Leader-Star News Service April 1996 Archive

One of the most difficult tasks in Saskatchewan politics is trying to define the provincial Liberal party. It is a question that virtually defies an answer.

What makes this so remarkable is that, in spite of its lack of a clear definition, the Saskatchewan Liberal party remains the most electorally successful in the province's history. The Liberals have held power for 40 years since the province was founded in 1905. The CCF-NDP has been in power for a total of 36 years, and the Tories -- either in the form of Conservatives during the 1930s, or the PCs in the 1980s -- have been in government for 14 years.

So it would appear that lacking a coherent and consistent set of principles down through the decades has not been a big problem for the provincial Liberals. They have succeeded in spite of their political ambiguity.

But the fact remains that much of the Liberals' success, when they dominated provincial politics in the early years of Saskatchewan, had to do with circumstance more than anything else. The Liberal political hegemony that extended (other than one Conservative interlude in the 1930s) from 1905 to the end of the Second World War was rooted in the origins of the province.

It was Wilfrid Laurier and federal Liberals who presided over the opening up and settlement of Saskatchewan. The waves of immigrants who flooded into the province came to Canada and immediately developed a strong emotional and partisan attachment to the federal Liberals, the party that gave them a chance at a new life. It was only natural that this same bond developed with the provincial Liberals, who, with the help of the federal Liberals, formed the province's first government.

Those immigrant ties to the Liberals, coupled with a pragmatic government that reflected and often co-opted the farm movement, kept the Liberals strong for decades.

But those social forces that bolstered the provincial Liberals have long since disappeared. The CCF created a new coalition of voters in the 1940s, based on a fairly clear left-wing ideology, and the Liberals have never been able to recover their lost dominance. Other than a brief seven-year period in the 1960s, when Ross Thatcher was able to unite the "anti-NDP forces", the Liberals have not been faintly close to power.

Indeed, other than in their early years when they stood for fairly activist government with strong farm interests, the Liberals have been defined more by what they aren't (the NDP) than what they are. This lack of being a clear, positive alternative has been the one thing you can say consistently about the Liberals for at least the last 35 years.

Arguably, not only is the situation the same today for the Liberals, it is probably worse than it's ever been. After wandering in the political wilderness for much of the 1970s and all of the 1980s, the Liberals have become a party without a centre of gravity. They are a transient collection, many of whom would appear to be Liberals more as a matter of convenience, than conviction.

For example, interim leader Ron Osika is a former Reform party member, Glen McPherson is an ex-New Democrat and most in the 10-member caucus have only recently developed ties to the Liberals. Many were recruited by former leader Lynda Haverstock, who herself came from a Tory background and had only a brief history in the Liberals before becoming party leader.

This lack of a clear and coherent philosophy is the single biggest problem facing the Liberals. It is creating enormous internal stress as the caucus tries to determine where it should fit into Saskatchewan's political spectrum.

Making the problem worse is that the options for the Liberals are not clear. Bill Boyd and the Tories have done an excellent job of staking out their turf and creating a clear political and ideological identity for themselves. Meanwhile, the Roy Romanow government straddles so much of the middle ground in Saskatchewan politics that the Liberals find themselves being squeezed on the left by the NDP and blocked on the right by the Tories.

If the Liberals are going to escape from the box in which they find themselves and develop their own identity, separate from the other two parties, they will have to get on with it soon.

Logically, the perfect time for such a process is the Liberals' upcoming leadership race. It will give the party a much-needed opportunity to take a long, hard look at itself, its history, what it believes in, what it stands for, and who would be best to personify the newly defined party.

This hasn't happened in the Liberal party since at least 1959, when Thatcher took over and instilled the Liberals with a clear, right-wing, fiscally and economically conservative profile.

For the last 20 years, the Liberals have been little more than an empty political vessel. The time has come to fill it with something. Anything.

That you are reading about the Liberals, not the short-comings of the provincial budget, demonstrates how troubled the Grits are.

The politically smart thing for the Liberals to do right now would be to cut their losses by getting out of this legislative session ASAP.

Certainly, we taxpayers could suffer the consequences of not having a provincial budget and nearly an entire legislative agenda properly scrutinized.

But it's not as if we are seeing the sort of quality critique from this Liberal Opposition that is needed to hold the Romanow government to task, anyway.

And given the state of this official Opposition -- consumed by its own internal strife -- it would likely be better for them to re-group as quickly as they can.

Get out of the House, get on with their leadership convention this fall and hopefully re-emerge in the legislature next year, when they are finally ready and able to do the job of protecting the taxpayers' interests from a majority government.

Besides, this is Day 25 of the session. If the Liberals allowed the government to complete the legislature's business in the next 21 sitting days (by about the end of the first week in May), all MLAs would only be allowed to collect 46 days worth of per diems.

That would mean the government MLAs' plot to pocket a full session's worth (70 days at $155 or $94 a day) of per diems before their July 1 salary increases kick in would be nicely foiled.

And Liberals would at least be able to salvage something out of a session that seems to get worse by the day.

The long and short of the past 48 hours is, we have heard two separate news reports of Liberal MLAs, being dissatisfied with the lack of direction and confusion in their ranks, jumping ship to the PCs.

Naturally, the Liberals have been quick to deny any such talk, arguing "the Liberal party is running more smoothly than ever."

If so, it's not particularly evident by the near-daily drubbings they are taking in question period.

A typical example came in last Thursday's question period, minutes before Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon rose to present her budget.

Affable education critic Ken Krawetz, one of the Liberals' brighter lights this session, raised the legitimate issue of why the NDP government has hired Harold MacKay, a partner in McPherson Leslie Tyerman, to review the province's two univerisities. Asking why we needed to pay MacKay $44,000 to basically do Post-Secondary Education Minister Bob Mitchell's job for the next four months was a legitimate question for Krawetz to pose.

But Krawetz either made a bad decision or listened to some bad advice. He suggested this was typical NDP patronage.

"Mr. Speaker, I don't mean to demean the member but I am absolutely befuddled by where he is and how long he's been a member of the Liberal party," Premier Roy Romanow responded.

MacKay, who boarded with Romanow's family when the two were going to law school together at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1950s, has been a long-time friend of Romanow's. But he's also been, as the premier put it, "a card-carrying member of the Liberal party forever."

"Now, if the member says that he (MacKay) is a friend of mine, the answer is yes, he's a friend of mine," Romanow continued.

"Believe it or not, I've even got some intelligent Liberal friends around. Unfortunately, none of them exist in this House."

Such near-daily beatings may explain why some Liberals might feel like their party is floundering.

Either the Liberal caucus doesn't know what it is doing or it's been listening to someone who doesn't know what he/she is doing.

Presuming the latter, it's easy see why some would consider jumping ship for the Tories, who at least have some semblance of organization and direction.

The smart thing for the Liberals to do would be to cut their losses and get out before their problems get any worse.

If there is a single point of departure remaining in the political debate of Canada, an issue that identifies left from right, it is the question of monetary policy.

The reason is fairly simple. Everyone now agrees that government debt and deficits must be addressed.

Government no longer has the fiscal levers it once had in its arsenal to deal with the ups and downs of an economy. Thus, the only remaining tool is monetary policy. As such, the political debate has shifted to how the government, through the Bank of Canada, manages the money supply. If the new political orthodoxy created by government debt severely limits the fiscal influence of government over the economy, the greater economic good could still be pursued through the central bank.

As such, the debate has come down to whether the Bank of Canada's battle against inflation has been the proper economic strategy.

Those on the left have argued the toll of unemployment created by the effort to wring inflation out of the economy has been too severe. Had the bank eased its monetary policy and lowered interest rates (assuming that it can effect anything other than very short-term rates), the stimulative effect would have helped the economy to grow and employment to expand.

If the government can't stimulate the economy by spending more because of its deficit, it can by keeping interest rates low. An expanding money supply would stimulate the economy and growth, just as direct government spending can do the same.

The argument is that slightly higher inflation would not be too heavy a price to pay for lower unemployment. With unemployment hovering around 10 per cent, the left argues that there is excess capacity in the economy, which means the inflationary effects of a less restrictive monetary policy would be minimal.

Bank of Canada governor Gordon Thiessen has heard all the arguments, but doesn't buy them. He remains steadfast in his commitment to fight inflation and says any change in monetary policy would rapidly eliminate the gains that have brought inflation down to its level of less than two per cent.

The crux of Thiessen's argument is that there really is no economic tradeoff in which you can have more employment by having more inflation. There might be a temporary impact, where an inflating moneysupply will create more jobs, but ultimately the result will be a weaker economy and fewer jobs. In the 1970s we had a name for such an economic phenomenon of high inflation and a stagnating economy -- stagflation.

The real enemy to job creation and long-term sustainable economic growth, Thiessen says, is inflation. It is what erodes economies and ultimately sows the seeds of recession.

