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Leader-Star News Service June 1997 Archive |
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Leader-Star News Service June 1997 Archive |
As CTV anchor Lloyd Robertson appeared before them, a strange mix of jubilation and apprehension overtook Wascana MP-elect Ralph Goodale's most loyal supporters.
A thin -- I mean razor-thin -- Liberal majority was likely, according to the numbers that were flashing on the television set at Goodale campaign headquarters at 8:30 p.m. Monday.
150 Liberal seats ... "Two more," the Goodale workers hollered, noting the 152 needed for a clear majority in Canada's 301-seat Parliament.
"Yes, one more," screamed an enthusiastic worker as the number turned over to 151.
And then there was a strange quiet until a woman noted out loud what most of room seemed to be thinking.
"It will be Ralph Goodale's seat," a woman said quietly.
A hush of agreement overtook the room.
If there is one single, lone Liberal Saskatchewan could always count on, it's Goodale.
Actually, though, it didn't quite work out that way.
A handful of B.C. Liberals -- whose polls had closed a half-hour before Saskatchewan -- gave the Liberals their majority (155 seats as of deadline) before Goodale had the chance.
But what everyone at Goodale's campaign headquarters had simultaneously recognized at that moment is their candidate -- the minister of agriculture these past 31Ž2 years and the man the National Citizen's Coalition had labeled as their "Prince of Darkness" -- would again be the only Saskatchewan Liberal that would come through.
It is a role in Saskatchewan politics that Goodale has been all too familiar with during his 23-year political career.
As a 24-year-old fresh out of the University of Saskatchewan law school and not long out of his hometown of Wilcox, Goodale was first elected to Parliament as the Assiniboia MP in 1974.
Those must have been heady days for the young man -- serving as Transportation Minister Otto Lang's parliamentary secretary. The Liberals had just rebounded from a minority situation in 1972 to a comfortable 18-seat majority.
But along came Joe Clark and a PC minority in 1979. And out went Goodale and all the Saskatchewan Liberals as the province would divide its political allegiances -- both provincially and federally -- between the PCs and the NDP for the next 14 years.
For a decade and a half, Goodale wandered the political wilderness.
After the provincial Liberals were also obliterated from the political map in the 1978 provincial election, Goodale assumed the job that no one else wanted as leader of the Saskatchewan Liberals.
He had already taken a stab at provincial politics in the Estevan by-election in November 1980 -- a seat made vacant so the new PC leader of the time, Grant Devine, would wind up in the assembly. But about all Goodale accomplished in the Estevan by-election was enough of a vote split to allow the NDP to win.
Goodale did lead the Saskatchewan party through the 1982 election -- the latter days of the Trudeau years when times were so bad for Saskatchewan Liberals that they ran under green colors instead of the party's traditional red. The Liberals only registered four per cent of the popular vote.
He was able to more than double that popular vote total to almost 10 per cent in 1986, running a hard and honorable campaign of deficit reduction. (Conversely, both the NDP and the re-elected PCs shamelessly attempted to out-promise each other with low-interest loans and massive home improvement grants.) Goodale was the only Saskatchewan Liberal elected -- the only Liberal elected to the assembly in 11 years.
But he left the provincial leadership and Saskatchewan's legislative assembly in 1988 to take a second stab at federal politics, only to lose to popular Regina mayor Larry Schneider.
Goodale would be back in 1993. He would beat Schneider and be joined by four other Grits from this province -- the biggest Saskatchewan Liberal federal caucus since 1953.
It would last just 31Ž2 years, ending last night and leaving Goodale in the role he knows all too well.
He survived the National Citizen's Coalition, angry right-wing farmers encouraging voters to vote for anyone else, the Reform party wave that washed over into Saskatchewan and even what many New Democrats thought was a serious threat.
But perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised.
For 23 years, Goodale has been the one -- and sometimes only -- Liberal the party could count on in this province.
And, again, he has come through for his party when no one else would or could.
As this campaign was drawing to a close, one long-time New Democrat, only half-jokingly, observed: "We used to hate the old-line parties until we became one."
If not profound, it was certainly an honest admission -- one that quite accurately captured Monday night's sentiment of Saskatchewan, Western and virtually all other Canadian voters, with the exception of some new-found supporters in the Maritimes.
For all the fuss about the NDP's shocking breakthrough on the East Coast and its regaining of party status with 21 seats, Monday was not a great night for the NDP.
In fact, there have been only three election nights since the NDP became the NDP in 1961 when it has done worse: 1963, 17 seats; 1974, 16 seats; and 1993, nine seats.
Measured by any standard other than how low the NDP sank in 1993, there is no way the party would dare claim victory.
True, winning six seats in Nova Scotia and another two in New Brunswick was claiming a new frontier. (Add a three-seat gain in Manitoba and a one-seat gain in B.C. and the NDP actually gained seats in four provinces.)
