You know you’re in Saskatchewan when the first dirt bike of spring is spotted buzzing up your street.
Followed by an Arctic Cat.

The link referred to on “everyday things that are disappearing from our lives” on the Murray Wood Show is here.

I was invited today to a luncheon debate hosted by the Prairie Centre Policy Institute (which could probably be described as a Saskatchewan based conservative “think tank”), as a guest of a friend who knows of my interest in politics and reads the blog.
The debate, which was on the role of federalism in the Canadian economy, featured well known Saskatchewan entrepreneur Herb Pinder Jr. and left-leaning U of Sask professor Red Williams. Pinder’s premise – that Canada has become a “country of mediocrity”, due to our culture of entitlement, high taxation, equalization and politically motivated federal infiltration into provincial responsibilities – recieved no rebuttal at all from Williams, which I thought was odd. Instead, he devoted his portion of the debate to defending government involvement in the economy and weakly excusing the excesses by reminding everyone of just how darned hard a job it is to run everybody’s lives.
There were a number of business leaders and provincial MLA’s in attendance at the small gathering, including former SaskParty leader Elwin Hermanson, Ken Cheveldayoff, Ben Heppner and June Draud, who was seated beside me at our table. Prior to the serving of lunch, she described her frustration at how difficult it is to get a clear message from the SaskParty out through the media – unless the ideas are picked up by the governing NDP, who then get the press and the credit.
She also shared that small local newspapers have recieved threatening calls and subsequent withdrawel of government advertising for giving “too much space” to SaskParty media releases. My ears perked up. What bloggers couldn’t do with a story like that.
In the short time available, I tried to explain to her the concept of the blogosphere and how it has become so powerful a force in the US. She seemed to be interested enough and asked if I had a card. I didn’t. (An interesting notion, though – who has business cards for their blog?) Shortly afterwards, the speakers began so there wasn’t enough time to go into things in more detail.
At the wrap-up, Pinder suggested that we take the ideas presented “back to the workplace, talk to your friends”…
Urgh. How…. 1980’s.
When, oh when, are Canadian conservative parties going to wake up and realize that one of the most powerful tools for uniting conservative voices and bypassing the mainstream left-leaning press is already here, is proven to be both powerful and successful, is ridiculously inexpensive and right under their noses?
I dug up the address to the PCPI website from the back of a booklet they provided, entitled “Creating Wealth In Saskatchewan”, with plans of linking to the info on the Pinder-Williams debate and adding the site to the permanent sidebar.
There was nothing there. The page hasn’t been updated since Christmas.
I can’t say that I was surprised.

CBC;

The probe into a breach of policy at Saskatchewan’s social services department has become an RCMP investigation of what may be, if proven, the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the province.

Note to CBC: See Spudco.

While no charges have been laid, police raided Evelyn Hynes’ office, seized files and a computer. Government sources admit nearly a million dollars is unaccounted for.
Hynes was convicted of defrauding a bank in Newfoundland in the 1980s for more than $600,000. Working as an assistant loans manager, she made up phony clients and bogus loans over six years. She was sentenced to two years in jail but was later pardoned.
After getting out of jail and becoming a social worker she moved to Saskatoon, rising through the ranks of the provincial government to become a middle-level manager. But government officials didn’t check Hynes’s criminal record when they hired her in 1989. At that time, she had not been pardoned.

Eh… would someone please ask how the pardon came about?
Update –
Both Ms. Hynes and her husband, Grant Matheson were employed in the same office with the Benefits and Audit Program and left on the same day. Both were on salary at over $80,000 a year. Escorted from their offices in December, the department has been under a “no talk” order ever since. Quote from a source: “DCRE usually eat their own rather than proscecute them.”
As so often happens in these cases, the irony positively drips. Hynes also enjoyed a second paying position, teaching classes at the University of Saskatchewan in poverty. Former President of the Saskatchewan Social Workers Association, her work on “Social Work Ethics and Income Security” was adopted by that association. (Someone may want to be checking over the books there as well.)
Considering that social assistance recipients in Saskatchewan have even the most trivial overpayment of funds corrected by docking from their future disbursements, regardless of the hardship it may cause – it will be interesting to see what the NDP government does with Ms. Hynes pension plan.
The NDP’s claimed drop in welfare caseloads would do an Enron accountant proud – by creating new program names, they shuffle clients into new check-recieiving categories that bypass the field worker and go directly through SaskTel.
One such example is the Saskatchewan employment supplement, a support system for the working poor. Once under the umbrella of the welfare system, recipients now report income to a call center on a monthly basis, via 1-800 number, and recieve their income top-up. To apply for welfare in Saskatchewan you dial a 1 800 number, apply for a “transitional employment allowance” – meaning you just want some money until you can find a job – and the government will simply cut you a check.
There is no social services interview or other system in place to prevent abuse, as it’s considered too costly to do so.
Apparently, the same applies to Department of Community Resources and Employment managers.

