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Leader-Star News Service April 1997 Archive |
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Leader-Star News Service April 1997 Archive |
Alas, the jig is up. We have no choice but to now make a confession.
The second consecutive Saskatchewan Liberal leader has stumbled upon the conspiracy between New Democrats, Progressive Conservatives and us reporters to forever prevent the Grits from assuming power in this province.
New Liberal Leader Jim Melenchuk kicked down the closet door that we of this unholy trinity share.
He sifted through the carburetor that gives our cars 200 miles per gallon that we are suppressing on behalf of the multinational oil conglomerates, the corpse of that alien that crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico, and the signed confession of J.F.K.'s real assassin to discover our deadliest and most guarded secret of all.
The PCs and NDP have ganged up to ensure us lovable-but-not-terribly-bright reporters aren't covering Liberal issues, Melenchuk charged recently.
"I believe the NDP and PCs have a strategy in dealing with the media to make the Liberals look less attractive," the Liberal leader insists.
Jim, Jim, Jim.
Before we skip too far down this yellow brick road, allow me to offer one example why the Liberals are having trouble getting their message out this session.
A week ago today, residents from Naicam, 223 kilometres north of Regina, came down to the legislature to ask that the government exempt municipalities from paying the provincial sales tax on fire trucks -- a move, Saskatchewan municipalities argue, that would not only alleviate financial hardship for them but also make economic sense.
The provincial government took in nearly $5.4 billion in revenue last year, but only collected a measly $200,000 PST from fire truck sales.
While this tax collected is peanuts to the province, that extra $10,500 to $13,500 of PST each community would pay on a $150,000 truck may be the difference between buying and not buying the needed equipment. Also, the government could forgo all or part of a $2.1-million surcharge on fire-insurance costs to offset the loss in PST revenue.
The Naicam folk were sitting in the legislature gallery last Wednesday, expecting to hear Liberal MLA June Draude make their case in that day's 25-minute question period.
Instead, they heard Harvey McLane ask about midwifery services (not surprisingly, the Liberals took the doctors' line) and then Glen McPherson ask four questions about the unique problem of potholes in his riding.
The Liberals used up their allotted 65 per cent of question period time. The remainder of question period was then turned over to the PCs, who raised concerns about a woman who will have to pay between $7,500 and $10,000 for cosmetic surgery after the removal of a tumor on her jaw.
The Progressive Conservative' demand that there be a health ombudsman to arbitrate such difficulties became the only question period story on TV news that evening and in the newspapers the next day.
In fact, what staved off complete disaster for the Liberals was pleas from their communications officer that reporters interview the Naicam folk on an embargoed basis anyway.
Despite Melenchuk's conspiracy theories, the reporters did agree to cut the Liberals some slack. Most media outlets ran the PST story after the Grits raised it in the next day's question period.
The above episode is only one of many reasons why Melenchuk's gripes are a tad silly.
First, the biggest problem with selling Liberal policies has been the policies themselves. Whether on health care, harmonizing the PST with the GST or even how to deal with young offenders stealing cars, Liberal proposals have often been muddy and contradictory.
Second, Liberal in-fighting -- the messy departure of the party's former executive director and Emmet Reidy and some of the MLAs' not-so-silent anger over Melenchuk's caucus assignments -- has put the focus on Liberals for other reasons than issues they should be promoting.
Third, even if there is a small bit of truth to the PC/NDP covenant, you can't publicly complain about it without sounding like you are either paranoid or suffering from sour grapes because the Tories are doing a better job.
And fourth, the Liberals haven't been doing all that bad this session -- at least, not in relative terms.
While Liberal MLAs trying to upstage one another were the norm last session, incidents like McPherson hogging the question period spotlight have been reasonably rare so far this session.
But by complaining you draw attention to what's wrong with your caucus rather than what's right.
And what's wrong with the Liberals has tended to be of their own making.
After his unprecedented decision last week to vote with the NDP government in favor of its budget, consider the next logical steps for PC Leader Bill Boyd in the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly:
(a) Either he and his PC colleagues that voted with the government can cross the floor and join the NDP government because, according to parliamentary tradition, they now have virtually nothing to complain about as opposition members;
(b) Or Boyd can drape Ol' Glory around his legislative desk and call for -- as his predecessor Dick Collver did in the very same room 18 years ago -- Saskatchewan to join the United States because Boyd's actions, basically, advocate replacing our parliament with a republic, free-vote government.
What Boyd and fellow Tories Ben Heppner and Jack Goohsen were up to last Thursday was -- at least to them -- nothing more than the harmless political theatre we often see at the Saskatchewan legislature.
Tories had introduced a private member's bill earlier that day calling for the right to hold free votes on every issue -- a policy similar to the campaign plank of the federal Reform party that the Saskatchewan PCs try to emulate.
Such private member's bills have about as much hope of passing as Saskatchewan PCs have of quickly resuming power.
Furthermore, the move was pure hypocrisy, considering that few governments were more insistent on its members voting along party lines than the Devine Tories. (If Boyd did have a sniff of ever becoming premier, would his party permit free votes on confidence motions that could bring down the government? More on that in a moment.)
Even Boyd acknowledges the gesture was largely a symbolic one -- one perhaps designed to distance the PCs from the Liberal Opposition.
The call for free votes, Boyd admits, has been partially inspired by PC polling that overwhelmingly demands politicians act more independently. Moreover, calls to the PC office since the vote have been five to one in favor, he says.
But this growing acceptance of the facile premise that our system of voting along party lines is somehow wrong is just the first problem with what Boyd is now advocating.
First, who says the U.S. free-vote system is better?
Do Americans -- the 40 per cent who do actually vote -- feel any more in touch with their government? How would they pass spending cuts or tax increases to fight debt if government members could avoid responsibility for their government's actions by voting freely?
Second, contrary to Boyd's beliefs, there is no such thing as a "symbolic gesture" when it comes to defying parliamentary tradition.
Parliamentary tradition is law.