It can also be argued that Monday night -- even with three of four opposition parties increasing their seat total from 1993, while the Liberals were returned with a majority government -- wasn't exactly fulfilling for any party.
The Liberals' majority slid from 177 in 1993 to 1997's wasp-wing thin 155-member caucus -- 65 per cent of which come from Ontario and only 18 per cent which come from somewhere other than Ontario and Quebec.
Reform did gain 10 seats (one in B.C., two in Alberta, four in Saskatchewan and two in Manitoba) for a total of 60, but screeched to a halt at the Manitoba/Ontario border. Like the NDP, the PCs' success is only evident when weighed against the devastation of 1993.
And the Bloc Quebecois lost 10 seats (down to 44) along with its status as the Official Opposition.
All this has left Canada a nation fractured by regionalism -- the Reform in the West, the Liberals in Ontario, the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces divvied up among the NDP, Liberals and Tories.
It's a virtual political stalemate.
Call it a Mexican stand-off, Canadian style. But none of this has stopped any of the parties from claiming victory and among the more ludicrous victory claims came from federal NDP Leader Alexa McDonough when she explained hers was the only "national opposition party" because it elected MPs from sea to sea. If so, the NDP has become the nation's biggest doughnut because it's got nothing in the middle.
Alert Tim Horton's.
The best the NDP could do in any of Quebec's 75 seats is an extremely distant fourth. (In 10 Quebec ridings, the NDP finished fifth -- six times behind the Reform.)
And while the NDP did manage to come a distant second in 20 Ontario seats and third in another eight, things weren't much better there. In the remaining 75 Ontario seats, the NDP was at least fourth (fifth, in one case) and finished behind the Reform in each case.
But it was in its traditional Western base where the NDP really stalled as Reformers claimed 60 of the 86 Western seats, including eight of 14 in Saskatchewan.
Premier Roy Romanow chalked up the meagre five Saskatchewan NDP seats (the same as 1993) to getting caught in the splits -- a feeble election-night excuse if there ever was one.
For the entire campaign, New Democrats argued the problem with the last Parliament was there were too many right-wing parties in the Liberals, Reform and PCs. If ever any party was positioned to take advantage of the splits, it should have been the NDP.
But what was crystal Monday is remarkably few of the Canadian electorate -- except in a couple of pockets in the job-ravenous Maritimes -- saw the need for the tax-and-spend alternative envisioned in the NDP campaign platform.
Not the Ontario auto worker supposedly ravaged by Mike Harris. Not the supposedly laid-back West Coasters who again flocked to Reform.
And not even the Saskatchewan farmer who was told incessantly by the NDP and its provincial government that Reformers were extremist who didn't share Saskatchewan values.
With only one provincial government and eight of 54 federal seats on the prairies, the NDP has even lost its claim as party of Prairie populism. That title now rightfully belongs to Reform.
Like the PCs and Liberals, the NDP, too, seemed very much an old-line party Monday night.
So let me get this straight.
Former Saskatchewan PC cabinet minister Lorne Kopelchuk is charged under section 380 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code of Canada with theft under $5,000 -- an indictable offense that carries a maximum two-year imprisonment -- for using $1,568 from the wrong MLA's expense allowance to buy a lectern.
After a four-day trial at considerable cost to Kopelchuk's personal reputation and bank account, the judge concluded there was no evidence to suggest the former PC MLA attempted to deceive anyone. (The podium, incidentally, had been earlier donated to a local community centre.)
Kopelchuk's lawyer Orest Rosowsky questioned why his client was charged in the first place: "I think the people of Saskatchewan are entitled to even-handed justice and we don't have even-handed justice here," the lawyer said.
But the Crown prosecutor Eric Neufeld maintained laying the charge against Kopelchuk had been "in the public's interest" and airing the matter in open court showed the system worked ...
Saskatchewan's Chief Electoral Officer releases a report that concluded the province's Election Act may have been violated on at least 12 different occasions (six by the PC party and five by the NDP) involving more than one million dollars.
The PCs raised $685,000 in anonymous donations from a secret trust fund, while the New Democrats raised $430,000 in confidential donations that passed through a charitable organization known as Tommy Douglas House Inc.
Yet Saskatchewan's Chief Electoral Officer Myron Kuziak, an employee of Premier Roy Romanow's office, announced Tuesday he would not press charges.
On the advice of the Department of Justice -- the same office that deemed it "in the public interest" to lay criminal charges against Kopelchuk -- Kuziak said "it was not in the public interest" to lay charges against the political parties, their candidates or their official agents.
Kuziak's nine-page report is made public June 3. On June 2, Dick Proctor -- the NDP's former executive director and one of the NDP's official agents at the time some of the offenses "may" have occurred -- was elected as the New Democratic MP for Palliser ...
Myron Kuziak did not do his job and the only possible reason anyone could have for not demanding Kuziak's resignation today is the reality that the chief electoral officer has been nothing more than a $73,385-a-year patronage appointment, anyway.