"What you do through inflation is effectively reduce wages and salaries. Therefore, you reduce the cost of labor and that encourages people to hire more people," says Thiessen, who grew up in Moosomin, is a graduate from the University of Saskatchewan and was in the province this week.

"There's a question about the morality of all that, but there's also a question whether people are going to be fooled that way for any length of time. What we've found in the high-inflation periods of the 1970s and '80s is you're not going to fool people."

What happens is that an inflationary psychology takes hold. People begin to believe their dollars are going to be worth less in the future, which means prices keep going up, which, in turn, puts pressure on wages and the vicious cycle of inflation is complete.

"Our experience is inflation encourages speculative behavior. People try to protect themselves from inflation and a substantial number try to profit from it. You get speculation in any asset (such as real estate) where people think the price will rise more rapidly than inflation," Thiessen says.

The other effect of inflation, Thiessen maintains, is that it inevitably leads to deeper recessions. When interest rates are low because of inflation, it creates an incentive to acquire debt. "So typically in inflationary periods, we've ended up with economies focused on speculation, accumulating large quantities of debt and the only way you can sustain that is through inflation rising and rising. The moment it slows down or is about to slow down, the house of cards crumbles on you. That's the reason the recessions in 1981-82 and 1991 were the worst recessions we had."

It is difficult to argue against Thiessen's position. Periods of high inflation aggravated by massive government deficits have wreaked economic havoc on Canada and we've paid a heavy price for our past sins.

It has been a painful readjustment process to squeeze inflation and government deficits out of the economy. Now that we've come this far, it would indeed be foolish to get back on the slippery slope of inflation.

There are two sides to this question about a merger between the Reform party and the federal Tories. The issue is not merely should the two parties join forces, but can they?

If you look at it in purely cold electoral terms, then the answer to the question of whether they should unite is yes. There is little chance either party can win government if the other exists in any viable form.

As long as there are two major parties of the right in Canada, the federal Liberals are likely to have a lock on power. The Liberals will do what they do best -- occupy enough of the spectrum to the left of the Reform or Tories to maintain a national coalition of voters that will perpetuate them in power.

So, if those who identify themselves with the conservative right, whether through Reform or the Tories, seek a government that reflects some of their views, then a merger into one party is a necessary first step.

Provincial Tory leader Bill Boyd expresses no particular preference on whether Reform or the Tories should emerge as a single party of the right. But he does admit that, unless it happens, the right will be frozen from power.

Last year, the provincial Tories discussed the idea of officially severing their ties with the federal PC party. However, when it became clear that some provincial Tories were not comfortable with all federal Reform positions, the idea was rejected.

The idea of a merger of the two parties at the federal level has again gained momentum in the wake of six recent byelections in which the Tories finished well behind Reform. "It's a natural reaction to consider a merger," says Boyd."We would like to see the right wing coalesce around one party, be strong and have a national view. But it's not for me to decide. It's up to Canadians to decide what they consider a national party."

But agreeing there needs to be a single party of the right to be an effective political force does not mean it can happen. The fact remains that fundamental differences between Reform and the federal Tories make a merger highly unlikely, if not impossible.

The roots of Reform are clearly in Alberta-centred, regional, populist, anti-Ottawa politics. It emerged as a protest party against the political and economic establishment of Central Canada. In its first federal election campaign in 1988, Reform proudly wore its outsider image as a regional party with a slogan of "The West Wants In".

Although Reform has expanded its horizons and considers itself a national party, its base remains firmly rooted in western populism. The party seeks a far more decentralized Canada, where federal power is devolved to the provinces. It does not buy the traditional view of Canada being a nation of two founding people and sees us as a federation of 10 equal provinces.

It's when you compare what Reform represents to the history and traditions of the Conservative party, that it becomes apparent how incompatible these two parties are. While they might share some views on containing the role of government in society and the importance of traditional values, there are divisions.

For one thing, the federal Conservatives are the party of Confederation. They were the ones who engineered the political act of nationhood and through the years have maintained a commitment to a strong federal government and national institutions.

If there is anything you can say about the Tories, it's that they have always taken a pan-Canadian view of the nation.

Granted, there have been periods in the Tories' history when they have failed to bridge the regionalism that divides national politics. For generations after Conservative prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald crushed the Metis rebellion in the West, the Tories were marginalized in Quebec. Similarly, for much of John Diefenbaker's leadership, the party was seen as dominated by western, anti-establishment influences.

Still, the Tories have always subscribed to the political compromise at the heart of Canada. They believe in the need for a strong federal government to broker interests between the regions and maintain institutions that help unite Canada and give it an identity. We sometimes forget that it was Conservative governments that used the National Policy to create an east-west economy, founded the CBC and began constructing a social safety net in the 1930s.

In many respects, much of what previous Tory governments did in Canada is what the Reform party now wants to disassemble as it creates its "new" Canada.

When you realize how different the historical Tory view is of Canada compared to the view of the Reform party, the undeniable electoral logic of a merger between the two begins to break down.

At best, it would be a marriage of electoral convenience that would ultimately end in a divorce of irreconcilable differences.

Back in his idealistic days, Roy Romanow used to talk about how he and the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party planned to eliminate poverty in this province.

All it would take was the will to do it, and, oh yes, winning government.

That was in 1991, when the NDP was seeking power. As it is with parties and political leaders waiting for their date with election destiny, creating expectations is easy. Meeting them once you're in government isn't.

Five years after winning power, and nearing the end of the first year of the NDP's second term, the poor are still with us. Based on unemployment and income measurements, there has been virtually no change in poverty levels compared to what were supposedly those cruel, dark days of the Devine Tory government.

The number of unemployed in February was 39,000, exactly the same number as in February 1992. When the Romanow NDP took control of government in November 1991, there were 34,000 unemployed and in November 1995 there were 34,000 unemployed.

Due to a slight increase in the workforce over those years, there has been a corresponding slight improvement in the unemployment rate, which was 8.3 per cent in February 1992 and 8.0 per cent in February of this year.

But what of the actual poverty rate in the province? According to the National Council on Welfare, which has just issued its Poverty Profile of Canada for 1994, Saskatchewan's poverty rate of 17 per cent ties us with Nova Scotia as the fourth highest among the provinces. The provinces with a higher incidence of poverty are Quebec (20.2 per cent), Newfoundland (19.1) and Manitoba (18.4).

As with the unemployment statistics, very little has changed in recent years. From a high of 19.7 per cent in 1986, Saskatchewan's poverty rate fell sharply to 16.1 per cent in 1987 and has been hovering near 17 per cent since 1991.

One bright spot is the declining rate of poverty amongst seniors. Over the years across Canada, poverty rates for the elderly have dropped dramatically, and Saskatchewan is no different.

The rate of poverty among senior men fell by an remarkable 80 per cent from 1980 to 1994, dropping to 5.6 per cent from 28.1 per cent. Poverty rates have also fallen significantly for senior women over the same 14-year period, going from an astonishing 49 per cent in 1980 to 13.5 per cent in 1994.

But those figures tell us something else. With an aging population, a declining poverty rate among a growing number of seniors should logically be reducing our overall poverty rate.

It isn't. Our all-persons poverty rate has been going up, climbing from 14 per cent in 1980 to 17 per cent in 1994. So in other words, while poverty has been falling in one growing segment of the population, it has been increasing throughout a much broader age cohort.

Perhaps the most disturbing figures are the rates of child poverty in this province. The Poverty Profile study found that 22.4 per cent of all Saskatchewan children live in poverty, which is well above the national average of 19.1 per cent.

Saskatchewan thus has the second worst poverty rate among children, second only to Newfoundland's rate of 23.5 per cent. The lowest rate is 13 per cent in Prince Edward Island, with Alberta (17.4) having the second lowest child poverty rate.

If the child poverty rate isn't enough to bother our conscience, then you should know that no province's rate of child poverty has grown more dramatically since 1980 than Saskatchewan's.

We have gone from a rate of 9.7 per cent to 22.4 per cent. The rate peaked at 23.8 per cent in 1986, fell to 17.8 per cent a year later and basically has been edging up, year by year, ever since.

It is difficult to imagine a greater condemnation of ourselves than a situation in which almost one in four Saskatchewan children live in poverty. There is simply no good reason why that situation exists, or is allowed to continue.

That's not to suggest eliminating poverty is going to be easy, or that government is capable of doing it alone. Clearly, there are many complex social, cultural, psychological and economic issues that result in poverty.

And often, child poverty is even more difficult to address because it involves deeply rooted issues of family values and parental responsibility -- or the lack of such -- that result in poverty among dependent children.

But surely this is an issue we can all agree needs to be addressed by every segment of society -- government, churches, special interests, the private sector -- if we are going to make any progress in easing the burden of poverty on our kids.

Yet in last month's budget, other than passing mention of "children in need," there was no talk of child poverty, or poverty in general, and how we need to dedicate ourselves to helping those who need it most.

Maybe a little idealism would help.