Long day at the shop. Overnight a foot of snow had drifted in over the inch of ice that froze to every road surface during a lovely rain we had a couple of days ago. Driving to town was no picnic. Neither was the drive home.


(click for full size)

Airbrushing is “automaton” work. There’s not a lot of thought required, and so the mind tends to wander – similar to the phenomenon that occurs when on a long drive with an open can of solvent in the car.

And today, as I buzzed and brushed along on the masks, I began to think about things. Just things at random, as I am wont to do. Sparked, perhaps, by the knowledge that the masks were Edmonton bound, I began pondering the most serious problem facing the province of Saskatchewan today – the inability to attract young people who are highly educated, and have an entrepreneurial spirit.
Suddenly, it came to me – a solution. As brilliant ideas often are, it was breathtakingly simple. It’s so damned simple I can’t believe no one has proposed this before.
Our province has an brand identity problem. The name “Saskatchewan”, while unique and memorable (if not pronouncable), is burdened by negative imagery. A simple word association experiment illustrates the problem … “Saskatchewan … taxes .. socialists … Tommy Douglas .. not dead enough … roadkill … bad roads … blizzards … wind … drought … grasshoppers …”
It doesn’t help that we’re on the shelf right next to a province that’s got a Red Hot Rating in every consumer report.
Let’s face it – Alberta is our number two problem. It’s easy to move from Saskatchewan to Alberta. No hills to climb or rivers to ford. Those Albertans are clever. They use gasoline pumps as bread crumbs – the further west you drive, the lower the fuel prices.
Time to face facts. As fond as we are of it, the name’s got to go. There’s simply too much baggage, too much bad press. But what do we replace it with? Cuba’s taken.
Here’s where my idea really started to pick up speed. Picture this scene if you will – a nice millionaire family is brainstorming for a place to move, work, invest and make even more money, and they go “Hey, why not Alberta! They have oil, conservatives, no sales tax.. ”
Why not indeed! And so they get a map of Canada, seeking fertile ground to put down new roots…

I can hear the pennies dropping…
True, we might get a higher than average representation of dyslexics, but on the balance, I think it could work. Absurd? Perhaps. Revolutionary? Certainly.
Too stupid?
Well, funny you ask. In Saskatchewan, there’s really no such thing! In fact, the Calvert government has taken a stance that when it comes to building the economy of this province, no idea is too stupid to consider.
Alberta. Albreta. Alberta. Albreta.. See? It sounds better all the time.

With spring just over the horizon, it’s time to get our green thumbs warmed up! New for 2005 from small dead animals (concrete novelty division) – quality, hand crafted garden gnomes for the discriminating Saskatchewan gardener. Start your garden collection today! Click the product image for more info. $79.95 (plus tax)

Notice : under Saskatchewan’s Garden Standard Act, homes with existing garden gnomes must first seek approval from the Garden Standards Board, and certify that any existing garden gnomes have recieved their full allocation of garden space based on seniority, prior to purchasing any additional gnomes. Only larger gardens — those that have 50 or more square metres — are affected by the rule.

An opportunity for a certain blogger-named-for-fine-cheese to redeem himself.

Current bid: $1100 Proceeds to Kidsport and Canadian Red Cross tsunami relief.