Kuziak, son of a CCF cabinet minister, is the latest chief electoral officer in a merry list of political appointments to the job -- PC's Keith Lampard, former federal NDP candidate Dickson Bailey, former NDP provincial secretary and now SaskPower V-P Carole Bryant ... (It was Lampard who once asked a reporter in 1990: "Why is it any of (the public's) business" who donates to political parties?)
To single out Kuziak for firing after a long list of chief electoral officers who sometimes were equally cavalier in their responsibilities would seem a tad unfair.
A far better solution would be to eliminate the job from the premier's office, altogether.
Open it to competition and make it an independent office of the legislative assembly to be filled by a qualified independent officer like the provincial auditor.
And for anyone who thinks that's unduly harsh treatment of Kuziak, consider the way he's conducted himself in this whole sorry affair.
After a year's worth of "investigating" Kuziak releases a scant nine-page report Tuesday that concludes: There is no evidence that the political parties' refusal to disclose the names of donors "was for the purpose of deceiving anybody."
Asked then by reporters if he even asked the fundraisers involved why they were operating secret funds, Kuziak said he didn't ask about the funds' purposes.
(In fact, PC principals said in other court proceedings their fund was a way around the law. And businesses have told Leader-Star they donated to Tommy Douglas House Inc. to avoid disclosure.)
Ah, but Kuziak was simply following a legal opinion from justice that pressing charges wasn't in the public's interest, you say?
One wonders how Kopelchuk feels about that.
Kopelchuk inadvertently uses a wrong expense account to pay for a podium and he faces a criminal charge and a potential two-year jail sentence. But the hierarchies of the NDP and PCs use secret accounts to deliberately avoid the law requiring disclosure of millions of dollars in political donations and an employee of the premier's office deems it's "not in the public interest" to pursue this matter?
No outside legal opinion.
No disclosure of the reasoning.
No charges.
End of story.
Where, as Kopelchuk's lawyer once asked, is the "even-handed" justice?
Live free or die.
Given the apocalyptic tone of the slogan the New Hampshire motor vehicles registry plasters on its licence plates, you think there might be one other place where they take their politics just a wee bit too seriously?
Politics is undoubtedly a big deal in New Hampshire, the first state to hold the U.S. primaries every four years.
But other than ensuring that out-of-state motorists offer a generously wide berth to New Hampshire semi-trucks, what's really accomplished by having "live free or die" on your front bumper?
Are tourists flocking to New Hampshire to enjoy the wonders of its democratic freedoms that aren't afforded to them in Vermont?
By nature, licence plate slogans should be inoffensively benign, shamelessly self-promoting and, hopefully, charmingly descriptive.
If God had wanted us to make a political statement on our licence plates, He'd have never invented bumper stickers.
Bumper stickers are free speech. State-endorsed political mottos on the license plate of every car, truck, RV, tractor and moped in your jurisdiction are just annoying.
It's my firmly held belief that the real rise in Quebec nationalism and ensuing national unity debate only caught fire when Quebec motorists replaced "La Belle Province" on their licence plates with "Je me souviens" ("I remember." For those who have been curious, Je me souviens is the motto of Quebec inscribed beneath its Coat of Arms since 1883. What's being recalled are the so-called "old values" like the French language and customs.)
Kudos to Economic Development Minister Dwain Lingenfelter for deciding it was time to replace Saskatchewan's rather drab, sloganless licence plates with a made-in-Saskatchewan one. (The winner of the recently announced plate slogan contest will receive a $5,000 Saskatchewan vacation and personalized licence plates. Entries can be no more than 22 characters, including spaces between words.)
Already, some wonderfully vivid suggestions have been bantered about. "Canada's home town." "The world's breadbasket." (Which certainly beats Tisdale's motto of "the land of rape and honey.") "Heavenly horizons." Or how about "Flat is where it's at"?
My personal favorite is "Green is the color" (or "colour") -- a slogan that would aptly and equally demonstrate our affection for our provincial color, our summers and the growing wheat crops, and, of course, the football team. (Given Reform's breakthrough with eight Saskatchewan federal seats Monday night, this slogan, too, may now be seen as too political.)
Also, we're already seeing a fine demonstration of this province's wry (or perhaps rye) wit: "But it's a dry cold." "No place to bobsled." "We got Biggar and Dummar." "Home of Dick Assman." (Hey, it gave us worldwide attention once.) "Wanna play quarterback." "Watch your dog run away for three days." (Admittedly, a bit long.)
But given the political nature of the people that live here, don't be surprised if even a licence-plate-slogan contest takes on political overtones.
In fact, we've already seen some such political overtones -- all be they tongue-in-cheek.
PC Bill Boyd immediate contribution was "bump ahead" because: "No matter where you're driving on Saskatchewan highways," said the PC leader, "it's true." Boyd also offered "Home of the Guyana Power Company" but acknowledged it was too long.