"He (Don Ching) had the qualifications done through an independent search. The pay rates are exactly the same as the former administration. Everything is perfect."

- Premier Roy Romanow justifying the appointment of his former law partner and former roommate as new SaskTel president.

Perfect might be overstating things just a tad.

In fact, the imperfections of this situation are many, beginning with Ching's $167,000 salary.

Romanow and the NDP might be honest in their assessment that Ching was the best of 23 applicants available, because it's highly unlikely SaskTel got many applications from presidents or v-p's of similar-sized telephone companies. Presidents of telco's with 3,900 employees and a billion dollars in assets tend to make twice to three times as much.

A $170,000 a year gives you a junior executive three or four tiers from the top -- someone who's still specializing in a particular area of his/her telephone company that doesn't have the breadth to run SaskTel, either.

Sadly, even this Conservative government in socialist's clothing would be too hidebound to pay more to a SaskTel president. Not after years of criticizing the Potash Corp.' million-dollar man Chuck Childers.

The better (better, in the sense of more honest) argument Romanow could have made is Don Ching was the best patronage appointment available.

It's hardly a perfect argument, either, but there is some legitimacy to the notion Crown corporation heads are political appointments by nature.

One of the biggest problems with SaskTel is it seems highly over-staffed, although not necessarily over-staffed with the unionized workers that have hit the bricks.

The Crown telephone utility employees about 3,900 full-time equivalents -- about 650 of whom are management. Unlike just about every other North American telephone company, SaskTel has not gone through any major restructuring or lay-offs.

Only about 300 to 400 SaskTel employees work for SaskTel Mobility or SaskTel International which have been among the more profitable aspect of the SaskTel's ventures. The remainder -- An estimated 3,500 of the 3,900 -- work for the telephone company proper.

Despite what will be $190-million-plus profit in 1995 -- mostly, a direct result of last September's sale of LCL Cable Communications Ltd. -- the telephone company is far less profitable than it once was. Competition has meant the once obscenely profitable long-distance business has fallen by about 40 per cent in the 1990s -- a steady decline of around $25 million a year.

If this corporation is as badly in need of restructuring as it seems, who better to do it than the premier's best buddy?

Consider it was long-time Romanow friend and NDP provincial secretary Jack Messer who, as SaskPower president, has been responsible for the complete restructuring of that Crown corporation.

Similarly, Ching is one New Democrat with a reputation for getting things done.

As Crown Investment Corp. (CIC) president, Ching renegotiated the unconscionable deal with Co-op Upgrader.

If Ching oversees the proper restructuring of SaskTel for $167,000 a year, he'll be considered a steal.

But will he? Is this the agenda?

For one thing, if Ching is really being hired for his political connections and ability to get things done, we need to ask why long-time party hacks like Diana Milenkovic and Garry Simons are also pulling down $100,000 a year at SaskTel.

Also Ching was once labor lawyer for SaskTel's union and professed his undying commitment to public ownership at the most recent NDP convention.

Ching certainly has the capability to surprise us all, but let us look at what we have:

An over-managed and over-staffed Crown corporation being led into an era of cutthroat competition by the premier's best friends who's an unabashed supporter of public ownership. His only experience in the telecommunication industry is he was let go as president of a British cable company (LCL) mere days after being appointed as its president.

"Perfect" doesn't automatically leap to mind.

It is difficult to imagine a more daunting task than that which faces the left in Canada and around the world.

No matter where you look, socialism is in retreat. Globalization of capital has transformed the political debate, making ideas of even a decade ago seemingly obsolete.

Within popular opinion, the notion of government has itself been degraded. What has happened is the politics of debt have fundamentally changed how people view government. It has gone from being a solution to our problems, to the source of our problems. Whereas for years government was seen as an instrument to deal with economic and social ills, the new orthodoxy says the solution lies in economic liberalism, where we contain government and turn our fate over to the market.

With the terms of the debate changed, parties of the left have been forced to adjust so that they can remain relevant in the new political environment. They have abandoned many of their old ideas and attempted to redesign socialism so that it fits into the political reality of the 1990s.

Probably the best example is the British Labour party under Tony Blair. It has reduced the influence of organized labor, sees a much smaller economic role for government than it once did and has become far more accepting of market forces. In Saskatchewan, the NDP government has followed a similar course, as Roy Romanow has attempted to design a new version of social democracy on the Prairies for the 1990s.

But for many on the left, such a top-down process is all wrong. Ideas are being imposed from on high as if they represent pearls of accepted wisdom that everyone is expected to embrace.

Certainly, the process within the left as a source of ideas has been traditionally far different. If there is one current you can identify within the CCF-NDP over the years, it has been its populist, democratic nature. The party, especially in this province, has prided itself on being driven by the grassroots, which has been the source of ideas that have shaped its direction and priorities.

Admittedly, populism as a force within the left has declined over the years as the party has come to represent specific organized social and economic interests that are often narrow in their scope and appeal. But that doesn't mean left-wing populism is a spent force. Indeed, to find the future of the left, you have to look beyond the formal party leadership to a new generation who see themselves as representing the left of the 1990s.

The other day, four of those from the so-called Generation X who consider themselves part of the "new" left gathered to talk about politics. By the standards of today's left as defined by the Romanow NDP, April Bourgeois, Guy Marsden, Peter Gilmer and Mitch Diamantopoulos are non-believers. They are not committed NDP activists and, in fact, are critical of the Romanow government.

They will tell you that, to find the true left in Canadian politics, you have to forget the NDP apparatus or governments. What has happened is the left has become a non-partisan, "community-based" network of organizations with similar goals.

"The right has done a fairly effective job of painting the left as representing big government bureaucracy, and some of that hierarchical critique is not unjustified," says Gilmer.

"But what we need to do is look at developing the base at the community level. I'm not saying to let the state off the hook, because it has the power to implement things to create an alternative economy. But, in the past, the idea was to focus pressure on the top; now we have to build a consensus from the grassroots to effect change."

The others agree. They say the new left must be a force that draws its energy from its populism, where ordinary people feel they have some power over their lives. In fact, if the left doesn't renew its populist roots, it could be overtaken by the populism of the right. In the current anti-government climate, the discontent and anger people feel could easily be expressed in a populism that would discredit the left even more.

"The biggest problem we face is being steamrollered from below by popular opinion," says Diamantopoulos. "In terms of values and people's sense of anger, many are sympathetic to what the left represents. But I'm of the view it could easily go the other way if the right is organized and taps into that mood."

In that sense, all four maintain the future for the left does not lie in the formal political process, where its interests are represented by a specific party, such as the NDP.

Rather, the answer lies in a grassroots populism that is "communitarian" in nature. If the values espoused by the new left in community groups reflect those of the population at large, then they believe the left itself will eventually become a major political force at the electoral level.

These four have a long road ahead. But like any journey, it begins with the first small step.

Which came first? The demise of rural Saskatchewan's infrastructure because of a lack of NDP government funding or an NDP government deciding not to fund a declining rural Saskatchewan infrastructure?

Suspicious opposition politicians were quick to conclude the former after a couple of events this week that will undoubtedly affect rural Saskatchewan's future.

The first was the release of the hospital districts' 1996-97 budgets that showed six of the 11 boards receiving a bigger piece of the health budget pie happen to be six of the seven biggest boards in the province. Of the 19 that will receive funding reductions, 18 are rural health districts.

Fuelling this conspiracy theory among the 15 rural Liberal and Tory MLAs is the fact that only three of them represent areas where local hospital funding may actually increase.

Also Wednesday, suspicions were further heightened when Municipal Government leader Carol Teichrob suggested next year's $20-million cut to municipal government funding might be handled by "changing" the way the money is distributed.

"Change" has become the 1990s euphemism for rural Saskatchewan getting less.

But the problem with the PC-Liberal suspicions is the government's role in rural Saskatchewan's demise is all too much like the chicken and egg riddle.

So which came first?

The answer to both lies in their complicated evolutions.

For one thing, the decline of rural Saskatchewan is the past 60 years of the province's history rather than a recent phenomenon. (In 1971, 51 per cent of Saskatchewan's population was rural. In 1991, the rural population was 37 per cent.)

Government departments argue their only job has been to provide services where the people want them.

For example, only 61 per cent of the province's population live in the seven biggest health districts. Yet these seven districts account for 94 per cent of all surgeries, 79 per cent of all babies delivered and 77 per cent of all hospital in-patients and day surgeries.

It only makes sense to increase funding for these boards at the expense of others.

Naturally, opposition politicians call this a self-fulfilling prophecy, destined to come true after you close 52 rural hospitals.

But rural people heading to the cities for health care is nothing new.

Only 27.1 per cent of all people from rural municipalities and Indian reserves who used hospitals in 1994-95 went to a hospital in a community of fewer than 4,000 people -- presumably, their nearest rural hospital.