CBC

A Saskatchewan Queen’s Bench judge has struck down the provincial government’s policy on the adoption of First Nations children. Under the policy, the Saskatchewan Community Resources Department would not put First Nations children up for adoption without the consent
of their band.
In a recent case, the Surgeon Lake band had refused consent for the adoption of five children on the grounds it didn’t want them adopted by non-aboriginal parents.
The band was concerned the children would lose their connections to their culture and community. However, Prince Albert Justice Jacelyn Ann Ryan-Froslie ruled the existing policy left some children in foster care “limbo”. It can result in children being shuffled through numerous foster homes with a “far-reaching and devastating” effect, she said.
“There is no reason why children cannot have a permanent, stable and loving home through adoption and still be guaranteed a connection with their family,” Ryan-Froslie wrote in her 50-page decision. The judge also said the current policy violates the children’s constitutional rights to equality, liberty and security of the person.
Debra Parker-Loewen, Saskatchewan’s Children’s Advocate, wouldn’t comment directly on the court decision, but said it’s time for a new approach on adoptions.
“I don’t think there’s one answer for every child,” she said. “I think there’s many answers just like there are many different kinds of family constellations and many different ways of sorting out what’s in the interests of children.”
Parker-Loewen said the current policy was a well-meaning attempt to help First Nations children keep their culture. However, she said, that can still be done even if they are adopted into non- native homes.

Good news.
update – Be sure to read what Raskolnikov has to say in the comments. And then, go read this first rate rant.

(updated)
Fred Dejarlais is, and I can’t say that I blame him.

It was New Year’s Eve and Desjarlais had just finished his shift at 7 p.m. Instead of catching the shuttle back to the camp facility (temporary residence for workers) he decided to jog the three kilometres. Along the way he heard something and glanced back just as the animal crept out of the ditch and walked toward him.

“He was taunting me, (walking) in a circle around me,” Desjarlais said. “I looked around real quick and thought, ‘I hope he’s alone.’ He was as far as I could see.”
Desjarlais hollered and tried to scare the animal off but then it lunged at his head. He jumped to the side and dodged it but the wolf came back.
“That’s when I knew he meant business,” said Desjarlais, who eluded a second lunge but the wolf quickly spun around and got to the man’s back, biting into his shoulder area.
Fortunately, Desjarlais was wearing several layers of clothing which prevented the bite from breaking the skin, but it did leave significant bruising. The wolf then turned its attention to Desjarlais’ lower body and ripped into his jeans, biting twice around the pelvic area.
“He knew he was in deep trouble so he jumped on the wolf’s back and tried to subdue it,” said Barker.
They both fell over and got back up. When his chance came again, Desjarlais made good. He locked onto the wolf’s back and threw his arms around the animal’s head, putting it into a headlock.
“I pulled him down the way you would take down cattle (for roping) and I dropped onto his head, pinning him there,” said Desjarlais, who held on 30-40 seconds before coworkers returning to camp on the bus spotted the pair.
“He was pretty much at the end of his string. His strength was draining,” said Barker.

More here

CBC: In a release, the U.S. Department Agriculture said it will now recognize Canada as a minimal- risk region for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the scientific name for mad cow disease. Beginning March 7, Canadian producers will be able to start shipping live cattle under the age of 30 months, as well as beef products from animals over 30 months old. Ruminants such as goats and elk will also be allowed.

Update: You just had to know this was going to happen. A new case of BSE may have been found in a Canadian dairy cow. (It has yet to be confirmed). According to USDA spokespeople this morning, it shouldn’t delay the border opening (the expectation is for about a dozen BSE positives a year) . But it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Spent the evening at a company Christmas party, held at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon. It’s been years since I was down there – which reminded me – I used to do a little pinstriping on farm equipment restorations for them from time to time. Hopefully, they’re still funded well enough to salvage those old beasts, and have just found someone whose better at it. I suck at pinstriping.
No special reason for mentioning it, except that it’s a great spot to visit if you want to find something to do while in the Bridge City. The museum is set up as an indoor “street” from the turn of the century, the buildings filled with artifacts.
The website is here. A great place to take kids right now – there’s a charming exhibit of old T. Eaton store mechanical Christmas displays.

Edmonton Sun:

SASKATOON — Police were investigating the death of an 11- year-old girl who roamed the streets last weekend looking for a place to sleep. Delores Bird was found dead Saturday night in an apartment suite in a sordid area of Saskatoon’s west side.
Her uncle, Ralph Bird, who lives in the suite next to where the girl’s body was found, said she died after a night of drinking and taking pills.
“Why didn’t she come here first? I wouldn’t have let her go. I would have sat her down and told her, ‘Don’t drink anymore,’ ” he said, squeezing his eyes to hold back tears.
The girl’s mother was reportedly away for the weekend.