Certainly, no one in Saskatchewan (with the possible exception of Farmers for Justice) is going to suggest something like "Live free or die."
Don't be surprised, however, if we have a controversy over "Birthplace of Medicare" before this licence plate slogan contest is over.
So here's my contribution to the great Saskatchewan licence plate slogan contest. He are the top 10 entries that should immediately be rejected because of their political overtones:
10. "Eventually I'll be exonerated." (It hasn't worked for Colin Thatcher yet, either.)
9. "Canada's lap-dancing capital." (Soon to change, anyway.)
8. "No Spandex, please."
7. "Next job 200 miles west." (Not so fast. See the latest Saskatchewan employment stats?)
6. "Land O' Lingenfelter."
5. "Tax me. Tax me again."
4. "Je ne me souviens pas. " (I do not remember -- the oft-repeated and proud tribute to the days of Tory trial testimony.)
3. "You are now entering Saskatchewan. Please refrain from operating heavy equipment if you are taking prescribed cold medication or are listening to a Harry Van Mulligen legislative speech." (Too long and too political, but sage advice, nonetheless.)
2. "Work for government or move elsewhere."
And the No. 1 licence plate slogan contest entry rejected because of its political overtones:
"Open the books. Jail the Crooks."
I hope this has been helpful.
Give Round Two in the unofficial battle to replace Premier Roy Romanow clearly and decisively to Economic Development Minister Dwain Lingenfelter.
The few jabs credited to Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon this round did nothing more than provide Lingenfelter with the openings he needed to score big himself.
A Saskatchewan workforce of 485,100 -- an additional 14,700 people working in May than a year ago -- is, for the economic development minister, the political equivalent of a haymaker to the chin.
But before we review the blow-by-blow, a quick review of the Marquis of Queensbury rules of NDP politics.
Technically, there is no NDP leadership race until the current leader vacates the premier's chair. About the only thing that may remove Romanow -- who, believe it or not, is actually older than George Foreman -- is death by old age. (And is there any evidence that Romanow is actually aging?)
However, nothing is stopping the unofficial and unsanctioned fight among high-ranking NDP cabinet ministers for the best position to succeed Romanow.
And Saskatchewan's May numbers have given Lingenfelter a big boost in that battle.
The 485,100 is the most people working in Saskatchewan since July, 1987. In fact, in the past 23 years, the only time when there have been more Saskatchewan people working is in July and August of 1986. (Actually, those job numbers were likely artificially high, given the amount of money the Devine government was pumping into the construction of megaprojects like the Weyerhaueuser paper mill and the upgraders.)
More amazingly, the recent workforce number comes in May. June, July and August numbers are always higher, so this news is a harbinger of better things to come.
Also, the May workforce is now part of a five-month trend in employment growth. The average workforce for the first five months of 1997 was 460,300 working people -- an increase of 8,000 from the first five months of 1996 and 1995 and 16,000 from the first five months of 1994.
As statistical expert Doug Elliott, author of Sask Trends Monitor, puts it: "It's real."
"I'm surprised, but not surprised if you know what I mean," said Elliott, who, like me, not so long ago believed the NDP government did not have a hope of even making its modest 1992 target of 30,000 new jobs by 2000. (Doug will be joining me for our lovely crow supper.)
"It's come just about at the time I'd given up (on seeing significant job creation)."
Elliott said there is no simple explanation to this year's sudden spurt, but he does have a theory.
The finance department has insisted that last year's slow job growth -- only 1,000 more working people in 1996 than 1995 -- was not so bad because more people were working full time in 1996 as indicated by the 3.3-per-cent increase in payroll income last year.
Well, in the first few months of 1997, there's been a 6.9-per-cent increase in payroll income over the same period last year along with the 8,000 more working people, Elliott notes. That likely means both more full-time and part-time employment in Saskatchewan.
The other thing that makes the May job numbers real is where the jobs aren't coming from, Elliott said. May jobs in agriculture (a sector that often distorts the figures) are actually down 2.3 per cent from last May. Public sectors jobs are down 11 per cent (so it isn't because of artificially high government hiring) and, perhaps most surprisingly, retail and wholesale trade jobs are down 2.6 per cent.
As MacKinnon and her financial officials had accurately predicted for years, the lowering of the provincial sales tax to seven per cent in the March budget had no direct effect on job creation.
Bad news for her. Great news for Lingenfelter.
Lingenfelter has consistently been the biggest cheerleader for the Saskatchewan economy. He was the one who consistently insisted that major job growth was just around the corner. He was the one who took it on the chin when job growth lagged behind Alberta and even Manitoba.
Now, he, is the one who reaps the credit for the job creation turnaround.
In the political context, the significance of this issue can't be missed. It was a lack of jobs -- the children leaving home for Alberta -- that cost the NDP power in 1982. The NDP's 1991 election campaign played on the same theme.