That figure is 6.4 per cent lower than the 33.5 per cent of RM and reserve residents who were going to such small hospitals in 1989-90, thus giving some credence to the theory rural hospital closures have meant rural people have had no choice but to find health care in the bigger cities.

But in 1979-80, only 46.1 per cent of RM and reserve residents were going to local hospitals.

In other words, in the 10 years the Blakeney and Devine governments were pouring all kinds of money into small hospitals to buy rural votes, the number of rural people using these local hospitals fell by 12.6 per cent. In the past five years -including the years since the closures -- 6.4 per cent fewer rural people were using rural hospitals.

So has the Romanow government just become the lastest to oversee the inevitable?

Well that's not exactly the case, either. What this NDP government is undeniably guilty of is disenfranchising rural Saskatchewan, thus allowing any demise -- inevitable or otherwise -- to happen that much faster.

Since the 1991 election that eliminated eight rural seats by rigidly adhering to an electoral boundaries formula where no rural riding could be five per cent smaller than the average, a majority Saskatchewan government can now be formed without having a truly rural MLA.

In fact, in this current 58-member assembly, the NDP has 28 of 29 urban seats and one of the two northern ridings. This lack of a rural voice is why this NDP government has gotten away with chipping away at the rural infrastructure.

But again, it's hard to say which came first.

It's no coincidence SaskTel employees went on strike the day before the Crown corporation's annual report was tabled in the legislature. The timing was impeccable, and on purpose. That's because if ever there was a public-sector strike that cried out for something, anything, to make it legitimate, this is the one.

But don't take my word for it. Reach your own conclusion by seeing if you can answer this: what issue triggered the first full-scale strike in SaskTel's 88-year history?

The chances are most people have no idea why 3,600 members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union are on the street. If anything has characterized SaskTel over the years, it has been the corporation's tranquil labor-management relations. This is a company with a reputation for paternalistic treatment of its staff. There has never been what's termed an "involuntary separation of an in-scope employee without cause". Translation: never any layoffs. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, SaskTel reduced its workforce by 800, all through attrition and early retirements.

In an age of often-ruthless corporate downsizing, SaskTel has been faithful to a fault with its employees. So comfortable are its employees that there is virtually no turnover. Last year, for example, only 60 people out of 3,900 full-time permanent employees left the company.

The average length of service for a SaskTel worker is 18 years, which reflects stability and high job satisfaction. As well, the average in-scope base salary is $35,000 and the base wage for installation and repair staff ranges between $42,000-$43,000. In

Toronto, the same position at Bell Canada pays only slightly more in a city with a far higher cost of living.

Moreover, the strike comes at the most financially uncertain point in SaskTel's existence. Two months ago, SaskTel's monopoly on the Saskatchewan market ended when other phone competitors were allowed to compete for long-distance service. Declining phone revenues are an inevitable and unavoidable part of the company's future.

For example, in 1990, SaskTel's average revenue per minute for long-distance was 46 cents a minute; in 1995, it had fallen to less than 25 cents a minute and there is every reason to believe it will keep declining because of competition.

So what gives? Why are these people acting so belligerently for what appears to be no good reason?

You'll find the answer in SaskTel's 1995 annual report. It shows the company last year recorded staggering net earnings of $191.8 million, by far the largest in its history. They were 117 per cent higher than the $88.5 million SaskTel made in 1994. In its

last contract, the union received a 2.5-per-cent raise in the second year of a three-year contract and, given the financial performance of SaskTel, believes it deserves more than the three per cent over three years offered by the company.

But what you need to know about the 1995 profit is it doesn't reflect some huge expansion in SaskTel's business. It is a one-time windfall, $114.3 million of which comes from the sale of the LCL Cable Communications Ltd. in England. The SaskTel subsidiary

was established in the late 1980s, and became a going concern that was sold last fall for a huge profit.

The government decided proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down SaskTel and government debt. But the union argues its members should get some of the benefits in the form of higher wages.

The union's argument is not entirely without merit. The capital gain SaskTel enjoyed from LCL was not because of the blind luck of a real estate flip in an inflating market. SaskTel purchased the TV cable licence in the Leicester area of England and developed a thriving business. The union argues the company's value grew as a direct result of the hard work, skill and dedication of its members assigned to work at LCL in England. Thus, they should share in the rewards of the capital gain of an asset they helped create.

There is only one problem with that -- it doesn't make sense. Why should SaskTel raise everyone's wages as compensation for the success of the LCL deal when the benefits come in the form of a one-time capital gain? The employees expect a permanent wage increase for something that impacts on SaskTel's bottom line for only one year. Granted, there will be continuing benefits to SaskTel if the LCL proceeds are used to reduce company debt. But the gains made by SaskTel, and, by extension, the Saskatchewan taxpayers, would disappear should they be merely passed on to employees.

If the union were arguing for some kind of one-time bonus, in recognition of the LCL windfall, then it would have far more merit and be in proportion to the financial gain made by the company.

Instead what we have is a strike that, by most objective standards, is difficult to fathom, or justify.

There has always been a certain amount of irrationality to the rise of the Reform party as a voice of western alienation. The timing seems all wrong.

Logically, Reform should have emerged in Pierre Trudeau's heyday of the latter 1970s, when western alienation was at its zenith. Those were the days when premiers such as Alberta's Peter Lougheed and Saskatchewan's Allan Blakeney accused Ottawa of looting provincial resource revenues.

If ever there were a symbol of an oppressive central government exploiting the western region, it was Trudeau's National Energy Program. When oil prices skyrocketed after the OPEC crisis, the federal Liberal government moved to siphon off windfall resource revenues flowing to the provinces.

It led to a constitutional crisis that was ultimately resolved (more or less) with the constitutional accord of 1981 that strengthened provincial control over natural resources.

An aggravating factor throughout much of this period was the lack of western representation in the Liberal government. In his final term, Trudeau was forced to appoint western senators as cabinet ministers because no Liberals were elected west of the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border.

So not only was the West being abused, but it was being done by a government that westerners had rejected. Or, at least, so the popular wisdom went in those days.

The western alienation of that period was eventually expressed in the landslide election of the Brian Mulroney Tories in 1984. Mulroney courted the West shamelessly and was rewarded with the biggest mandate in Canada's history.

Immediately, western MPs such as Don Mazankowski, Bill McKnight, Joe Clark, Jack Epp and Harvey Andre became powerful figures in the Mulroney cabinet. Perhaps never before had the West had so much influence within the inner circle of Ottawa power.

During his first term in office, Mulroney moved quickly to address western grievances.

He eliminated the NEP and killed the petroleum gas revenue tax. The foreign investment review agency was ended and, in 1986, in the midst of an election in Saskatchewan, Mulroney announced a $1-billion "deficiency" payment for prairie farmers.

But more importantly, Mulroney embarked on a free trade agenda in his first term.

By striking a free trade deal with the United States, Mulroney addressed the single biggest historic grievance at the heart of western alienation. What free trade did was end the tariff policy that had discriminated against the West and limited its economic development and diversification by protecting Central Canadian manufacturing interests.

The last time an incumbent prime minister had tried to address western economic concerns by advocating free trade -- or "reciprocity" with the U.S. -- was Wilfrid Laurier in 1911. He was defeated, in large part, by tariff-protected business interests in Ontario and Quebec.

In spite of Mulroney's major concessions to the West, political alienation did not subside. Instead, it grew.

Preston Manning organized the Reform party in the mid-1980s and, by the 1988 election, Reform was running candidates under the slogan of "The West Wants In".

This sense of western grievance continued to grow throughout Mulroney's second term. It was helped along by actions that fanned the flames of anger, such as the controversial CF-18 contract decision that favored Quebec over Manitoba. Adding to the sentiment were the Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional efforts, which created the image of a federal government out of touch with grassroot Canadian opinion.

But, in comparative terms, the concessions that Mulroney made to the West far exceeded any slights to the region.

When asked about anger in the West, current federal Tory leader Jean Charest compares it to the sentiment of alienation in Quebec from Canada. It's there, but it is not entirely justified.

"But that's the reality of politics, it magnifies and exaggerates. The pendulum will eventually swing to a more balanced view," Charest said while in Saskatoon on the weekend.

As someone from Quebec, Charest says he can understand how such political disillusionment can emerge.

"It's drawn from a general way that government does business,'' Charest argues. ''There is this sense that the West is an afterthought when it comes to decisions by the federal government."

What Charest says is true and the rise of the Reform party is proof that the mood exists.

But what is most remarkable is that the anger took political root during the first term of the Mulroney government, which was a period in our history when there were major concessions to the West.

If ever the West was fully embraced within the corridors of power in Ottawa, it was during those years.

What does that tell us? Could it be that the West doesn't really know what it wants?

Any travelling Saskatchewan premier should stay at accommodations equivalent to what is available in Saskatchewan, says the updated 1996 version of the PC Guide to Cabinet Ministers' Out-of-Province Travel.

