Rural Saskatchewan Taken for Granted

COMMENTARY - For the past two years the Wall Government has recklessly overspent billions of dollars with one-time money. They avoided making any hard decisions out of their obsession with popularity and desire to be all things to all people.

Now the money is running out and the shine has come off the Sask Party. A forecasting error in this year’s budget has created an operational deficit of $1 billion- the largest operational deficit in Saskatchewan since the early 1990s. This has left the Wall Government scrambling in the face of adversity, and we start to see the true colours of a party desperately making spending cuts at the last minute with no plan.

Who do they take aim at first? Rural Saskatchewan.

The first items on the chopping block include a $122 million cut to long term care facilities in rural areas and a $40.1 million cut to agriculture assistance. The education property tax cuts- for many years an issue important to Rural Saskatchewan- are now in jeopardy as the government admits they have no plan to address how they will pay for them.

This is in addition to their decision to leave grain producers and rural businesses owed money by the government- controlled Big Sky Farms in the cold.

Turning on Rural Saskatchewan so quickly tells the real story of the Sask Party. Yet again rural communities are taken for granted (or written off in the case of the NDP) and expected to just grin and bear it.