Job creation was Lingenfelter's glass jaw. It sent him to the canvas a couple of times.
But look who's dancing around the ring now.
It was the morning after the Monday federal vote and, already, at least one long knife was out.
"It's not that (newly appointed Natural Resources Minister Ralph) Goodale doesn't have very wide coat-tails," fumed the long-time Liberal.
"He has no coat-tails."
As someone who had never been a huge Goodale fan, the observation from this Saskatchewan Liberal -- a prominent and long-standing one -- was self-serving.
But there also happened to be some truth in it.
Goodale toured Saskatchewan on at least three occasions during the campaign -- including the first four days when he hit seven communities -- with the expectation he'd deliver the vote. (He also hit rural Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Manitoba as part of the national Liberal campaign.)
It wasn't even close to enough.
All of Saskatchewan's first-time Liberal MPs -- Georgette Sheridan, Morris Bodnar, Gordon Kirkby and Bernie Collins -- went down to defeat election night, leaving Goodale as the province's lone government MP.
To totally blame Goodale for their demise is unfair. If any minister can be singled out for the loss of Liberal seats in the West, it's likely former justice (and now Health Minister) Allan Rock for persisting with Bill C-68.
Saskatchewan voters were afforded the opportunity 10 days ago to punish not one but two arrogant and out-of-touch governments -- one Liberal in Ottawa and the other New Democrat in Regina.
They proceeded to do so, by electing eight of 14 Reform MPs.
But it was equally apparent last week that Goodale had little ability to stem this tide. In some ways, he added to it.
As agriculture minister and minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board, he oversaw a dramatic upswing in the industry's prosperity. Western farm land has increased 11 per cent alone this year from the year previous.
However, Goodale also oversaw the demise of the Crow rate and the proposed changes to the CWB. The latter culminated in the February plebiscite on the marketing of barley under the board based on the one-side, all-or-nothing question that Goodale, himself, had written.
Goodale took the preferred route of federal agriculture ministers before him who've all catered to the interest of the largest farm group, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. What he did not grasp, however, is that the unwavering enthusiasm of the Pool and the NDP government to keep the CWB in its current form is not shared by mainstream western agriculture anymore.
Even Goodale's decidedly biased question -- whether farmers supported all of their barley marketed under the CWB or none of their barley marketed under the CWB -- showed a shocking 37 per cent suggested they could get along without the board.
But having taken a firm position in support of the CWB, Goodale had already alienated the right-of-centre farmers and groups clamoring for changes beyond elected directors. Meanwhile, left-of-centre farmers and farm groups were inclined to vote NDP anyway.
Goodale easily won his own largely urban Wascana riding.
But you likely won't be surprised to find out he lost 10 of the only 11 rural polls in Wascana -- nine to Reform and one to the NDP.
The problems Goodale had achieving compromise among the divisive and headstrong farming community mirrored the problems he has had seeking compromise among the equally divisive and headstrong Saskatchewan Liberals.
What particularly rankled the day-after-the-election Liberal caller -- a strong supporter of Goodale nemesis Tony Merchant -- is what he described as Goodale's penchant for rewarding those closest to him while shutting out everyone else in the party.
Appeasing the group seen as the mainstream. Alienating the ever-growing and vocal fringe. Sound familiar?
So perhaps it's not surprising that Goodale has been rewarded -- or punished, depending on how you look at it -- with a lateral move in Prime Minister Jean Chretien's new cabinet.
He loses agriculture, but gets the equally high-profile energy portfolio. With the provinces now controlling most of the energy jurisdiction, however, it's hardly an increase in responsibilities.
But Goodale did get to keep the CWB -- a curse perhaps, but nevertheless crucial to Saskatchewan interests. It gives Goodale a chance to finish the unfinished business of CWB changes and stands as a vote of confidence from the PM on Goodale's handling of the issue. (There again, was there another Prairie MP Chretien could have given the CWB to?)
Also, Goodale remains chair of cabinet's influential economic unity committee.
He gets a bit of reward. A bit of punishment. A lot of compromise.
Not unlike Ralph Goodale's own style of politics, come to think of it.
The past week in the life of this country saw the passing of a social democratic MP who perhaps contributed more to our well-being than anyone.
It also saw the appointment of a new 27-member federal Liberal cabinet that sent the loud message, Prime Minister Jean Chretien intends to stay the fiscal-restraint course.
The two events somewhat capsulate our nation's discord.
Many see the egress from the late Winnipeg North Centre CCF/NDP MP Stanley Knowles's legacy -- his fight for higher wages, the Canada Pension Plan and better health care and housing for all Canadians -- to the return of another tight-fisted federal cabinet dominated by Finance Minister Paul Martin as what's been wrong with this country.
But maybe we've viewed the apparent contradiction the wrong way.