"We're not prepared to accept that $500 a night is an acceptable amount," charged new PC MLA Ben Heppner, referring to Romanow's three-night bill from his stay last November at New York's Drake Hotel totalling $1,527.60.

Given that the New York tourist and convention bureau says you can find suitable Manhattan hotels for about $200 a night, there's no reason why we shouldn't have a daily maximum for hotel accommodations on such ministerial trips, Heppner says. Including this trip, Romanow ran up a 1995 travel bill of $40,082.

His costs included a $9,106 fall trade mission to London (hotels at $404 a night), Berlin ($225-a-night hotels) and Kiev, a $3,707 trip to the August premier's conference in St. John's, Nfld., a $1,715 trip to Montreal for Prime Minister's "Team Canada" dinner prior to the Quebec referendum, plus $10,836 for air flights on government-owned executive air.

Excessive, extravagant, unnecessary, say the Tories.

But it's a bit tough taking the PCs' travel tips too seriously after thumbing through the PC Guide to Cabinet Ministers' Out-of-Province Travel: 1982 to 1991 Editions.For example:

• If you are deputy premier and soon to become PC Senator Eric Berntson, then nothing less than $300-a-night swank hotels will do for your stay in Beverly Hills, according to the PC 1985 travel guide.
• "It could have been $1,000 a night and it still would have been a good deal for the taxpayers," raves Berntson not only in the travel guide, but also in the May, 3, 1985 edition of the legislature's Hansard.
• "There was no time for sleep," gushes former PC highways minister Jim Garner (May 30, 1985 Hansard) over his trip to the Road Builders' Convention in Hawaii at a $4,300-cost to Saskatchewan taxpayers. (Unfortunately, his PC travel authority was later transferred from cabinet to the private sector after using government aircraft for his family's personal vacation plans.)
• "Saskatchewan has so much going for it you can afford to mismanage it and still break even,", former premier Grant Devine -- still the ultimate expert on ministerial travel -- tells New York investors Jan. 19, 1983 during one of many international excursions that cost taxpayers close to an average $40,000 a year.
• "Be five times as effective as the premier of Ontario by spending five times as much on travel," is the message in the 1988 PC travel guide when Devine's out-of-province travel totalled $42,000 -- a tad more than the $8,000 travel expenses premier David Petersen ran up that year.
• "Far East trade junkets for a mere $69,948.81 and you don't even have to wind up in youth hostel," Devine recommends in the 1989 PC travel guide where the premier and entourage tour China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Korea.
• "Travel Europe for only $2,400 a day." That was Devine's advice in the PC's 1990 travel guide when his $50,500, three-week trip included stays at the Helsinki, Finland hotels for only $252.30 a night, Moscow at $330 hotels, plus London hotels for a paltry $368 a night.
• "Saving Canada in a day for only $10,360." That was the cost in the PC's 1990 travel guide for Devine's day trip to St. John's, June 22, to address the Newfoundland legislature prior to the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord.

Interestingly, most of the above notations can also be found in: "A New Democrat's Guide to Cheap Political Advice We'll Ignore as Soon as we Get Back in Power: Editions 1982 to 1991.

"Devine, his family and entourage are enjoying a first-class holiday while Saskatchewan families have to settle for second-class services and see their taxes going up continuously," said former deputy NDP leader Ed Tchorzewski in a Jan. 5, 1990 edition of to-be-ignored-when-in-power outrageous political rhetoric.

Wouldn't it be nice if both parties got their advice manuals updated.

It's long been clear that Roy Romanow has set out to change the New Democratic Party in Saskatchewan. What is not clear is whether most party members necessarily agree with what he is doing.

Even a casual observer will recognize that the Romanow government is a much different creature from the Romanow NDP in opposition or the previous Allan Blakeney NDP government. This is a government guided by fiscal conservatism. It has spent the last five years attempting to reduce the public's expectations of what can reasonably be expected from government.

In that sense, Romanow has been arguably the most influential leader in the party's history. None of his predecessors, whether Tommy Douglas, Woodrow Lloyd or Blakeney, was able to shape the party and government the way Romanow has in the nine years since he became leader.

There are many reasons why Romanow has been able to wield this kind of influence. Probably the single biggest explanation has been the rightward shift in politics over the last decade, which has allowed Romanow to be swept along by events that are seen as out of his control.

But there are other factors, engineered by Romanow and those around him, that have given him enormous control over the party and government.

Much of it goes back to the 1987 NDP leadership convention when Romanow took over from Blakeney by acclamation. The lack of an actual leadership race deprived the party of any serious policy debate around the leadership. Had others challenged Romanow for the job, the party would have been forced to debate which leader best represented the party's preferred direction. Implicit in that is a debate over beliefs.

As it was, Romanow was handed the leadership to do with what he wanted. At the time, he publicly stated he was not willing to make any deals with segments in the party to get support. "I don't want the leadership with one hand tied behind my back," was the way Romanow put it at the time.

After getting the leadership on his terms, he won government in 1991 doing much the same. Although the NDP went through a long and extensive policy process before that election, ultimately Romanow ran on the slim promise of cleaning up the fiscal mess left by the Tories. What an NDP government would, or wouldn't, do hinged entirely on the fiscal situation it faced once in power.

Romanow did an excellent job of selling his fiscal agenda to the party in his government's first term. For the most part, those in the party bought it.

But many saw last June's election as something of a turning point. The deficit had been eliminated and people were told there was a "new day dawning" in the province. There was some reason for optimism and with it the expectation that the government was going to change its priorities.

It hasn't happened. Last month's provincial budget was more of the same as Romanow remained steadfast in his agenda to lower expectations of government. The current SaskTel strike is merely the latest example of this psychology.

A certainty of politics is that when a party takes over government, ultimately the party itself goes into a state of decline. What happens is that many influential party figures end up in government and the party loses much of the motivation that drives it during the years when it is out of power and seeks to win government. At the same time, government dictates party policy by what it implements.

Given Romanow's power, the problem is more acute than ever for the NDP. Indeed, many long-time party members and activists feel uneasy with the government's direction, but feel unable to speak publicly about what's happening.

The need to stimulate debate in the party without it being seen as an attack on the government is something NDP president Bill Allen recognizes and is trying to address. In recent weeks, a small group of party members has been meeting to discuss how a process can be put in place to stimulate debate about policy and direction. The third such meeting is scheduled for Sunday in Watrous.

"We need to get away from the traditional way of discussing ideas. We need to look at ideas as ideas and look at alternatives without necessarily deciding on alternatives," says Allen. "The party can't go in one direction and the government in another. We have to bring them together."

At this point, it is clear that the Romanow government and the NDP are not always completely comfortable with each other. But for many in the party, there is no mechanism for them to express their concerns without embarassing Romanow or being branded as disloyal.

The challenge is how to reconcile that kind of internal conflict and resolve any growing tensions. For Romanow and NDP, it is a problem that has been years in the making.

There are a couple intriguing elements in the ongoing debate over the NDP government's job creation record:

(1) The lengths the government is going to make a case that its woeful strategy is somehow working, and;

(2) The lack of success it's having convincing anyone of this.

You needn't do anything more than talk to your neighbor about layoffs in his or her business to appreciate the latter. They'll tell you the same things the government's own polling is saying:

A whopping 75 per cent of Saskatchewan residents disapproved of the government's efforts to reduce unemployment in the latest polling from February -- significantly higher than the 66 per cent that had the same qualms in similar government polling last September.

Curiously though, the NDP is refusing to steer away from this troublesome issue -- something a politically smart government usually does. In fact, it's doing precisely the opposite.

In February, it updated its 1992 job creation strategy by saying it will now create 20,000 jobs by the year 2000.

Then in the March 28 budget, it outlined its workforce targets as follows: an average 464,000 working people by the end of this year; 469,000 average in 1997; 474,000 in 1998; 477,000 in 1999, and;481,000 in 2000.

That 481,000-person workforce in 2000 would fulfilled both the NDP's original 1992 job creation predictions of 30,000 new jobs by 2000 and its updated prediction of 20,000 new jobs by 2000.

But its also clear by the polls that the public is neither impressed by the government's bold predictions nor its optimism. Given the silly manipulation we've seen from this NDP government on its job numbers, such cynicism is well-placed.

For one thing, it's more than coincidental the starting point of the NDP's job-creation strategy is November 1992 and not November 1991 when it took power.

The NDP inherited a province with a workforce that averaged 458,000 people in 1991. (Employment during the Devine years rose from a low of 433,000 people in 1981 to a high of 468,000 in 1987 before leveling out to 458,000 in the last three years of the Devine government).

The Saskatchewan workforce immediately dropped 8,000 people in the first full year of a New Democratic government in 1992, so Romanow's first term wasn't as much about creating 10,000 new jobs as it was about returning the workforce to to the Devine government levels.

Second, a goal of 480,000 Saskatchewan working people by 2000 (only 12,000 to 15,000 more than Saskatchewan's workforce in the late 1980s) is hardly setting unachievably high standards.