When Nova Scotia Speaker Arthur Donahoe denied CBC cameras access to that legislature's committee rooms in 1991, it was widely assumed by the media that the rights of the press would prevail in court. In 1994, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled our parliamentary tradition -- in this case, the tradition that the speaker has absolute authority over his legislature -- supersedes even rights like freedom of the press.
Third, based on that tradition, Boyd couldn't have picked a worse issue to make his case than a confidence motion where politicians are being asked to pledge their confidence in the government of the day.
The notion that parliaments should hold free votes (which they already do) on moral issues like abortion, capital punishment or gun control may be one thing, but throne or budget speech votes are another matter. The loss of such confidence motion votes (as was the case with Joe Clark's federal PC government in 1979) obliges the governing party to perform the ultimate democratic act of calling an election. (Does that happen in the U.S.?)
Even when individual government members vote against such a budget speech confidence motion (as former Liberal MP John Nunziata did a year ago), parliamentary tradition dictates they withdraw from the government's side.
So what should happen to an opposition member who says: "I'm voting for the government's budget because I basically approve of everything the government is doing"? Is he not be obliged to cross the floor and join the government?
If a Canadian politician is saying parliaments should have unbridled free votes, is he advocating anything short of adopting the U.S. system?
Finally, should we just toss out hundreds of years of our tradition of parliamentary democracy, as Boyd wants to, simply because some other system sounds better?
The alleged assault on Justice Minister John Nilson at the Saskatchewan legislature Wednesday is a lesson to us all, although, perhaps, not the lesson that we might immediately assume.
This was not a lesson in the need for beefed-up security that would turn the most public of Saskatchewan's public buildings into a southern version of the P.A. Pen, complete with bars and armed guards.
(Although, if it was, certain former Tories might have a much smoother transition from public to private life.)
Quite the opposite.
If the alleged assault proved anything, it's that current security at the legislature actually works quite well.
The alleged perpetrator -- 43-year-old Storthoaks resident Gerald W. Blerot has been charged with two counts of common assault stemming from incident -- was ushered away quickly and quietly by Legislative Building security staff.
More impressively, however, has been the remarkable restraint from our politicians -- particularly, those on the government side -- by not over-reacting.
It reveals a remarkable understanding of what this building should be all about.
If you ever pass through the security checks at our federal Parliament or even at many other provincial legislatures, you're immediately struck by the contempt and suspicion the institutions show toward their citizens.
Whether it's the concrete blockades erected in front of Ontario's Queen's Park since the arrival of PC Premier Mike Harris, or the pillars that had to be installed on the steps of Parliament Hill to keep wing-nuts from driving their trucks up the steps, what they all sadly signify is yet another barrier between the people and the politicians they elected.
Even if such measures have been made necessary, is it really any wonder so many Canadians feel increasingly disenfranchised from their governments?
But in Saskatchewan, things have been different.
Yes, we've also had sit-ins and protests in our ministers' offices. Most of you will recall the incident earlier this winter when emotions ran high as SGEU workers -- angry about the passage of the Dorsey report -- stormed the corridors and, eventually, crammed Labor Minister Bob Mitchell's office.
But the notion that security at the legislature had to be dramatically increased because of these incidents seemed the farthest thing from our minds.
The courts will now decide whether the laws of the land were overstepped.
What seems obvious -- based on Blerot's statements to reporters that he was making a "citizen's arrest on Nilson" and that he hired a freelance TV cameraman to record the whole thing -- is that this was very much a media-attention-seeking publicity stunt.
Interestingly, none of our MLAs have called for such publicity seekers -- those who feel the need to exercise their right to protest -- to be barred from the building or the area.
Nor have they even called for moats and higher walls around the building. (Contrary to the cheap shots from Liberal MLA Jack Hillson in the assembly Thursday, not even Nilson is really clamoring for tighter security. When asked by reporters Wednesday if security should be tightened, Nilson simply responded: "We don't need incidents like this, so if there is some way it could have been prevented, that should have been done."
Given that his comment came less than an hour after the alleged incident, Nilson showed remarkable restraint.)
It is a sign of remarkable tolerance -- the true test of a democracy.
And, in a way, it is typical of Saskatchewan.
We believe that we are different in this province. That long, cold Prairie winters have caused us to appreciate and pay more attention to politics than people elsewhere. That we are a kinder, gentler people touched by the spirit of co-operation and social democracy that governed this province for so long.
Sometimes such thoughts are little more than pretty words for pretty political speeches.
But things like the openness of our Legislative Building give those words meaning.
For more days than I care to remember these past 131Ž2 years, I have passed through the legislature's doors.
Unlike most who do, I don't work for government. Reporters are outsiders here.
And some might assume that means the legislature is a place where those of us who frequently criticize government would be made to feel unwelcome.
I've never been made to feel that way.
Like the protesters, the lobbyists and the politicians we, too, believe this building is ours.
And that we all have a right to be here.
Thankfully, our politicians have shown us this week they understand this and feel the same way.
Evidently, Saskatchewan's Department of Justice may still have a lot to learn about improving its public image.
Justice Minister John Nilson and his officials quickly embraced the predominant theme in the $155,000 departmental review prepared by Calgary lawyers Peter Martin and Earl Wilson that there is nothing wrong with Saskatchewan's Crown prosecutors, except maybe that they are misunderstood by the public and simple-minded reporters.
"Those (reporters) assigned to report on criminal trials typically need someone to explain the process and issues," the report states in one of its typical condescending remarks. (To better enhance media understanding of such complex legal issues, the justice department handed out its 97-page report to reporters a scant five minutes before Nilson and deputy minister Brent Cotter sat down to speak. The department had had the report in its possession for 40 days prior.)
Hiring more Crown prosecutors (plus an extra public relations person here and there), giving them more computers and sending them to more seminars should change the department's sullied image, the report concludes.
But here is where the ludicrousness of this exercise really begins.
Nobody -- not even opposition politicians -- have ever called for a complete overhaul of the prosecutions branch because of some perceived inherent problems.
What justice department officials agree on and what even the Wilson/Martin report alludes to is that the prosecution branch's public image problems stem from its handling of a few prominent criminal cases -- specifically, the sexual abuse charges laid in Martensville and the Robert Latimer murder trial.