Maybe, just maybe, it's the combination of what Knowles did and what Martin and company are trying to do that's been what's so very right about Canada.
Also this week, Canada was named by United Nations Human Development Report as the best country on earth to live.
Consider why this honor -- for the fourth consecutive year -- is again being bestowed on the people north of the 49th.
The UN scale that ranked Canada first ahead of France, Norway, United States and Iceland (in that order) measures living standards according to life expectancy, education, access to health care and income.
On a scale where 1.000 would be considered perfect, Canada's ranking this year was .960 -- an increase from its best-in-the-world .951 ranking last year.
Only the Japanese live longer, the UN study shows. And only 5.7 per cent of Canadian elderly live below the poverty line (compared with an average 11.7 per cent for the rest of the industrialized world.)
For such privileges, we have the late Stanley Knowles to thank.
My very first opportunity to vote as a 19-year-old college student in 1979, was for Stanley Knowles in Winnipeg North Centre.
The 12,635 votes he garnered (more than the other five other candidates, combined) that election were, as always, less of a political statement than an out-pouring of affection for the selflessness of a United Church minister. For 38 years, he used Parliament rather than the pulpit to fight for a better quality of life for the people.
A common lament heard since his death Monday is today's Parliament and legislatures are in need of more Knowleses and less Paul Martins.
Let's be realistic here. We need both.
Virtually nothing in the UN report in areas of literacy, education or life expectancy distinguished Canada from social democratic countries like Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Where Canada pulled ahead of these nations, however, is in the real-GDP-per-capita category. Among the top 25 nations in the UN report, Canada's $21,459 (US) is only exceeded by the U.S., Japan and Hong Kong.
For this strong showing, we also owe thanks to Martin's determination to slash the federal debt. In fact, Canada's per capita GDP number this year has substantially increased from last year's $20,950.
Of course, politicians who fight for fiscal reform have never been seen as altruistic as those who fight for social justice.
But you don't have to wander very far from home to see that one is at least as important as the other.
Using the same standards as in the UN report, it was determined last year that Saskatchewan was the best province in the best country in the world to live in. Given our province's growth in GDP, jobs and individual income, there is little to suggest we will relinquish our title this year.
Now consider the heat Premier Roy Romanow and his government has taken for closing hospitals, underfunding schools and raising taxes.
Maybe, just maybe, if you look at the UN study, the balance that Romanow has strived for hasn't been so bad after all.
This is not to say the job's been perfect. Or that we live in the perfect province. Or the perfect country. There will be arguments each and every election over which combination of social programs and financial responsibility offered by the Liberals, New Democrats, Tories and now Reformers is better.
But make no mistake. Canada's success is because we've enjoyed a pretty wonderful mix.
It was Knowles and Douglas and Diefenbaker and Trudeau that gave us pensions and medicare. It's been any number of fiscally responsible governments -- both, federal and provincial -- that have given us our standards of living.
For having both, we Canadians should be as grateful as the rest of the world is envious.
By the end of this working day, the following observation and question will, no doubt, have darted across your mind:
We've just spent 16 months and $3.4 million to review Saskatchewan's 12 Crown corporations and $8 billion in total Crown assets.
For what?
What you will see later this morning when the Saskatchewan government officially releases its long-awaited, 50-page response to the Crown review begs the immediately question: Is this all we got for our time and trouble?
"This will not meet anybody's expectation," says one highly placed government source. "I assure you that the right (pro-privatization) will be unhappy.
"And that the rock-hard NDP will be as ----ed off."
The so-called Talking About Saskatchewan Crowns (TASC) process targeted three major areas that affect the operation of Crowns: ownership, governance and accountability.
And to absolutely no one's surprise, today's report recommends no changes in the most critical area of the three -- the issue of ownership.
In short, no privatization.
Privatization is neither what the public wishes nor what is in the public's best interest, says the report in terms only slightly more polite than the NDP's own mantra of the past 10 years.
After all. Why bother?
The big five Crowns -- SaskPower, SaskTel, Sask Energy, Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) and Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) -- are, collectively, in pretty good shape, the report concludes in its initial 15-page assessment of the Crowns' relative strengths and weaknesses.
And even the glaring exception to that rule -- STC, that has lost an accumulated $59 million -- is not going to be placed on the blocks. Highways Minister Clay Serby already confirmed last week that STC will operate through a subsidy from the provincial treasury.
(Government sources say a proposal has already gone before cabinet's influential planning and priorities committee that would see the government forgive $24.3 million of STC's debt, limit STC's annual operating budget to a grant of $6 million, reduce its operating line of credit to $1 million annually and require STC to go before its board for any additional funding.)
In fact, the umbrella approach of today's Crown report does not give details of the Crown sector operations.
Nor will you find many meaningful changes in Crown accountability in today's report. The Crowns are already accountable to the legislature because of their existing legal requirements to file annual reports in the assembly.