Or, at least, they don't seem to be unachievably high standards for neighboring provinces.

The paltry 10,000 new jobs Saskatchewan has created in three years (a 2.2-per-cent increase in the workforce) is pathetic compared with Alberta whose workforce rose by 88,000 jobs to 1,373,000 jobs in 1995 from 1,285,000 in 1992 (a 6.8-per-cent increase).

Even Manitoba saw its workforce increase to 521,000 people in 1995 from 498,000 in 1992 -- 23,000 more jobs or a 4.6-per-cent increase.

Third, all the February update showed is the NDP government was destined to miss its 1992 projections of 30,000 new jobs by 2000.

To achieve that initial 30,000-jobs-by-2000 prediction, the NDP needed to average 3,750 jobs a year. In its first three years since setting that goal, it averaged 3,333 new jobs a year. Now the NDP government must up its job-creation rate to 4,000 new jobs a year to meet that 480,000-workforce target.

Progressive Conservative polling, also last February, indicated 81 per cent did not believe the NDP would reach its goals.

None of this is stopping the NDP government from its on-going attempts to convince the public its abysmal job creation record is somehow better than it really is.

It was also likely no coincidence the government's February polling -- at a cost of $21,980 -- started the day after Economic Development Minister Dwain Lingenfelter announced the latest rosy job predictions of 20,000 new jobs by 2000.

Unfortunately for the NDP, the public is reacting like its heard all this before.

By any standard, Chinese political leader Qiao Shi was given the red-carpet treatment when he visited Saskatchewan this week.

He arrived at the front steps of the legislature in a sleek black limousine as part of a multi-vehicle cavalcade. There were police vehicles with flashing lights leading the way and bringing up the rear. There were smaller limos in front and behind the stretch model that whisked Qiao from the airport to his meetings with Premier Roy Romanow and Speaker Glenn Hagel.

With a wet snow falling, one official leapt from a car before it had come to a complete halt. He dashed to the rear door of Qiao's limo and opened an umbrella to protect the third most powerful politician in China from the nasty elements.

The moment Qiao stepped from his car, he was surrounded by a knot of people. They included plainclothes police, his own security staff and assorted others who looked like Chinese and Canadian diplomatic officials.

Watching the scene from a safe distance were striking SaskTel workers who picket the legislature daily. They had been banished to the far sidewalk by the scores of security personnel who covered the outside of the legislature, while many more were strategically placed inside the building.

Trailing behind Qiao's entourage was a bus filled with mostly Chinese journalists covering the visit to Canada. A bank of photographers, including the provincial government's staff photographer, were there to capture the appropriate moments.

Qiao and his entourage were greeted in the rotunda outside the legislative assembly by Hagel and staff from the assembly. They spent a few minutes in the assembly before retiring to the Speaker's office for a private chat. Qiao then went into a private meeting with Romanow after the two posed for a brief "photo-opportunity".

Later, Qiao was the guest of honor at a noon luncheon staged by the Romanow government. At the luncheon, Romanow gushed over the guest of honor. He raised a personal toast in friendship and talked about being "honored" by the visit of such "very distinguished guests".

A few hours later, a blanket of security was thrown over the University of Regina before a ceremony at which Qiao was granted an honorary degree. Traffic was diverted, plainclothes police were everywhere and outside the education auditorium, where the ceremony took place, an unmarked police van was stationed with guard dogs in the back in case anything other than the scripted events occurred. At one point, a small group of protesters holding a silent vigil were ordered back from a railing overlooking where Qiao entered the building.

As events unfolded, you couldn't help but be struck by how politics can corrupt our sense of morality. We not only become mesmerized by power, but we begin to judge people according to their status. In this case, Qiao is clearly a man of immense power as the chairman of the National People's Congress in China. Some day he could lead the most populous nation in the world; therefore, he deserves not only our respect, but even our reverence.

Or does he?

Last month, Amnesty International issued a statement detailing the horrendous human rights and democratic abuses in China. "The Chinese authorities do not tolerate any form of dissent. They allow torture to continue, use the death penalty to try to cure social problems, brutally crack down on ethnic groups calling peacefully for more independence, and detain hundreds of thousands of people every year without charging them with any crime," the group said.

The statement goes on to note how many governments act in their own self-interest and ignore repression in China so as not to jeopardize the commercial benefits we get by doing business with China. In his speech at the noon luncheon, Romanow talked about the long trade relationship Saskatchewan has with China.

There is no doubt we benefit from our commercial ties to China. The former Devine government similarly honored a visiting Chinese politician and Grant Devine himself made several trade missions to China.

Moreover, others say Qiao is a voice of liberalization who wants to establish a rule of law in China and supports economic liberalization. Qiao has also tried to give the People's Congress, which has been merely a rubber stamp for government policy, a measure of independence.

But Qiao is also the former head of state security, a position he left in 1988 to become director of something ominously called the "Central Committee of Discipline Inspection". He has been part of the Communist party apparatus for 56 years and has never once spoken out against the repression and state crimes Chinese people have endured.

Qiao Shi rose to the top in China by being loyal to a repressive system Amnesty International ranks as one of the worst in the world.

Yet we treat him with deference and honor, pretending we are guilty of no moral duplicity.

Why is it we never hear talk about a formal merger of the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties in this province?

People will skirt around the issue and explain how it is crucial not to split the "anti-NDP vote". For more than 50 years, it has been proven time and again that when the right-wing vote doesn't coalesce behind one party, the NDP is guaranteed victory.

This, of course, is the same issue at the heart of the talk about a merger of Reform and the Tories at the federal level. Providing those two parties fight for much of the same right-of-centre vote, the Liberals are destined to remain in government.

Faced with that electoral reality, Reform and Tory supporters have to answer a basic question. They need to decide what's more important: loyalty to their party, or to the cause of defeating the Liberals.

The same is equally true of Saskatchewan politics. If the Liberals and Tories, both right-of-centre parties, divide their loyalties, the NDP is virtually assured of remaining in power. Indeed, with the rightward shift of the NDP under Roy Romanow, the problem for the Liberals and Tories becomes more acute.

Although there has never been any formal alliance between the provincial Tories and Liberals, there have been individual attempts to work towards the common goal of defeating the NDP. For example, in the 1950s, Hammy McDonald was elected under a Liberal-Conservative banner in the Moosomin constituency. In fact, McDonald eventually took over from Walter Tucker as leader of the Liberals for a time.

The most concerted effort to merge the Liberal and Tory vote, if not explicitly the parties, was made by Ross Thatcher, who replaced MacDonald as Liberal leader. As a former CCF MP, Thatcher recognized how futile efforts would be to defeat the CCF-NDP provincially if the right-wing vote didn't unite to force a left-right, head-to-head ideological showdown.

Thatcher endlessly courted then-PC leader Martin Pederson in the hopes of luring him into the Liberal ranks with everything, up to and including, the promise of a cabinet post in a Liberal government. But Pederson would have nothing of it.

The two could not even agree on an informal arrangement in which the Tories would not run serious campaigns in seats where the Liberals were strong, and vice-versa. The problem with that idea, Pederson said later, was the seats in which Thatcher offered not to run aggressive Liberal campaigns were ones the NDP clearly had in the bag.

Traditionally, when the right-wing vote has coalesced behind either the Liberals or Tories, the NDP has been defeated. Maybe Thatcher wasn't successful in making a deal with Pederson, but the Liberal leader's constant message of not splitting the anti-NDP vote had its desired effect. He was able to polarize the vote enough that the Liberals won two terms in power.

The process reversed itself through the 1970s when the Liberals went into decline and the Tories emerged as the dominant party of the right. It culminated in Grant Devine's landslide 1982 victory and subsequent re-election in 1986. In the 1991 election, the NDP won a clear majority of the vote, which meant the Tory-Liberal vote split was not a determining factor in many constituencies. But in last June's election, the vote split was crucial to the NDP's success.

What has happened occasionally is that there has been a merger of the Liberal-Tory vote, if not the parties themselves. The question is, can anyone take it one step further to an actual union?

The answer is almost certainly no. The differences between the Liberal and Conservative parties are deeply rooted in the history of Saskatchewan. In fact, to this day, there are some who maintain the cleavage in our politics is not drawn on anti- or pro-NDP lines, but between people who are pro- or anti-Liberal.

It has diminished greatly over time, but there is still some merit in that argument. In our early days, partisan politics divided more on religious than ideological lines. What separated the Liberals and Conservatives in the pre-CCF days were debates over Catholic schools, immigration and the ethnic makeup of the province.

As well, there has long been a strong conservative streak in the CCF-NDP, which emerged in the 1930s and 1940s at the expense of the Conservative party. Look at it in these terms: before the CCF arrived on the scene, Saskatchewan politics divided between the Liberals and Conservatives. For 30 years after the CCF, the division was between the Liberals and CCF. As such, it's obvious that much of the CCF-NDP support grew out of the Conservatives.