Not reporters' collective inability to fairly cover trials. Not the lack of personal computers for each Crown prosecutor or the numbers of seminars they attend in a year.
Why were there only two convictions after 180 charges were laid against nine people in what was called in 1992: "The Martensville child sex ring?" Why is Robert Latimer receiving a new trial today? Why is a Saskatchewan Crown prosecutor -- for perhaps the first time in Canadian history -- facing criminal charges related to jury tampering in connection to Latimer's case?
These are the questions the public has been asking. This is what is undermining public confidence for the Saskatchewan justice department that sees itself as being under siege.
Yet it's precisely these two cases -- the root of the prosecution branch's so-called image problem -- that both the Wilson/Martin report and the justice department seem conveniently want to ignore.
Liberal justice critic Jack Hillson probably put it best: "We've had all these high-profile cases that have ended up as an embarrassment, but we're not going to talk about them and we're not going to look at them," Hillson said. "We'll, if you can't look at the problem areas, how can you decide there aren't any problems?"
In fact, with the exception of the Wilson/Martin recommendation to establish special white collar crime units in Regina and Saskatoon -- precisely the kind of unit that could had sped up the investigations and the laying of charges in the complicated PC fraud scandal -- it's tough to see how any of the adopted recommendations address any of the real criticism the justice department has faced.
Admittedly, there is only so much the report or justice department could have said about the two specific cases now before either civil or criminal courts. But if so, say nothing at all.
It would be better than trying to now suggest a few housekeeping changes should now suddenly change people's opinions about what many perceive as major bungling in two very specific cases.
And it would certainly be better than suggesting -- as both the authors of the report and the justice minister did Monday -- that opposition politicians must censor the criticism they level in the assembly in connection to controversial court cases for fear of undermining prosecution's credibility.
The truth be told, Wilson and Martin are likely right when they say there are remarkably few problems in Crown prosecutions branch. Certainly, everyday concerns about inappropriate prosecution are heard in every province.
Saskatchewan's prosecution branch does have problems. But they are problems related to neither inherently bad reporting nor inherently bad public prosecution.
They involve a couple of very specific cases where the public, the opposition and the media have every right to be concerned.
And until those concerns are addressed, no amount of money spent on public relations or additional Crown prosecutors will restore that public faith.
Despite the fears of its former president, Peter Glendinning, don't bet the NDP government is about to sell off Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) to Greyhound or anyone else.
But make no mistake. An exasperated government and its Crown Investment Corp. (CIC) have no interest in continuing to watch STC bleed money as a free-standing Crown corporation.
So don't be surprised if you see in the next year or so the provincially owned bus company STC converted to an entity run by the treasury board of the NDP cabinet and financed (more accurately, subsidized) directly from the general revenue in the annual provincial budget.
Such a plan would stop well short of Glendinning's worst fears that the former STC president wrote about in a Feb. 17 letter -- written a week before he and the government parted ways by "mutual consent" -- to Highways Minister Andy Renaud.
"It is sale, not termination, that they (CIC) have seized as the solution," Glendinning wrote in the letter obtained by Leader-Star News. In that letter, Glendinning also expressed his concerns about "constant interference" by CIC in an attempt to paint STC's "financial picture worse" and put "the subsidy level at a level higher than necessary" so CIC could claim it "has no other option but to sell to an experienced bus operator."
About to be cast adrift, Glendinning, a long-time NDP loyalist, likely was basing his assumption on CIC's refusal to approve what most would agree was a hard-hitting 1996 business plan for STC.
Government sources describe the 1996 business plan STC's former president put forward last December as the 1-2-3 solution -- about $1 million in revenue growth (from its $12.3million annual revenue) combined with $2 million in cost reductions (from STC's $17.9 million operating costs) for about $3 million overall improvement in a company that's averaged $4.7 million in losses in its last five financial statements.
The cost reductions were to be achieved by reducing STC's 325 employees to about 270: reducing in-scope Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) employees to 240 from 271; out-of-scope employees to 30 from 41, and; eliminating the 13 Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union (RWDSU) workers that run the cafeterias as STC employees. (The Regina STC cafeteria has been taken over by its employees, while Saskatoon's STC cafeteria is still run by the bus company.)
The plan also called for the slashing of the 200-plus STC agents across the province to about 30 "super agents" who would then employ agents as franchise operators in smaller communities. Also, there was a call for more route reductions -- possibly 300,000 fewer kilometres from the 3.7 million kilometres STC buses currently cover.
It wasn't just Glendinning who was angered by CIC's decision to reject this business plan.
Current STC vice-president of operations Rick Neufeldt wrote a private letter to Glendinning, also obtained by Leader-Star News, that CIC was prohibiting STC from making "the significant changes that are required to turn STC around."
But CIC's rejection of Glendinning's 1996 STC business plan likely had little to do with some secret privatization agenda (as Glendinning believes) or even a reluctance to make the tough decisions (as Neufeldt suspected in his letter.)
First, the message loud and clear from last year's Talking about Saskatchewan Crowns (TASC) meetings was that subsidizing rural passenger and freight delivery was something the people still wanted.
Privatization was not a favored option.
Second, sources close to CIC suggest Glendinning's so-called tough business plan "had the corporation going down the same path" that's seen the bus company travel 1.3 million fewer miles since Glendinning took over but with more employees (321 in 1995 compared with only 264 in 1993) and as much operating cost and annual deficit.
That a company losing $5 million a year needed a tough business plan was an absolute given, CIC sources say. But what wasn't answered by Glendinning's last business plan was whether STC needed to be -- or even should have been -- in the cutthroat courier express business.
What really needs to be answered, say CIC sources, is whether STC is a business or whether it's subsidized public transit.
If seen as the latter, the logical solution would seem to be to move STC under the Department of Highways (similar to the way Sedco's successor, the Saskatchewan Opportunities Corp., is now run by the Economic Development Department) and run it right from the Marble Palace.
Don't be surprised if that's what happens.
