goodale in his capacity as Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board knew full well that the Plaintiffs were charged with offenses not known to law and did in May of 1996 obtain Royal Assent for an Order in Coucil that would serve to close the loop hole in the law under which the Plaintiffs had been wrongly charged.
The Plaintiffs claim possession of documents of a meeting held on the 23rd day of June, 1997 at the Connault Building in Ottawa attended by several Wheat Board Officials and Several Customs Officials that clearly reveals the defendants and their officials knew full well that the requirement to report in writing to the Chief Officer of Customs was not a legal requirement and in accordance with the law.

Continue reading →

Rawlco Radio’s John Gormley Live will be televised on CPAC this morning for two hours, taking calls. Should be starting in a few minutes.

In the same week Irwin Cotler descended on Saskatchewan to declare we need “soccer fields, not prisons” denouncing the “extremist” platform of the Conservatives – the only “orange alert” for a little Saskatoon girl were the lights of a seniors home as she walked through the snow.

An agonized family member of an 11-year-old Saskatoon girl who was abducted from a home near Shellbrook Monday morning says her ordeal was much more serious than earlier reports suggested.
In a phone call Wednesday to The StarPhoenix, an uncle of the child said she was so badly choked that most of the blood vessels in her face and eyes burst, and she was also bitten. Medical staff found no indication of sexual assault.
The little girl was violently pushed out of the vehicle into the snow near Canwood and walked a considerable distance into Shellbrook without shoes or a jacket, developing frostbite on her feet, her uncle said.
“I’ve got an 11-year-old . . . that won’t even look at people today. We’re talking about a little girl that has the most gorgeous baby-blue eyes, but I can’t see them anymore because there’s too much blood in them,” he said.
“If you saw this baby, you would cry the same way I did. She is so black and blue on her bottom, it’s unbelievable. Her face is like a tomato. It’s devastating.”
RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Brian Jones told The StarPhoenix late Tuesday that the girl was snatched from a farm house 11 kilometres west of Shellbrook sometime between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Monday, choked and forced into a vehicle.

Read it all. Local media is suggesting there’s a whole lot more to know about the history of the accused, Lindon Bird. If readers have info they want to pass along, send it by email.
In Manitoba, the Liberals are addressing the root causes of crime with more funding for the Asper’s “stalled Tower of Human Rights Babble (\/) at the Forks.”

(Click to open full size version)
Courtesy Stephen Taylor, who of course, has the details….

This tip just in: Jim Pankiw, the controversial former MP for Saskatoon-Humboldt has registered to run as an Independant against Conservative MP Gerry Ritz in Battlefords-Lloydminster.

This morning Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert announced that the Raise A Flag campaign for a Saskatchewan Energy Accord will wrap up “because he wouldn’t want to spend taxpayers’ money to influence an election campaign.”
(If that quote doesn’t parse, change settings to “suspend disbelief”, then reload.)
As of late last week Calvert was pledging before TV cameras that the website’s online poll would go back up after a “security fence” was constructed to prevent “inappropriate” voting.
Apparently, this whole non-confidence vote thingie in Ottawa just sorta blindsided him.
Update
Thanks to reader Mark Pearson, a video clip of CTV news item from last week – it’s 6 megs, so not dialup friendly. .mwv file

Last week in the Saskatchewan legislature;

Mr. D�Autremont: � Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In today�s world almost everyone has heard of blogs. Even the Minister of Learning has heard of them. Last week he even quoted from one of the more prominent blogs that reports on Saskatchewan issues.
The minister took issue with smalldeadanimals � one word � .com blogger Catherine McMillan�s opinion that our leader, the member for Swift Current, is the real thing. Mr. Speaker, the minister said that he thinks that bloggers are totally irrelevant. The Minister of Learning, during his Speech to the Throne on November 14 said, and I quote:
. . . but I will tell you that the Saskatchewan people that are going to . . . the polls in the next election are not going to be swayed by . . . small dead animals.
Well, Mr. Speaker, smalldeadanimals.com and the bloggers had something to say about this. Readers of her blog would know that McMillan was very happy to be mentioned by the minister. In fact she called getting slagged in the provincial legislature by Learning minister Andrew Thomson a high point of her blog.
Blogger Shane O. had this to say: If you can pull off that kind of influence, Kate, and actually kick the Sask socialists out of power � you may just convince me to move my family back to Saskatchewan.
Some Hon. Members: � Hear, hear!
The minister may be interested in knowing that smalldeadanimals.com had more than 1.2 million hits, averaged 4,000 a day and 29,000 a week.”

Via Cyrano, who has a link to the video as well.

A confidential source tipped me off on a poll that seems to be responding – or to be more precise – not responding to negative votes. No matter how many “no” votes are entered, it seems stuck at 90 – 10 in favour
It’s currently hosted at the website of the Calvert government’s insipid “Raise A Flag” advertising campaign for a Saskatchewan Energy Accord. (Speaking of which – Lorne, you missed our chance. That brass ring breezed past your nose this spring while you were busy posing with and throwing your support behind the “Canadians don’t want an election now wait for Gomery while we shovel out the cash” Liberals. )
Moron.
Anyway, it hardly matters what the poll results are – Calvert has outlived his usefulness as far as Martin and Goodale are concerned. So go here and vote NO.
With the traffic that travels through here, a burst of SDA voting should swing that ratio very quickly.
I don’t want any whining about “cheating”. This is a technical experiment to establish whether this poll – paid for by Saskatchewan taxpayers – is rigged. We should know within a few hours.
(PS – you’re welcome to record your votes in the comments, for the purpose of getting a rough idea of how many we’ve cast).
Update: From the comments;
Anonalogue;

The poll appears to be a module of a content management system called Mercury CMS from a Regina company TMC. From the website:
Polling Module
“Get realtime data on the attitudes, opinions, and thoughts of your website visitors. Create Opinion Polls fast and easy using the Mercury CMS Poll Admin Tools. View your Poll results as they are calculated and respond quickly to make changes.”
http://mercury-cms.com/index.cfm?page=4

David Simpson pulled up the source code.

I just checked the source code for the results page and the 90% Yes and 10% No are hard coded into the page. Vote all you want, it won’t change.

I’ve saved a copy and a screenshot.
Wednesday update: The “Raise a flag” poll has been lowered down the pole. Something tells me we haven’t heard the last of this…

From a member of the Poundmaker Working Group;

The CBC-TV Documentary on Poundmaker First Nations`s sordid state of Band Governance will be broadcast at exactly 10:20pm, Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 on “THE NATIONAL”.
It`s a story that involved hard hitting and honest interviews with several high profile people including a former Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Janice Switlo and several members from the Poundmaker Working Group.
The doc`y has been in the works for about 6 months and is based strictly on documentation, no heresay, no inuendo. The targeted timeline for broadcast was to intentionally coincide with the FMM taking place in Kelowna this week.

Background here and at Dust My Broom.