All week the media punditry, social activists, and local politicians have been churning out meaningless pap, debating this tragedy in a soul-searching exercise of ‘how we failed Delores Bird’. Soon, I expect, someone will announce an inquiry. There will be experts and witnesses, scholars penning profoundly meaningless papers, and community activists demanding funds for more Programs Of Enablement.

“We all must take responsibility for these children … can’t force children into rehab, they must come to it on their own … listen to the children … ask them how we can help … teach better parenting skills… more support for poor families … a failure of all society”.

Bullshit. These enlightened attitudes towards “families in poverty” of the past three decades have failed. Welfare and treaty based payments have turned childbearing into a cottage industry. Youth crime has not abated – it has worsened, in both scope and severity. In addition to unabated rates of property crime, we have Indian gangs running the streets of Saskatoon. They have graduated from stealing cars and vandalism to home invasions, stabbings, sawed off shotguns. Your grand social schemes are killing people and failing children.
The question of how we failed Delores Bird can be answered in the question no one has asked.
When are criminal charges going to be laid against the mother?
That’s who failed Delores Bird. If the person responsible for the care of this little girl isn’t guilty of criminal neglect, I don’t know who is.
Our social systems and institutions hold a deeply racist attitude towards First Nations families, and it is most strongly expressed in lowered expectations, lesser demands for parental responsibility. When families permit or perpetrate abuse and neglect, they are considered mere extensions of their victims.
The extended victim status is pervasive and long standing – for a different example, I offer Neil Stonechild’s mother. She has openly blamed police and society for the death of her 17 year old, alcoholic, gun-dealing son. She recieved an apology from the city police chief. No one asked “what the hell for?”, or why Stella Bignell wasn’t standing beside him, issuing a few apologies of her own for failures of parenthood, the harm inflicted on his victims, the cost to those institutions that tried to assist after the fact.
These same local and provincial governments that presume a moral obligation and legislative authority to “protect” rational adults from the health effects of second hand smoke are frozen by “cultural sensitivity” when it comes to their obligation to protect the most vulnerable citizens in our society.
And while they dither, 4 year olds wander the streets alone and 12 year olds are turning tricks. Neglected, underfed, unschooled – the official reaction is hand wringing about how we can “best support them” or “help their parents to learn better parenting skills”. Throw more money. Build a new community center so they can “play basketball” through the wee hours of the morning while their parents are MIA.
I don’t think so. If they are going to have a chance in life, we cannot leave small children in the hands of dead end parents. Culture and sensitivity, be damned. These people are not alcoholic glue sniffers because they live in poverty – They live in poverty because they are alcoholic glue sniffers. Their dysfunction is so profound that it is folly to leave these kids at their mercy while they “learn better parenting skills”. The rate of success in such experiments is far too low, and much too temporary. The first priority should be getting these kids into a safe environment – foster home, extended family, treatment centers. Build new residental schools, if that’s what it takes and tell the detractors to go to hell.
Then, start sending a legal message to deadbeat parents in stark terms. Rescue these little kids from the streets the first time they are spotted. Charge the parents or guardians for neglect.
Related: In Toronto, another 11 year old victim.

As Eastern Europe struggles out from under the economic policies of Marxism, and China races towards free market capitalism, while old Europe staggers towards reform under the increasing burden of welfare state entitlements and “red state” voter blocks in the US grow with increasing middle-class prosperity… Saskatchewan finds itself presented with a unique opportunity.
We can become a world leader in Econo Tourism. Think theme park.
First, we must request our status as a Canadian province be revoked, and ask for new designation as a World Heritage Park – a “living museum” for failed political experiments. With fewer and fewer regimes to use as educational tools for the business and political leaders of the future, .Saskatchewan can fill a need.
For $15 a head, “econo-tourists” can board authentic government-owned STC buses and delight in the province’s features … “to your left, ladies and gentlemen, is a defunct government potato company, and scene of a multi-million dollar lawsuit and settlement … the remnants of a small shovel mark the spot of an ethanol plant never built … there, on the horizon, is an oil “pump jack”. The government demonstrated for decades – against all odds – how to keep this commodity from being pumped to the surface. There is more uranium than any other jurisdiction on the planet, but the NDP have successfully prevented its transformation into electrical energy.. the cars that are meeting us on this trail are heading to Alberta. Saskatchewan’s top export are future business leaders and educated young professionals.”
With the leadership of Lorne Calvert and the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union, Saskatchewan can play a unique role in the world. Benign, well behaved, absent a military – we pose no threat to our neighbors – the ideal political science exhibit for others to study and learn from.
The latest step in this eventual transformation – the Calvert government is considering a prohibition on hiring of new part time employees, through forced implementation of seniority rules for all private business. This really shouldn’t come a surprise. The NDP is not a party in the usual sense of the word – it’s the political wing of organized labour.
Saskatoon Star Phoenix:

Province considers part-time seniority rule
Saskatchewan is once again considering regulations that would mandate employers to give any extra hours of work to the part-timer with the highest seniority level.
But Larry Seiferling, a labour lawyer with the Chamber of Commerce, doesn’t like the idea. He says if it is adopted, Saskatchewan would be the only jurisdiction in North America to have such a regulation and companies would leave.
Labour Minister Deb Higgins says she hopes to have a set of workable regulations ready for discussion by the end of the year.�

An idea whose time has come.

Are you listening, Lorne Calvert? Let’s get Sask Tourism on this project.

On the eve of the CFL Western Final, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have gone mute. So much so, that their silence has become the sports story of the week.

“Whad’sa matter with you guys? Where’s the trash talk? Whad’ya expect us to write about? “

Proving that no news is well…. big news, I guess. And proving that their synaptic connections are held together by old jockstraps, today BC Lions management has called on the CFL to investigate.
The other news? The volume has been maxed out on the audio system at BC Place to try to prepare their team for a stadium full of the noisiest out-of-town fans on the planet.

Taylor Field, Regina, SK.

Saskatchewan fans have been known to make it impossible for visiting teams to hear calls at home games at Taylor Field. They are likely to be in abundance at BC Place.

Too quiet, or too noisy? Make up your mind, people.
Heh.

The Saskatoon Police Service finds itself in another crisis, courtesy of a recently released review of a 14 year old case involving the freezing death of 17 year old Neil Stonechild. The CBC bio paints a picture of a artistic, enthusiastic, “popular” young man who attended his AA meetings faithfully, was well loved by social workers, who painted murals on the walls at the detention center. Absence and political correctness make the heart grow fonder. A friend whose son went to school with him remarked that their first reaction to news of Stonechild’s demise was “good riddence”. The AA member was found with a blood alcohol level of 1.5.
Riding the media frenzy, U of Sask business professor Colin Boyd has called, through a piece in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, for the dissolution of the Saskatoon Police Service, suggesting the force be replaced by the RCMP. Quite apart from the logistics and costs in firing over 370 city police, the problems incorporating the RCMP’s different operational paradigm, is the wonderment that someone in academia would make such a bold suggestion without surrendering himself to the troubling inconvenience of fact checking. The Police Act requires Saskatchewan communities of over 20.000 to provide their own policing.
This CBC report summarizes the current crisis, while this covers the accusations and chain of events.
Justice David Wright’s final report concluded Bradley Senger and Lawrence Hartwig had Stonechild in their custody 4 days before his frozen body was found in a field on the north end of Saskatoon. Senger and Hartwig maintain they were called to investigate a complaint about Stonechild causing a disturbance, but that he was gone by the time they arrived. Justice Wright was suspicious that the two officers did not seem to have any recollection of having looked for Stonechild, despite the discovery of his body a few days later.
From the report;

I cannot accept that Cst. Hartwig simply forgot about the search for Stonechild when he learned of the death, or that he failed to recognize the complaint might have some significance to the investigation into Stonechild’s death. In all of the circumstances, his assertion that he did not recall what happened is simply not credible. I conclude that he recalled what happened, and his assertions are a deliberate deception designed to conceal his involvement.