This afternoon, four teenagers from Regina will touch down in Ottawa in hopes of convincing federal politicians to change the Young Offenders Act.
Let's hope the politicians listen.
I mean, really listen.
Don't just take the students' comprehensive analysis of how the Young Offenders Act could better address youth crime and cherry-pick the single points that best suit each party's pre-election platform.
Listen to everything these kids have to say.
Just listen.
Our politicians will not only be amazed by what they might learn about the issue. They may even learn something about how to conduct themselves with the quiet dignity and compassion so lacking in today's politics.
The odyssey for the four Grade 12 students from Regina's Miller High School -- David Nameth, Lindsay Williamson, Michael Farmer and Davina Exner -- started sometime last October in an ethics class taught by the school's chaplain, Joan Rink.
Problems of youth crime had personally touched their young lives in the most tragic way, but the students had long-before recognized youth crime's broader implications for their generation.
Every time an adult pulls up besides a car load of teenagers at a stop light and locks his car doors today's youth are confronted by the issue, Williamson explained. "All the bad kids get the media."
The issue of the Young Offenders Act came to a head for the Miller students the first week of March when a small group of Regina youths stole 72 vehicles in a 36-hour period. What outraged the community was the same thing that outraged the Miller students -- the spectacle of young offenders taunting the police into high-speed chases by throwing beer bottles at pursuing police cruisers.
But the four had already been enthralled in the issue for months, meeting at Rink's home every Sunday night and even acquiring the services of Regina lawyer Ralph Ottenbreit to better understand the law.
From their work, a position paper on the Young Offenders Act has emerged that we all should consider:
The Miller students want adult court to begin at 16 years -- the age society deems people responsible enough to drive a car, quit school, leave home without parental consent or get a job. They call for boot camps, mandatory restitution and community service work. (Nameth points out one Maryland boot camp is 40-per-cent more successful at discouraging repeat young offenders than Regina's Paul Dojack Centre.)
But the students' position paper also called for mentor program that would involve the community in this community problem. It also calls for parenting classes for offenders' parents.
The beauty of their proposal is, it isn't viewing the issue from the narrow vantage of either side of the political spectrum. Presented in the whole, it's a combination of the best ideas.
"This is not a political project," Farmer explained. "None of us belong to a political party."
Given their first encounter with politicians, they may never.
After the PC caucus heard Miller students were circulating a petition to "get tough on young offenders", the four were invited to the Saskatchewan legislature March 19 to collect MLAs' signatures.
Naively, the students assumed the legislature was a place you went to to have your ideas aired.
In that day's question period, PC Leader Bill Boyd challenged Premier Roy Romanow to sign the students petition calling for "stricter sentences, mandatory restitution and community service work for young criminals." From there, the rhetoric got really useless.
Things were even more ridiculous outside the assembly. The PCs acquired a table for the students. Initially, building services stuck the table in a back corner near the PC lounge. The PCs then pushed the table across the rotunda to the government entrance side. Seeing this, an official with Romanow's office went to building services and insisted the table be pushed back into a corner.
In case you're confused by this point, the ones with the elaborate ideas on solving youth crimes were kids.
The ones pushing around tables at screaming: "You sign. No, I dare you to sign" were adults. Well, politicians.
Fortunately, things have been more positive since.
The students eventually got an hour and half meeting with Saskatchewan Justice Minister John Nilson who's become an enthusiastic supporter of their efforts. They collected 14,000 signatures in three weeks and are taking them to Ottawa.
And it now looks like federal Justice Minister Allan Rock will meet with the students along with federal politicians from all parties.
Let's hope the politicians listen.
This could be a great learning experience.
How little politicians care about accountability was evident Monday when the NDP government dumped 623 pages of numbers from 26 Crown corporation annual reports and summary statements on us.
We shouldn't have been surprised.
The civil thing to do would have been to release one or two annual reports each day of the session. That way, there would have been a slight chance the public would have garnered some understanding of the inner workings of each individual Saskatchewan Crown.
Of course, greater public understanding of how tax dollars are being spent isn't exactly high on this government's priority list.
Staying in power remains Item One.
So Monday's gamesmanship at the legislature was all about addressing the government's unique problem of an embarrassment of riches -- $741 million in bottomline Crown profits in 1996.
Cynical as it was, the strategy worked.
Very little emerging from Monday's information overload -- the same tactic that once caused the then-NDP Opposition to go apoplectic when then-PC finance minister Gary Lane dumped a similar volume of Crown annuals on us one fine Friday afternoon in the late 1980s -- was about anything else other than the Crowns' very positive bottom lines.
So let's spend the rest of today's column highlighting some of the things buried in the tonnes of numbers released Monday that the NDP government didn't necessarily want you thinking about:
* The $50-million dividend the Crown Investment Corp. (CIC) paid back to the Government of Saskatchewan. That's $50 million out of a $741-million net profit that Crowns made on their operations and investment (including $515 million from the sale of Cameco shares). That's $50 million on $8 billion in Crown assets -- not exactly the kind of return shareholders should expect.
* The CIC war chest. Certainly, it's great to see the Crowns pay total dividends of $179.1 million to CIC. It's great to see CIC pay down debt -- $400 million to $4.2 billion. But was there a desperate need to pay down right now (when interest rates are low) or is CIC paying debt now so it will be able to free up more money for the NDP government just prior to the next election? If so, this brings us to ...
* Those gouging monopoly utilities. SaskPower made $153.2 million in 1996 (including its "capital construction fee", more on that in a minute) after hitting us with 12- to 14-per-cent fee hikes. SaskEnergy did reduce rates in 1996, but still made $73.3 million. Now SaskEnergy wants to raise rates 2.3 per cent. The energy companies chalk this up to a bad winter, causing consumers to use more juice and gas. Maybe, but these are still highly profitable companies.
Besides, wouldn't a bad winter be precisely the time when we ''shareholders" should get a break on rates from the utilities that we supposedly own?