Although many of those lines have been blurred over the years, they have not disappeared entirely. In some cases, Liberals and Conservatives have been adversaries for generations and still see more that divides than unites them.

Those divisions make an official Liberal-Tory merger unlikely, if not impossible.

No health minister can ever be held accountable for every trifling detail of departmental operations or every case where someone is dissatisfied with the health system. And Health Minister Eric Cline is likely right when he accuses the opposition parties of theatrics and cheap politics by bringing such cases to the legislative assembly. There again, petty politics is the one thing Cline does seem to have a healthy working knowledge of, which is about where his problems begin.

Health -- like justice and finance -- is one portfolio where you hope the minister is both capable and responsible enough to rise above the petty political fray. Predecessors Lorne Calvert and even Louise Simard were able to do so as ministers. But Cline's short tenure has brought about a politicization of the position to a level we haven't seen since Tory days.

It's a big and sad step backwards.

The first example comes after the opposition raised concerns last week about the openness of the Saskatoon Health Board.

The board last December, informed its members they could be disciplined if they publicly criticized board decisions. "They've been elected to the board of a corporation," explained John Malcom, the Saskatoon Health Board's chief executive.

Last week, these same board members adopted a policy where publicly elected board members had to seek permission from the board's chairman before speaking publicly -- an affront to anyone who believes in free speech and the democratic process.

Here is where one might have expected a health minister who inherited the task of ensuring publicly accountable boards to step in and say enough is enough. But when the Liberals raised the question in the assembly, all we got from Cline was yet another glib, political answer about internal Liberal politics.

What made Cline's response so distasteful is he was the minister who filled all the province's health boards last November with appointments -- many of them, partisan New Democrats.

While no one is saying so, one suspects a big part of the problem on the Saskatoon board is a rift between how the elected and appointed members view their jobs. Cline's leadership certainly wasn't healing any such rifts.

One could forgive Cline's handling of this situation as a single mistake by an over-zealous rookie minister who doesn't yet quite know when and where not to be political. Unfortunately, Cline has made a habit of opting for cheap political points on every occasion.

That was also apparent this past week when Liberals and Tories peppered him with questions about a Moose Jaw man who died in the care of a home-care worker; an Eatonia woman who faced losing her leg to gangrene after being released from an overcrowded St.

Paul's Hospital; and a LeRoy couple who will be separated after 66 years of marriage when they are moved to a new care home in Watson.

Even if the opposition was just trying to score cheap political points of their own, the correct course for the health minister would be to take notice of the question and promise to seriously address each concern.

Instead, Cline launched into a sanctimonious and mean-spirited tirade of how the Liberals ghoulishly look forward to such deaths and tragedies and how inappropriate it is for oppositions to raise such personalized concerns in the assembly.

The problem is, raising such personalized examples happened to be the stock and trade of Simard when she was in Opposition.

In 1989, Simard accused the Devine government of betraying the Saskatchewan public after a 65-year-old Prince Albert man died while awaiting heart surgery. (It turned out he wasn't even on a Saskatchewan waiting list.) In 1988, Simard said a four-year-old girl bled to death on the way to Regina because she couldn't be operated on in Assiniboia. (There was never any proof this was the case.)

When asked by reporters outside the assembly how it was OK for Simard to raise these issues and not OK for today's opposition to do the same thing, Cline feinted ignorance.

It was typical of the sad, no-answer politics we're seeing from Cline.

We should expect more.

At the risk of sounding like an apologist for Brian Mulroney, is it not obvious that the former Tory government was right on most things after all? What else are we to conclude?

In the less than three years they've been in power, the Jean Chretien Liberals have not only carried out most of Mulroney's major initiatives, but built upon and extended them.

The one exception, of course, is the deficit. Finance Minister Paul Martin has made serious progress towards a balanced budget, something the Tories talked about doing, but failed miserably when they tried. But once you get past fiscal policy as it relates to the deficit, there is little that separates the current Liberal and former Tory governments on major policy issues. If anything, Chretien is going further and faster than Mulroney ever dared.

This week, we got the latest example with word the Liberals had reached an agreement with the Atlantic provinces to "harmonize" the GST with provincial sales taxes. The result is a 15-per-cent national value-added tax, which means a reduction in total tax from the previous system of separate provincial and federal sales taxes.

For example, under the old system, people would pay the seven-per-cent GST and also, as in the case of Newfoundland, a 12-per-cent provincial sales tax. With a harmonized tax, consumers pay a single 15-per-cent tax. But the new tax is applied to the same range of items that carry the GST, which means many services not covered by the provincial sales tax will now be taxed.

In the last federal election campaign, the Liberals didn't promise to harmonize the GST with provincial sales taxes, they pledged to eliminate the GST. It was the Mulroney government that wanted provinces to merge their sales taxes with the GST to create a single national tax. This is the exact policy the Chretien government has adopted.

Making it all the more cynical, the Liberals have decided the harmonized national sales tax will be hidden in the price. The hope? Out of sight, out of mind. At least the Tories were honest enough to replace the previously hidden manufacturers' tax with a visible GST and suffer the political consequences.

But the GST issue is only the latest example of how the Chretien government has validated much of what the Mulroney Tories did when they were in power. The list is extensive.

In the 1988 federal election, former Liberal leader John Turner called his campaign against free trade "the fight of my life".

Five years later, Chretien called the North American Free Trade Agreement unacceptable and demanded a subsidies code, an anti-dumping code and a more effective dispute settlement mechanism. Chretien promised either there would be major changes, or his government would abrogate the deal. He did neither.

Instead, the Liberal government has sought to expand the trade agreement into South America. What John Turner said would bring about the end of Canada as we know it has become an article of faith within the trade and economic policy of the Chretien government.

On social programs, the Liberals portrayed themselves as the true defenders of the social-safety net. They accused the Mulroney Tories of having an agenda to undermine many of the social programs built by previous Liberal governments.

But in government, the Liberals have gone further to reduce support for social programs than the Tories believed possible. Cuts to unemployment insurance and to transfer payments to the provinces for health, post-secondary education and social assistance during a continuing period of high unemployment have greatly weakened the social-safety net.

In agriculture and transportation, the Liberals have continued down the same path of deregulation followed by Mulroney. One major example of how the Liberals executed a policy the Tories wanted to implement, but never dared, was the elimination of the $560-million western grain transportation subsidy.

Then there is the issue of Quebec.

During the height of the Meech Lake debate, Chretien opposed distinct society status for Quebec. The Liberal leader saw the powers for Quebec contained within Meech as "incremental separatism" that would destabilize the nation.

It was a fair opinion, shared by many. Too bad Chretien apparently didn't really believe it.

Chretien's position on Quebec and national unity now appears to be virtually identical to what Mulroney professed when he was in power. The prime minister supports the declaration of Quebec as a distinct society and, in the wake of last fall's referendum, acted unilaterally by using the Liberal majority to pass a resolution stating as much.

All of this adds up to one of two conclusions. Either it is a condemnation of the Liberal government, or an affirmation of the Mulroney Tories. Take your pick.

The first annoying aspect about the harmonization debate is the province's unwillingness to acknowledge any possible benefit of blending the provincial and federal sales taxes.

It's annoying, but not exactly unexpected.

Acknowledging some possible benefit to harmonization would be to also acknowledge that dumping harmonization in 1991 may have been both a political move and an administrative mistake.

You may recall that Roy Romanow's 1991 opposition to harmonization was Grant Devine's final political coffin nail - a gratuitous coffin nail, at that.

Even though the corrupt and incompetent PC government was going down anyway, Romanow took the politically popular position of opposing harmonization of the then seven-per-cent PST and the federal PCs' new seven-per-cent GST.

Harmonization would suck hundreds of millions of dollars out of the economy and kill 7,500 jobs by 1995, Romanow contended.

Well, Romanow was elected Oct. 21, 1991 and did immediately do away with harmonization. A year later, Saskatchewan was averaging 8,000 less jobs in the workforce, anyway. (By the end of 1995 Saskatchewan's workforce only averaged 2,000 more jobs (460,000) than it did in the pre-harmonization days.)

And within two years, the Romanow government had bumped the seven-per-cent PST to nine per cent to make up for the lost sales tax revenue he had claimed could be found by "ending government waste and mismanagement."

In fact, by 1993 Saskatchewan taxpayers were forking over an additional $300 million in increased fuel, income, tobacco and sales tax to pay debt and make up up for the revenue Romanow saw fit to forego when he ended harmonization.

Adding insult to injury, the NDP government also decided in the 1993 budget to broaden the PST by removing the exemption on all adult clothing, footware and sewing fabric (although the PST exemption remained on what the government defined as essentials like children's clothing, prescription drugs, home heating, electricity plus restaurant meals, books, personal, professional and repair services.)

What the federal Liberal government is now proposing for Saskatchewan is essentially returning to the days of the Devine harmonization - a seven-per-cent PST and seven per cent GST on a broader range of items.