His conclusion defies logic. These two officers would have been fully aware that their call to the complaint about Stonechild would be part of dispatch, CPIC, other Saskatoon Police Service Reports – and their own notebooks. To purposefully deny knowledge in hopes of covering up their involvement would be patently absurd. Why pretend to forget, when remembering carried no more weightier implicatiion than the official police record?
And why might they forget? Earlier in the report, Justice Wright mentions that these two officers – one with 3 years experience, the other a rookie, had performed the task of informing a woman her husband had taken the lives of himself and their sons earlier in that same evening.
I also found puzzling the judge’s contention that he cannot believe that some details of that evening would be remembered clearly by the officers, while others were not. Memory doesn’t function in the way that a tape recorder does – rather, it’s better described as a process of re-creation, the brain drawing on stored information and incorporating it with global knowledge. It’s the reason that “false memory syndrome” exists, memory recovery through hypnosis is virtually useless and eyewitness reports notoriously unreliable.
Wright’s decision to discount their testimony seems to be solely based on this forgetfulness and the testimony of a friend of Stonechild, one Jason Roy;

“A police car pulled in front of me and Neil was in the back, and the moment he saw me he was very irate, he was freaking out he was saying, ‘J[ason] help me. Just help me. These guys are going to kill me.’

Jason Roy was busy compiling a fine criminal record of his own. He didn’t come forward with his story about the cry for help until after receiving visualization therapy at Kilborn detention center for juvenile offenders.
Autopsy photos
In addition to believing that Roy was more credible than the police officers, Wright discounted the testimony of two trained forensic pathologists who expressed doubt that marks photographed on Stonechild’s body were caused by handcuffs. He suggested that the testimony of Dr. Lew – a forensic pathologist for Dade County, FL – wasn’t credible and that she was “enhancing her opinion”.

“I shared the same experience as other observers at the Inquiry: I could not see any striations of the sort described by Dr. Lew. If I stood alone in this failure I might feel differently.”

I wasn’t aware that Justice Wright had company on the bench. Considering that his final report recommends a review of the coroner system, Wright seems unpreturbed about his own lack of expertise before discounting the opinion of trained pathologists.
Justice Wright doesn’t seem to take as much issue with the coroner – a retired general practitioner with no forensic background, whose original report bears little resemblance to the story of the body being “beaten and dragged” he told a reporter 12 years later. (Coroners require no training at all in Saskatchewan – a hangover from the exodus of doctors during the early days of medicare.)
Today, Chief Russ Sabo is to announce his decision on the future of the two officers accused.
Those who have been calling for their heads caution that Wright has “not accused Bradley Senger and Lawrence Hartwig of causing Stonechild’s death”. Justice officials have stated that there isn’t enough evidence to sustain formal charges. (The Wright inquiry was not conducted under the normal rules of evidence.)
Well, I’m afraid this “they had him, not saying they killed him” disclaimer falls right through the middle of the logic gap.
If the two officers did have Stonechild in their custody, then we know they not record his arrest at the time the apprehended him, indicating that they intended to discharge of Stonechild in a manner beyond the normal police protocols the moment they spotted him.
That’s pre-mediitation.
The media and Justice Wright need to be pushed off the fence on this one. If one is to accept that Senger and Hartwig had Stonechild in their custody, then criminal charges should be laid. Why? Because, their current position is unsustainable and grossly unfair. They stand “convicted” at arms length, of causing Neil Stonechild’s death – without the benefit of a bona fide court of law and the normal rules of evidence – while the public has been encouraged to connect the dots.
To those calling for the dissolution of the service because of the very real possibility of a police “mutiny” – put yourselves in the position of every police officer in Saskatoon, facing the profound realization that the day could come when they are called to the stand to account for the whereabouts of a suspect they never located, on a night in which they answered over 50 calls, based on the late-breaking memory of a convicted felon, 10 years after taking a complaint.
A great many people have suggested that had Neil Stonechild been a white kid from a “good” family, without a criminal record, the investigation into his freezing death would have been much more enthusiastic – and I agree. I suspect police investigate violence against the innocent with more zeal than they do the deaths of drunk drivers, too.
But if Neil Stonechild had been a white kid with no criminal record, found frozen with alcohol in his system, we wouldn’t have seen a racially charged public inquiry into it 14 years after the fact, either. It would have remained on the books as just another case of death by misadventure.
Stonechild report
update – Officers Hartwig and Senger have been dismissed. They are expected to appeal the decision. Stay tuned.

Continue reading →

Colby Cosh

“[blahblahblahblah, blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah, blahblah, blahblahblahblah] Overconfidence is inadvisable, particularly in a public forum like this, but just between us, Saskatchewan already lost this game”

2004 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tommy Douglas.