* And while on the subject of SaskPower, why is it the power company is refusing to record that extra $2-a-month fee on our power bills (worth an additional $14-million profit in 1996) as anything other than a profit? Provincial Auditor Wayne Strelioff would like to know the same thing. One of many questions that went unanswered in Monday's information overload.
* Speaking of things the government tried to hide in Monday's avalanche, SaskTel lost $16 million in NST Network Services Inc. -- its joint venture to install fibre-optic coaxial cable networks in the U.S. We knew about this Feb. 25 collapse because of some fine reporting work by Regina Leader-Post business reporter Chris Varcoe, who sniffed out this story last week. Had he not, the NST story may have been five words -- "we decided to conclude our involvement" -- buried in the SaskTel annual report that was further buried in Monday's avalanche.
Also, despite SaskTel's snivelling late last year about how unfairly aggressive its competition was, it's interesting to note that it made $77.4 million in 1996. It also announced Monday it lost less than 10 per cent of its long-distance share and actually made 10 per cent more in long-distance revenues. Hopefully, we won't forget this when the time comes to reduce local rates.
* Even though Haro Financial Corp. (owners of Crown Life) made $39.4 million last year, it still has not made any payments on the original $203.7-million loan made by CIC in 1992, the CIC annual report showed. In fact, interest owing increased to $81.3 million in 1996 compared with $64.7 million in 1995.
But like a lot of interesting stuff, the government was reasonably successful in burying that, too.
At no small political risk, Premier Roy Romanow has continued to talk about Quebec.
Thank goodness he has.
What the Saskatchewan premier has had to say has been as important as it has been sensible. It's really too bad other politicians in our nation have failed to show half the vision and courage Romanow has on this issue.
Canadian historians will one day note that 1996 was a year when an alarming combination of indifference, ignorance and opportunism dominated politics on the national unity question. Politicians from Reform Leader Preston Manning to B.C. NDP Premier Glen Clark to Saskatchewan PC Leader Bill Boyd all saw fit to denounce anyone who even dared raise the issue.
They all took the easy political way out.
Still suffering from early '90s constitutional fatigue after the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, public tolerance for the issue fell off the charts after the Oct. 30, 1995 Quebec referendum.
Most federal politicians followed suit in 1996 by all sticking their heads in the sand -- presumably hoping the issue would magically disappear.
But one notable exception was Romanow -- one of the very few politicians who dared wade back into the constitutional waters in 1996.
Sadly, he wasn't always heard.
He traveled to Montreal last May, arriving just as a full-blown battle between Ottawa and Lucien Bouchard's separatist government was erupting over the federal government's decision to intervene in the court battle challenging Quebec's right to unilaterally secede.
Any who troubled themselves to listen to Romanow in Montreal would have heard a six-part strategy to both preserve the national fabric -- the so-called "alternative national agenda" that included: maintenance of strong social programs; a national debt-management plan; a national investment strategy; comprehensive taxation review; a leveling up of benefits and standards, and; more flexible federalism that includes recognition of Quebec's language and culture.
Reporters didn't particularly care. Instead, they asked Romanow about what he thought about the dustup between Quebec and Ottawa on the court challenge. Romanow's ideas failed to get the national exposure they deserved.
Before the August premiers' conference, Romanow raised the prospect of appealing to Bouchard for language peace.
And in September, he again mentioned re-opening the Constitutional issue, following that up with the Saskatchewan government's announcement in November that it would intervene in the Supreme Court case on Quebec's right to secede.
The thrust of the Saskatchewan submission, Justice Minister John Nilson explained, would be that the separation of a province would require fundamental changes to the Constitution "therefore, would require the assent of the provinces."
"Such changes, in our view, cannot be undertaken without the full involvement and consent of the provinces," Nilson explained.
Politically astute, Romanow was, no doubt, fully aware such tiresome constitutional arguments are never of public interest. If anything, they will likely cost the NDP government because of how ridiculously easy it is for opposition parties to portray the government as obsessed with constitutional matters at the expense of daily bread issues like taxation. (You may recall that's pretty much what happened to Romanow in 1982.)
But at the risk of again paying the political price, Romanow has refused to abandon the issue in 1997.
Last Friday, Saskatchewan became one of only two provinces -- Manitoba, being the other -- to file an intervention with the Supreme Court of Canada on Quebec's right to secede. The submission won't likely be heard before the court until this fall.
Again, it seems Romanow is one of the very few politicians who does not have his head planted in the sand.
As Nilson outlined in November, Saskatchewan's submission argues that Quebec secession is not just a Quebec matter, nor is it only a Quebec-Ottawa matter.
It's a matter for all provinces, Saskatchewan argues, because Canada is a nation beyond a division of powers. (For the past year, Romanow has been making the point in his national unity speeches that "Canada is a nation greater than just the sum of its parts.")
What the Saskatchewan submission does, essentially, is take the federal argument before the Supreme Court a step further.
Quebec separation is not a matter that excludes the rest of us, it argues. It is one in which we all must have a say.
That's pretty much the same message we would have heard from Romanow all last year, had we bothered to listen.
It's too bad he's about the only one who's had the courage to deliver it.
That faint hope of something better from the NDP government that was held out on budget day dissipated this week when the NDP government attacked Provincial Auditor Wayne Strelioff.
The attack showed us this government is still as arrogant, smug and viciously manipulative as our worst fears had assumed.
We might have forgiven -- or at least forgotten -- their silly game of dumping 26 annual reports on us on Monday. Even though the Talking About Saskatchewan Crowns (TASC) meetings last year demanded greater accounting and understanding, no one ever really assumed the government would stop the game of trying to hide bad news in an avalanche of information.
Stupid, but forgivable.
The attack on Strelioff this week, however, is another matter -- one in which the NDP government deserves nothing but our absolute contempt.
It was a shameful performance this week -- an especially sad one after the message in Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon's March 20 budget that this NDP administration was sometimes willing to put things like public interest (tax relief now) ahead of its own political interest (such relief closer to an election.)
Sadly, whatever goodwill accompanied MacKinnon's budget was likely destroyed in the uncalled-for and highly-orchestrated attack on Strelioff's credibility by SaskPower Minister Eldon Lautermilch, SaskPower, the backbench New Democrats on the Crown corporation committee and the government's political machinery as whole.