Which brings us to the second annoying aspect of this debate - Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon's tendency to misrepresent what Ottawa is offering Saskatchewan to harmonize.

The new blended (combined GST-PST) sales tax in this province would be 14 per cent - not 15 per cent as MacKinnon has claimed.

Also, MacKinnon doesn't often mention, the third annoying aspect of this debate, Ottawa's harmonization proposal to Saskatchewan includes temporary, but substantial, compensation for revenue loss - 100 per cent or $200 million both the first and second year; 50 per cent or $100 million the third year, and; 25 per cent of $50 million the fourth year.

Unfortunately, the fourth annoying aspect of the harmonization debate is, even if the NDP government had been completely forthright with all of the above, it still may be impossible to tell whether or not harmonization would be personally good for you.

If your income/lifestyle allows weekly trips to the hairdresser, paying someone to cut your lawn, buying books instead of going to the library or eating out a lot, you won't like harmonization.

There again, if you can't afford to pay seven-per-cent more for essentials like home heating and electricity or children's clothing, harmonization might not be such a good thing. (Of course, a government worried about its citizens paying a new tax on utilities could always use the $200 million its getting from Ottawa to reduce basic utility service charges.)

And if you've been putting off the purchase of big-ticket items like a car or furniture, you no doubt wouldn't mind seeing your total sales tax fall to 14 per cent from 16 per cent.

It makes for an interesting argument, but all that does is take us to the annoying aspect of this debate.

The provincial government isn't allowing this debate to happen.

Stephane Dion is turning out to be a breath of fresh air for Canadian federalism. After years of Quebec apologists for Canada who passed themselves off as federalists, we finally have someone unafraid to talk about the merits of Canada to Quebecers and other Canadians.

Lord knows we need it. If the exchange of ideas is the oxygen that breathes life into a democratic nation, it's little wonder Canada has been suffocating.

For too long the national unity debate has been largely framed by people who want to break up the nation. We should not be surprised then, that when Quebec separatists are allowed to define reality in Canada, certain myths become embedded as truths in our political debate.

What is most disturbing about the emergence of such myths is not that they have been spread by separatists - you expect as much - but that they have become part of federalist thinking. It is a reflection of just how weak the voice for Canada has been in Quebec and elsewhere that many federalists accept the separatist critique that Canada is a deeply flawed nation.

With Quebec separatism driving the national unity agenda, conventional wisdom is that Canadian federalism doesn't work. There needs to be a radical decentralization of powers to curb the excessive power of the federal government.

As a Quebecer who recognizes the merits of federalism, Dion has taken it upon himself as Jean Chretien's intergovernmental affairs minister to debunk many of those myths. That is not to say Dion believes administrative changes within the framework of federalism are not necessary. But he does recognize the inherent merits of federalism in making Canada one the world's most privileged nations.

When he emerged from an hour-long meeting with Premier Roy Romanow on Friday, Dion talked about the need to "rebalance" powers in Canada. But Dion clearly believes the federal system works well and, beyond clarification of roles between federal and provincial governments, there is no need for immediate constitutional change.

Dion argues that federalism is in a constant state of evolution. Thus, if governments can agree on non-constitutional changes that make the federal system work better, constitutional change becomes easier.

The day before he met Romanow, Dion explained his support for federalism in a speech to federal government officials. He talked about how flexible Canadian federalism has struck the right balance between two key principles at the heart of Canada: solidarity and diversity.

"My academic research and my new experience within the government lead me to conclude that a great deal of the criticism of Canadian federalism is based more on myth than reality," Dion said.

"Canada has attained a level of democracy, freedom, fairness and prosperity that is almost unequalled in the world, in large part because we Canadians have been intelligent enough to develop a way of practising federalism that well reflects the ideals of solidarity and respect for diversity."

Perhaps what is most encouraging about Dion is that he recognizes how the truth about federalism has been distorted by those who wish to destroy it. He concedes that during the past decade those who believe in Canadian federalism, himself included, have not made the effort necessary to defend the system to Canadians.

"By leaving the field open to our opponents, we have let a number of myths and falsehoods about our federation take root in public opinion."

One myth is the belief that Ottawa has too much power. Dion recites statistics that show a clear shift in power from Ottawa to the provinces over the last four decades. For example, Ottawa collected $3.30 for every $1 of provincial revenue in 1950. In 1993, it collected only $1.20.

Another who makes the same point is Greg Marchildon, Saskatchewan's deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs, a former professor of international studies at Johns Hopkins University. In an essay entitled "Fin de Siecle Canada: The Federal Government In Retreat" published as a chapter in a book on the crisis of nation-states around the world, Marchildon uses statistics to show how decentralized Canada has become.

"Canada is the most decentralized country in the advanced industrialized world," Marchildon writes. "With the weakest central government relative to the United States, Germany, and most surprising, Switzerland - the country conventionally thought of as the most decentralized in the OECD - Canada also lays claim to the weakest government at the municipal or local levels . . . Canadian provinces exercise a degree of political power unmatched among substate units in the OECD."

While the system isn't perfect, and there is a need to align Ottawa's spending powers with the provinces' political power, no one should believe federalism hasn't served all Canadians well.

Including, as Dion will tell you, Canadians who live in Quebec.

If ever there was a symbol of misplaced government priorities, it is the hospital in La Loche. Nothing else stands out so vividly as an example of how politics can fail us.

La Loche is perhaps Saskatchewan's most poverty-stricken community. Isolated in the far north with no natural economic base, the town is constantly struggling with its grim reality.

Welfare is the primary source of income for the vast majority of the adults in the town of 3,000. Some estimates have placed the unemployment rate in La Loche at more than 80 per cent.

The result is a community that for decades has been crippled by an endless cycle of social problems. Alcohol abuse is rampant, teenage pregnancy is common, crime is an everyday fact of life and there is little hope the future will be any better.

As well, La Loche has the reputation for being a health-care nightmare. On an average day, as many as 60 patients will visit the local clinic and another 10 to 15 calls will be received after hours. Infectious disease is a huge health-care problem, with the rates for tuberculosis and meningitis in La Loche far higher than in the rest of the province.

Into this mix you can add St. Martin's Hospital. By southern Saskatchewan standards, this facility would almost certainly be condemned and not allowed to exist. The hospital is nothing more than industrial trailers strung together to form a makeshift hospital that tries to cope with the overwhelming health problems of the community.

As a structure, the hospital itself is falling apart. Created as a temporary facility, it's lifespan was thought to be no more than 10 years. That was in 1981. The hospital has been infested with mice; at times, weasels have taken refuge inside; and during the summer, bats have been found lurking in ceiling crevices. Recently, the front door fell off its hinges.

There are three doctors who try to cope with the health-care situation in La Loche. They take turns working in the community, fighting what must seem like a losing battle in a community the rest of the province has forgotten.

Infrequently, the reality of La Loche intrudes on our lives. It happened again the other day when the Liberals' Buckley Belanger, the MLA for La Loche, talked about how the Romanow government makes millions of dollars in resource revenues from the north, but cannot provide even the most basic health-care standards.

There is no better example of this neglect than St. Martin's Hospital. It stands as irrefutable evidence of how government fails the very people who need it the most.

What makes the La Loche hospital example all the more scandalous is when you put it into the context of the government's other priorities in the town.

Just over two years ago, the government opened a new, state-of-the-art, high-volume liquor store in La Loche. The facility is every bit as good as anything you'll find in urban areas of southern Saskatchewan.

The new liquor store was built for two reasons. One was because the old facility couldn't handle the volume of sales; the other was the community wanted to move the liquor store away from the residential area where it was located, because people would stand around outside and drink after buying their liquor.

The contrast of a new liquor store - in a community beset by alcoholism and all the serious social problems it brings - down the street from a ramshackle St. Martin's Hospital tells us everything we need to know about the moral failing of government and politics.

The reason this is allowed to happen is because government knows it can get away with it. If La Loche were not an isolated northern community, far away from media centres and the public eye, St. Martin's Hospital would not be allowed to exist. The public outrage and political pressure would be such that government would be forced to act.

But, as it is, government can use and abuse the people of La Loche and get away with it. It can ignore the desperate hospital needs of La Loche people on one hand, and exploit them on the other by making sure they have a fancy and well-stocked liquor store, and not worry about the consequences.

The reason is simple. La Loche and its people have no political influence. They are out of sight and out of mind.

The sad truth is that government responds to the imperatives of politics. If anything demonstrates that government, in and of itself, is not a moral agent for good, it is the La Loche hospital.

This is a situation that has existed for many years. The shame of La Loche reaches far back and taints not only this government, but the Grant Devine Tories and the Allan Blakeney government before that.

It has been allowed to continue because politics doesn't require that it be addressed. Those in power know they can ignore the suffering of La Loche and not suffer the consequences.

So they do.

Back to Archive Index

Go to Leader-Star May 1996 Archive