That simply leaves the issue of governance. Given that the report calls on the Crowns to remain under public ownership, its hard to see where governance of the Crowns -- ultimately, in the hands of the governing party of the day -- changes.
But as is so often the case in government, change is a slothful and ponderous beast.
What you have to look for in today's report, sources say, is "the wording and phraseology" in the areas of the document dealing with governance.
An intriguing and somewhat unusual word begins to creep in.
"Independence."
To date, the operations of any Saskatchewan Crown fall under the purview of its president and board of directors -- more often than not, partisans whose loyalty is foremost to the governing party of the day.
The most intriguing aspect of today's report is what amounts to a call for more professionalism and independence on future Crown boards. Also, the role of the minister in charge of a Crown as a member of that Crown's board of directors is apt to change.
Albeit a subtle one, sources argue that this is a major step toward ending direct involvement -- something the public demanded in the TASC process -- in the operations of Crowns by politicians and their appointees.
(No doubt, any movement toward professional, non-partisan board members will, as suggested by the source earlier, anger some long-time governing New Democrats.)
As for the place where politicians traditionally interfere most in the Crowns -- the area of setting rates -- there are only a scant two paragraphs out of 50 pages on the subject.
But sources say they are a critical two paragraphs that will serve as the precursor to a future replacement of today's rubber stamping 45-day review period.
So on the upside, today's report could spell changes in how much political interference is tolerated in the Crowns and how rates may one day be determined.
On the downside, we've just spent 11Ž3 years and $3.4 million to tell us things we should have known long ago.
Above all else, today's report may show how costly and slow change in government really is.
NDP Inc. Based on the NDP government's new direction for Saskatchewan's Crown corporations, who would dispute the NDP's transition from political party to corporate entity is now complete?
Much of the criticism of Crown Investment Corp. (CIC) Minister Berny Wiens' Crown corporation review has focused on what was not in the report.
Rightfully so.
Except for Wiens' vague promise to replace the laughable 45-day rate review process each Crown goes through before it gouges us with another rate hike, nothing in the report protects us from monopoly utilities continuing to charge whatever they want.
And contrary to government spin, the new direction gives us less accountability -- not more.
Crowns will still be run by CEOs, presidents and vice-presidents loyal to the governing party of the day. Labor, consumer or even industry "experts" appointed to the new Crown boards could also just happen to be loyal New Democrats.
Worst of all, removal of ministers from boards and removal of their designations of "minister responsible for" various Crowns means we will be forced to go directly to the Crowns for accountability. Imagine how many more answers us taxpayers will get from the likes of SaskPower's Jack Messer and his ever-co-operative public relations staff.
Nor does the report leave room for privatization (regardless of some very paranoid interpretations from labor and the left.)
The second page of the final Crown report clearly states that the value of the five major Crowns totals $5.5 billion with $3 billion in debt, leaving only a $2.5-billion profit from a sale.
What it ignores is the fact that privatized corporations also happen to be a source of income for government.
PC Leader Bill Boyd points out the combined profits last year of SGI ($21.6 million), SaskTel ($84 million) SaskEnergy ($73.3 million ) and SaskPower ($139.2 million, not including that extra $14-million profit it has squirreled away from those $2-a-month reconstruction charge you are forced to pay) total $318.2 million. At the going corporate income tax rate of 17 per cent, Boyd notes, a privatized version of these profitable companies would yield the government $54.2 million in income tax -- $4.2 million more than the most-ever $50 million dividend CIC paid the government this year.
But rather than the missed opportunities to meaningfully debate privatization, develop a rate review mechanism or become more accountable and less political, what the NDP government's new Crown direction Wednesday really did was affirm its identity as the corporate NDP.
Everything from the language explaining the new "businesslike, professional, corporate" approach to the content of the report shows how corporate the governing NDP have suddenly become.
Whomever becomes CIC Minister today (bet that it will be Dwain Lingenfelter, considering it's now the best job in government) becomes the head of an $8-billion corporation -- the biggest in Saskatchewan.
Like any one of the evil big corporations federal NDP Leader Alexa McDonough would dearly love to tax back to the Stone Age, the new CIC Inc. will be a massive, divested conglomerate of financial, stock, oil, energy, insurance and real estate interests that streamlines to one CEO (President John Wright) and one significant shareholder (Lingenfelter, or whomever becomes the new CIC Minister) that gladly handles the proxies of the rest of us shareholders.
And like any of those injurious private corporations, Saskatchewan Crown boards of directors, too, will now be salted with supposed heavyweights of the corporate world whose emphasis will be profit over delivery of service.
Long before Weins' announcement Wednesday, such concerns already were daunting labor and the NDP left -- concerns that their party had lost sight of why Tommy Douglas built the Crowns in the first place.
Nothing in Wiens' comments will reassure them. (It may be time for the left to either mount a hostile takeover of Corporate NDP or sell their shares and get out.)