What the issue really boiled down to is what the Crown committee chairwoman Pat Lorje accurately described as an accountants' catfight.
Strelioff put forward the seemingly reasonable position that all money collected by a Crown in a year is revenue, thus the extra $14 million SaskPower collected from those $2 "reconstruction charges" on you monthly power bill should leave the power utility with a $153-million annual profit instead of the $139-million profit recorded in the annual report.
SaskPower-hired accountants argued the $14 million from the "reconstruction fee" should not be counted as revenue because, they claim, accounting practices suggest it's not revenue if it's money that's been received for no particular services received.
Left as an honest disagreement between accountants, there would have been far less reason to criticize the government here.
But similar to what happened with the Crown report avalanche Monday, the NDP government became obsessed with controlling the message.
In attempting to do so, Lautermilch and the NDP wandered miles beyond the lines proper decorum, respect and integrity by attacking the credibility of a neutral officer of the legislature.
And make no mistake that this was an attempt to discredit Strelioff's concerns about last year's power increase by attacking his professional credibility and research.
Lautermilch bullied, belittled and badgered, using SaskPower-hired auditors as his tools.
The minister ignored Strelioff's words that he did seek outside opinion on this accounting practice. He heckled Strelioff's extremely legitimate concerns that government officials have told him the inaccurate recording of SaskPower profits has been directed by cabinet.
Worse yet, Lorje allowed Lautermilch to bully and brow beat an officer of the legislature in a legislative committee meeting.
But the attack on Strelioff hardly stopped there. It carried on into question period and into the legislature's corridors where hacks paraded both Lautermilch and the SaskPower-hired auditors before the TV cameras to further attempt to discredit the auditor and/or his concerns.
Not since former PC justice minister Bob Andrew attacked the credibility of the last auditor Willard Lutz -- something the NDP Opposition called scandalous -- have we seen such an an attack by government on one of its legislative officials.
Were our Liberal Opposition within 14 inklings of clue as to how to do its job, it would have never let this NDP government get away with such an attack ,either. (Instead, Liberal MLAs dropped the issue after two questions in Friday's question period. Heaven forbid they would the sense to raise Strelioff's concerns that cabinet had instructed SaskPower to not record the $14 million as revenue.)
But it is the NDP who should be embarrassed.
This week, the governing New Democrats behaved like the school yard bullies they are.
Having already shook down us smaller kids for our lunch money (What else do you call being forced to pay $2 a month on our SaskPower bill for no apparent reason?), they looked the playground supervisor in the eye and smugly proclaimed: "We don't have to listen to you, anyway."
They showed no respect for the public nor the officers of the legislatures that serve them.
They deserve no respect in return.
Given last week's attack on Provincial Auditor Wayne Strelioff, one can only wonder how small-minded and petty the New Democrat politicians will react to the latest criticism in the auditor's annual report released Monday.
The new report contains another prime example of NDP political policy interfering with the proper accounting of our tax dollars -- just like the political game Strelioff caught our NDP politicians playing with last year's SaskPower profits and rate hikes.
Ask yourself the following question: If last week's battle over the improper accounting of SaskPower's $153-million profit was just "a dispute between beancounters," as Premier Roy Romanow described it, why did the NDP government make all the fuss?
Why did SaskPower Minister Eldon Lautermilch lead the blitz on Strelioff's research and credibility in Thursday's legislative Crown corporation committee meeting? Why were lowly NDP backbench cabinet wannabes so quick to follow Lautermilch's lead? Why did SaskPower-hired accountants show up at the legislature not once but twice Thursday -- the second time, solely for the purpose of ensuring the government version of the story went before the TV cameras that gather after question period?
A "dispute between beancounters" or an orchestrated effort by the NDP political machinery to discredit an officer of the legislature and the message they didn't want the public to hear?
Well, consider the following:
Sources close to SaskPower say the Crown utility (read: Jack Messer) told cabinet in no uncertain terms that there was no way SaskPower was going to take all the heat for layoffs and rate increases, then have to give back most of the profits to the government in dividends to Crown Investment Corp. (CIC).
So SaskPower insisted the Jan. 1, 1996 rate hike be in two parts -- that $2 a month "reconstruction charge" (amounting to a four-per-cent power bill hike) plus the eight- to 10-per-cent electrical rate hike that took effect for farms and homeowners Jan. 1, 1996. That way, SaskPower accountants could argue the money raised by the rate hike was not profit or revenue but "borrowing from the taxpayers."
The question this week is, are we headed for Round Two?
In his 398-page spring report released Monday Strelioff recommends the NDP government investigate and prosecute all cases of welfare fraud.
Although considerably more well-meaning, the government's refusal to pursue welfare cheats has been no less politically motivated than its attempt to mask 1996 SaskPower profits.
To the then NDP Opposition, the former PC administration's "fraud squad" symbolized the heartlessness of the Grant Schmidt-run social services department willing to spy on, invade the privacy of and ultimately scapegoat all welfare recipients as cheats.
So in 1992, the NDP eliminated the six special investigation positions -- "Grant Schmidt's SS police" then social services minister Janice MacKinnon called them -- and dispensed with their equipment. (Two security vans, two car telephones, two sets of video equipment including cameras, VCRs, two 35mm cameras, two binoculars, a film video processor with freeze-frame union, sound equipment and 11 handheld dictation machine. No doubt, the NDP had a point that Schmidt was trying to kill a mosquito with a sledge hammer.)
MacKinnon contended the branch only collected $230,000 from welfare cheaters in 1991-92, but spent $600,000 doing so (although much of that money spent was for the one-time capital purchases.)
But let's consider Saskatchewan's welfare fraud problems since the NDP government moved to the other extreme:
A joint B.C./Saskatchewan investigation discovered 107 people collected welfare in both provinces in April, May and June of 1994 -- a total cost of $221,500 to each province.
An information-sharing agreement among provinces showed between April 1994 and June1995 there were 343 cases of people collecting welfare in Saskatchewan at the same time as they were collecting welfare in another province.