And the 186th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, 134th of Lenin and the 78th anniversary of Castro’s birth.
Just so we’re all on the same page.

Unfortunately, my digital camera broke a couple of weeks ago, and the one I bought on Ebay hasn’t arrived yet, so I’ve no photos. I didn’t get out of Rapid City until 4 pm yesterday, and made it as far as Williston, ND. Awoke to freezing rain, and it went downhill from there. Hiway 85 to the border was glaze ice much of the way, and Regina to Delisle was a combination of ice and snowpack, complete with finger drifts. There’s 8″ of wet snow in my yard and more snow forecast for tonight.
Blech.

Looks like someone took up my suggestion;

Southwest trying to hold on to health care
CLIMAX – People in the southwest corner of the province say they will pay for health care alone if they have to.
They are upset that hours of service at the Border Health Centre in Climax are going to be cut next month.
Nancy Kirk, mayor of Climax, says her area is home to oil and gas workers, as well as a large manufacturing plant. Kirk says accidents happen, and people need an emergency room around the clock.
“We’re not really asking for a lot. We know we’re a health centre. We know we don’t probably need a full-fledged acute care facility here. We need some solutions as they have done in other parts of the province where people are isolated. We need some the solution to have some of our emergency needs met beyond the eight-hour day.”
Kirk says a number of people in her area are willing to spend local tax dollars on extending the health centre’s hours. Kirk estimates keeping open the emergency room would cost up to $300,000 dollars a year.

Good for them.
If First Nations are going to be permitted to establish private, for profit MRI services in the city of Saskatoon, with three major hospitals in a 10 mile radius, any argument to deny rural residents the right to find their own solutions in a “remote” region without a hospital or emergency care at all is going to require a intellectual contortionist.
That person, of course, would be Premier Lorne Calvert.

Saskatchewan’s Wide Open Wallet delivers another hit to taxpayers.

News Release: SASKPOWER AND ATCO POWER JOINT VENTURE WILL NOT PROCEED
After detailed discussions regarding the project, SaskPower International and ATCO Power have announced their joint venture to build 150 megawatts of wind generation in Saskatchewan will not proceed.
SaskPower remains committed to pursuing wind generation as part of the Green Power Portfolio and will now review options related to the project.
[…]
SaskPower International Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of SaskPower and is the corporation’s development arm. SaskPower operates three coal-fired power stations, seven hydroelectric stations, four natural gas stations, and nine wind turbines (Cypress Wind Power Facility) with aggregate generating capacity of more than 3,000 MW, and has 449 MW of contracted capacity (Meridian Cogeneration Station, Cory Cogeneration Station and SunBridge Wind Power Project).

SaskPower is a Saskatchewan government corporation, actually – one of around 70 such government-owned entities. (ATCO is Alberta based.)
The news isn’t good for SaskTel (another wholly owned subsidiary of the Saskatchewan government), either.

[…]for SaskTel, letting you talk on the phone from your computer — free of long distance charges or for mere pennies per minute – – won’t be as cheap for them as it will be for everyone else, if the CRTC has its way.
[…]
Currently the CRTC regulates telephone service but the Internet is largely unregulated. The problem, from SaskTel’s perspective, is the CRTC is leaning toward calling the technology a phone service and regulating it as such — at least for the existing phone companies.
“Certainly, we look at it as an Internet service,” said John Meldrum, SaskTel’s vice- president for regulatory affairs, in an interview from Ottawa. “We think the CRTC is looking backward, not forward.”
The regulations would force the incumbent companies to adhere to similar pricing restrictions based on costs as they do for landline service. They would also force telephone companies to re-file any price changes to the CRTC, and allow them to offer promotions, like free trials, or bundle options.
SaskTel feels it is unfair to force incumbent providers to adhere to these regulations when all other potential VoIP providers will be able to operate free of regulation.
“They’d cause competitive harm to the incumbent so new competition can flourish,” Meldrum said of the CRTC’s position.
Cable service providers, like Rogers, Shaw and Regina’s Access Communications, feel regulation will help them compete.

Those ‘good old’ days when it was illegal for private citizens to own their own phone in the province of Saskatchewan seem so quaint and far away.