Asked about rate review, Wiens explained the advent of competition in all utility Crowns (except SGI) will mean the competitive marketplace that will dictate future utility rates.
No, this is not a departure from fundamental social democratic belief, Wiens explained. After all, it was former NDP premier Allan Blakeney (the guy who nationalized the potash mines) who once said: "Social democrats have never made judgment based on ideology. They've made them the on pragmatic needs of the day."
Funny.
Ask any Fortune 500 CEO how they've made their decisions and they'll tell you about the same thing.
But telling large corporations apart from Saskatchewan Crowns isn't all that easy anymore.
Give Round Three in the battle to replace Roy Romanow as NDP premier to Dwain Lingenfelter.
As the new super minister of the Crown Investment Corp. (CIC), Lingenfelter got the job that he, Janice MacKinnon and every other would-be contender for the title belt in provincial politics wanted.
But while you won't be hearing anguished cries of "We-wuz-robbed!" wafting from the Lingenfelter/Simard Condie Mansion this morning, there may be a few in Lingenfelter's corner a bit unsettled by Friday's cabinet shuffle.
His landing of the new CIC super ministry wasn't the knockout punch some thought it might be.
In fact, in a cabinet shuffle Friday that otherwise lacked imagination, one of the few creative things Romanow did is keep the main contender to the premier's job somewhat at bay and off balance.
As has been Romanow's pattern, he remained irrationally loyal to those ministers who haven't performed to expectations. (See: John Nilson, Keith Goulet, Bob Mitchell and Lorne Scott.) No one was dropped or demoted. In fact, in the case of the sometimes-less-than-stellar Clay Serby, (the guy who so nimbly oversaw the stripper controversy while faxing NDP material from his legislative office) there was even a substantial promotion to health minister.
But if Romanow succeeded at anything Friday, it was keeping Lingenfelter from pounding all the other contenders for the premier's job into oblivion.
Before we knock ourselves out with any more fight metaphors, though, allow me the opportunity to reiterate that there is no official bout scheduled to replace Romanow as premier and NDP leader.
Roy remains the undisputed heavyweight champ of NDP and Saskatchewan politics at a remarkable 91-1 record. (Lest we forget that TKO he suffered in 1982 to featherweight Jo-Ann Zazalenchuk.)
And while no official bout to replace Romanow can take place until Romanow himself announces he is ready to go, that doesn't mean there hasn't been a few of those unsanctioned and equally unsavory "Toughest Man (and/or Woman) Contests" going on in the back alleys of NDP politics.
We've seen two rounds between MacKinnon and Lingenfelter already.
To recap: Round One went to MacKinnon as she slammed Lingenfelter with a hard uppercut to the chin with her 1997-98 budget (the fourth consecutive surplus) that cut the PST to seven per cent from nine. However, Lingenfelter was able to counter-punch with a huge $40,000 fundraiser on budget night that fattened his already obese leadership race war chest.
Round Two was a decisive win for Lingenfelter with last month's 15,000-person increase in the Saskatchewan workforce -- part of a five-month trend that was allowing Lingenfelter to finally claim some measure of success to what has been his and his government's biggest downfall.
Then came Friday's Round Three, where the rules were quite simple: Whomever got the super ministry responsible for the $8 billion in Crown assets wins the round, maybe even the fight to become the next premier.
By week's end, it was already clear the winner was going to be Link. In both bureaucratic and NDP political circles, pre-budget gossip centred around the fear and loathing of uniting former deputy minister John Wright (not CIC president) and MacKinnon one more time. Lingenfelter's corner had won the lobbying war.
But just as Lingenfelter was about to clean up on Round Three, something weird happened.
Late in the round, out comes a sneaky left. Not from MacKinnon, but, surprisingly, from Romanow himself.
In announcing the shuffle, Romanow could not have hyped MacKinnon more, explaining that the NDP government will now attack job creation with the same "dedication and determination" that MacKinnon brought to balancing the budget and reducing taxes and debt.
And while this is not to suggest dissatisfaction with Lingenfelter's job-creation record, Romanow stressed, what current job-creation policies really needed were the "intellectual rigor" of a Janice MacKinnon.
Make no mistake, Janice was the rose in Romanow's lapel Friday.
Lingenfelter, at best, was the handkerchief.
And being damned with faint praise isn't Lingenfelter's only problem.
With all Lingenfelter's new-found power comes the headaches: every time SaskTel tries to hide another $16 million loss or Jack Messer attempts to corner Guatemala's ice cube market.
Worse yet, after setting the tone for improved job creation, now all the credit for job growth we expect to see goes to MacKinnon.
Add a wildcard to the mix. Eric Cline gets finance. Does that make him, unofficially, the third contender for the premier's job?
Has Romanow damned Link with an impossible job and an insurmountable number of headaches? Or was the current Premier just soothing MacKinnon's ego after being passed over for the CIC job coveted by all?
Listen for the bell for Round Four.
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