Saskatchewan paid out $278,000 to these double-dippers. (Interestingly, a welfare fraud tip line implemented by the Manitoba government in 1994 drew 2,600 calls in eight months and was said to have saved their taxpayers $1.3 million. Saskatchewan said it didn't need one.)
And now in his most recent auditor's report, Saskatoon and Regina police say they've had to stop laying charges for two years now because they haven't been able to absorb the workload since the demise of the fraud squad in 1992.
As was the case with SaskPower revenues, NDP political policy has overridden proper accountability.
Will the NDP again try to stifle Strelioff's concerns?
Let's hope not.
If anything, both cases show why we need strong, independent voices like Strelioff's that can be heard over the NDP's political babble.
When 20-year-old Jason Nicolichuk arrived at his folks' house around 6 p.m. on Sept. 27, 1995, his mother Linda reminded him the next day was his brother Michael's 11th birthday.
In all the commotion over the removal of the cast from his wrist he had broken in a cycling accident three months earlier, re-starting a job with Inner-Tec Security Services that night, getting a pay cheque for the first time in months plus his pending marriage, Jason had almost forgotten his little brother's birthday.
He likely wouldn't have, though.
Jason Nicolichuk wasn't the kind of person that forgot or neglected others.
He had already grown up to be a "wonderful decent" man, was good to everyone from his family to the panhandlers he met on the street, said his parents in an interview from their Saskatoon home Tuesday evening.
"He was all that and more," added Liberty Andres, Nicolichuk's fiancee who planned to marry Jason this coming July 10. "He was kind and generous with both his time and talent. He took his responsibilities very seriously.
"He was the kind of guy you'd fall in love with."
Never shy about hard work, Jason had worked as a dishwasher at a local restaurant since he was 16 and always seemed to have a couple part-time jobs on the go.
But none of these jobs were allowing Jason to earn enough to follow his dreams -- his marriage to Liberty and attending the University of Saskatchewan to get a degree in engineering.
After breaking his wrist while riding home from work in May, Jason found himself in an even tougher spot -- out of work and running out of money.
Applying for unemployment insurance or welfare, however, was not an option, said Nick Nicolichuk. "He was bound and determined he was going to pull his share. He often made the comment that if more people pulled their weight, the country wouldn't be in the shape it's in."
So Jason re-applied to be a security guard with Inner-Tec -- one of his few jobs that he disliked.
During his first stint with Inner-Tec in February 1995, they put him to work the day he showed up. They gave him no training nor was he given a two-way radio nor even a flashlight, his father said. "They gave him a handful of quarters and said: 'Go to the nearest pay phone if there is trouble.' "
His first day back with Inner-Tec on Sept. 27, 1995, the company assigned him to patrol a section of CP Rail track near 20th Street and Avenue P -- a rough part of Saskatoon frequented by hookers, pimps and drug dealers. Again, no radio. No flashlight.
He borrowed his dad's car that evening, promising he would return it after his shift ended a 6 a.m. so Nick Nicolichuk could go to work. Jason also vowed he would take his special little brother either out for burgers or to a movie to celebrate his birthday.
Only the worst-imaginable tragedy kept Jason from keeping his word.
On a dark, lonely section of track about three hours into his shift, Jason encountered Dean Werning, Marc Foisy and Leonard Johnson wielding knives after a day of drinking whisky and taking drugs.
Werning knocked Nicolichuk to the ground, stabbing him in the foot so he couldn't get away, the courts were told.
After finding only $15 in Nicolichuk's pocket -- $10 of which they spent on the cab ride home that night and the remaining $5 on junk food -- Werning proceeded to savagely stab him to death. Foisy joined in, according to testimony. They then went home and discussed how they would get their next welfare cheque.
The two are currently serving life second-degree murder sentences with no eligibility for parole for 17 and 14 years, respectively. Johnson received a 4 1/2-year manslaughter sentence and may be out of jail as early as this October.
For Andres and the Nicolichuks, its impossible to make sense of this unfathomable loss.
But if any good comes of it, the family hopes it will be in the new Private Investigators and Security Guards Act introduced by the NDP government in the legislature Monday.
Let's hope our legislators are listening.
Doing something for others would have been what Jason Nicolichuk would have wanted.
The federal election polls in Saskatchewan (whenever they wind up closing) should provide New Democrats with around half the 12 seats they need for party status in the House of Commons.
But by winning five to seven of Saskatchewan's 14 seats, New Democrats won't exactly be reclaiming the province of their origin.
You'd think now would be the election the federal NDP would do better in Saskatchewan.
Eight seats? Nine? Even 10 seats - the NDP's record in Saskatchewan in the 1988 election?
It doesn't sound like that will happen.
Although the Saskatchewan sampling from recent national opinion polls is small, with a high margin of error, the numbers suggest the Liberals have close to 50-per-cent support compared with the NDP's 25 per cent.
Privately, federal NDP sources say their own polling numbers show pretty much the same thing.
Times really should be better for the NDP.
Premier Roy Romanow set an ugly tone for his federal party's 1993 campaign in Saskatchewan with two of the toughest provincial budgets ever -- more deficit, the closure of 52 rural hospitals and $1-billion more in annual provincial taxes. Contrast that with the warm, fuzzy glow federal NDP candidates should get from the tax cuts and modest spending increases in the March provincial budget.
Also, new federal NDP Leader Alexa McDonough took the sensible approach at the NDP's recent national convention by announcing the party was running to be an effective opposition and a needed voice on the left in the House of Commons.
Then there is tradition -- the contrary nature of Saskatchewan voters.
Only five times in the 16 national election since the Second World War have Saskatchewan voters sent the majority of its MPs to sit on the government side. In seven of those 16 election, the most Saskatchewan MPs have been NDP or CCF.
But as ripe as the times should be for a big NDP comeback in Saskatchewan, other factors are conspiring against the party -- not the least of which is federal riding re-distribution that's been absolutely vicious to the NDP here.
The 1993 election results in Saskatchewan were; five New Democrats, five Liberals, and four Reformers.
If voters voted exactly the same way under the new 1997 boundaries, the results would be eight Liberals, four Reformers and two New Democrats.
Incumbent Len Taylor won his old The Battlefords-Meadow Lake seat by 700 votes in 1993. Transposing the 1993 results on his new Battlefords-Lloydminster seat, he'd finish third, more than 4,000 votes behind the Reform candidate.
Similarly, John Solomon is down about 300 votes in his new Regina-Arm River seat.
Solomon won Regina-Lumsden by 1,000 votes in 1993.
Even where the news is a bit better for the NDP, it isn't very good. Chris Axworthy hung on to Saskatoon-Clark's crossing in 1993 and would still win his new Saskatoon-Rosetown seat by 1,500 votes if the 1993 results were duplicated. Unfortunately, he's now running against popular Reform Party House Leader Elwin Hermanson and gun control will be an issue in much of the riding.
Of course, simply transposing results doesn't give you the whole story.
Although the NDP would finish 2,500 votes behind the Liberals in the new Palliser seat (southwest Regina and Moose Jaw) you have to think that the NDP's Dick Proctor will show up very well against the Liberal's Tony Merchant.
In fact, nine seats (four each in Regina and Saskatoon and one in Prince Albert) are mostly urban.
The NDP do very well in the cities.
And who knows how things like Liberal MP Gordon Kirby's close ties to Justice Minister Allan Rock (not to mention Kirby's recent comments that Saskatchewan should move to daylight savings time) will effect him in Prince Albert?
But what will really hurt the NDP's chances for a major breakthrough in Saskatchewan is a less than favorable vote split.
Popular vote in Saskatchewan last election saw the Liberals at 32 per cent, the NDP at 28 per cent, the Reform at 27 per cent and the PCs at 11 per cent.
Expect the NDP to rise back to its traditional levels of the low- to mid-30-per-cent range at the expense of Liberals and Reformers.
Should the current Tory popular support remain in the single digits, however, the NDP won't get the three-way split of right-of-centre parties that would be most beneficial.
The NDP will likely hold their ground and may take half of Saskatchewan's 14 seats or so.
But that big breakthrough in this province may be tougher for New Democrats than we might have thought.
Like in war, a remarkably thin line in politics separates the brave from the foolhardy.
Just ask Prince Albert-Churchill River Liberal MP Gordon Kirkby -- either Saskatchewan's bravest or stupidest politician -- who kicked off his re-election bid by potentially alienating half the province with his comments last week that the federal poll-closing issue in Saskatchewan could be resolved if Saskatchewan would just get with the rest of Canada and move to daylight saving time in the summer.
To better understand the war zone Kirkby has wandered into, we must first better understand two cumbersome political issues that both involve time.
Ever since we perfected electronic communication in this nation to the point where Canadians at the West could nearly instantaneously find out how they were plotting against us back East, there has been this problem on federal election nights caused by federal polls opening at 8 a.m. and closing at 8 p.m. everywhere.
As soon as we westerners finished voting, we'd tune into our radios and TVs only to find out the new government had been decided hours earlier by Ontario and Quebec voters, anyway.
So, in the name of national unity, the federal Liberal government agreed to stagger the polls so they would close at the following local times: Eastern time zone (Ontario and Quebec), at 9:30 p.m.; Central time zone (Manitoba and Saskatchewan), at 8:30 p.m.; Mountain time zone, (Alberta), at 7:30 p.m., and; Pacific time zone (B.C.), at 7 p.m.
This won't change reality. Quebec and Ontario will still decides who wins.
But having the vast majority of Canadians finish voting does make it seem more like we all have an equal part in this.
The problem was, everybody in Ottawa forgot about Saskatchewan -- specifically, that this province does not go on daylight saving time.
By law, the polls in Saskatchewan must now close at 8:30 p.m. (Central Standard) local time. That will be, in reality, half an hour after the B.C. polls close at 7 p.m. local time and an hour after the polls in both Alberta and Manitoba have closed.
So Saskatchewan voters will be the last in this country to vote.
Why Saskatchewan doesn't move to daylight saving time like everyone else remains a testament to how ridiculously stubborn some Saskatchewan residents -- older residents, in particular -- can be.
Renowned Saskatchewan historian John Archer said the debate is a hangover from the days when most Saskatchewan farmers ran mixed operations with milking cows.
Farmers resented being forced to adjust their clocks and their milking times just for city people interested in having an extra hour of sunlight in the evenings, so they could golf longer.
There are significantly fewer such mixed operations today.
Yet, suggesting to some people in this province that we should move to daylight saving time is akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull. "You can't even explain it," Archer said. "People just get mad at you."
The issue became a political one a week ago when the poll time discrepancy was brought to Kirkby's attention.
The P.A. MP looked into it and made the following pronouncement:
"If Saskatchewan has a problem closing last, it should fix it," Kirkby told Ottawa reporters last Wednesday.
"If they want to put the legislation in line, put Saskatchewan on daylight saving time.
"Every other province does it."
On behalf of everyone in Saskatchewan who's had at least one wondrous summer ball game ruined by darkness, my thanks Mr. Kirkby.
Finally, a Saskatchewan politician with the spine to point to the obvious -- there's no logical reason why Saskatchewan shouldn't go on daylight saving time.
But as an observer of politics, allow me to add: "Gord, Gord, Gordo, Where's your brain?"
After all, there's being brave, then there's being stupid.
In her short-lived career as a Canadian prime minister, Kim Campbell put it best during the 1993 campaign: "Elections are no time for debate."
Were it not bad enough to wander into the time debate on the eve of an election, Kirkby then suggested this is a Saskatchewan problem that somehow doesn't affect him.
(First, it is an Ottawa problem. Ottawa made the law. Second, Gord, check your driver's licence. What does the address say? Do you not represent Saskatchewan?)
Right or wrong, brave or just plain stupid, call it the first major faux pas of the Saskatchewan federal campaign -- one that might not only hurt Kirkby, but all Saskatchewan Liberals.
That thin line in politics has been crossed.
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