On Monday, Saskatchewan must look past Alberta

When the premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, says he isn’t going to cut public services or sell any Crowns, we should not believe him. The conservative Saskatchewan Party does nothing without conservatives in Alberta providing them a template first. After all, former premier Brad Wall campaigns for Alberta's ruling United Conservative Party while over $2M of corporate money has poured into the Sask Party's coffers from Alberta since 2006.

Saskatchewan is already better positioned than Alberta is in that we have a much smaller population and are not as dependent on oil and gas. So why is Scott Moe and the Sask Party so adamant in following Alberta's lead by propping that industry up and failing to do anything else to help the workers and families of this province? Why do conservative politicians seem to prey on the downtrodden while passing blame on to everyone but themselves or their rich donors?

Instead of being for Saskatchewan first, as they claim, Scott Moe and the Sask Party keep our campaign financing laws the loosest in the country, allowing corporate donations from Alberta and elsewhere to dictate the direction our province goes.

Instead of employing Saskatchewan contractors, Scott Moe and the Sask Party made it easier for companies outside the province to bid on and win construction contracts, including the French company responsible for designing and building Regina's new bypass.

Instead of standing up for Saskatchewan workers, Scott Moe and the Sask Party made it harder for workers to organize while bringing in anti-union policies to make it easier for companies to take advantage of workers and suppress our wages in an increasingly less-affordable province.

Instead of working with the communities hardest hit by the global divesting of oil and gas to find new sources of revenues and jobs, Scott Moe and the Sask Party abandoned them, and continues to subsidize an industry that we must move away from to save humanity from the consequences of climate change.

Instead of investing in quality education to re-train our workers and create a new generation of workers for the future economy, Scott Moe and the Sask Party starves every level of education in this province, creating a pool of cheap labour for their corporate donors.

Instead of showing leadership on carbon pricing and fighting climate change, Scott Moe and the Sask Party spends our money in a doomed fight against the federal price on carbon, and allows the federal government to decide what to do with the revenues collected.

Instead of making Wascana Park a more inclusive, public space for a diversifying Regina, Scott Moe and the Sask Party sees it as an opportunity to reward their rich fiends by gifting them our public assets.

Instead of being transparent and fighting corruption, Scott Moe and the Sask Party continue to avoid accountability for the Global Transportation Hub failure, but not after first enriching their friends in the land deals that led to the giant, mostly-empty piece of land west of Regina.

Instead of protecting our people and businesses from the effects of Covid-19 by providing firm guidance to control the spread of the virus, Scott Moe and the Sask Party is sitting back, allowing the second wave to build into a tsunami, to avoid rustling their anti-science, anti-intellectual base of anti-maskers.

Instead of providing a comprehensive plan for the future of this province, Scott Moe and the Sask Party defers responsibility to individuals, which is code for letting the market dictate the direction of the province, despite myriad evidence in recent decades showing that this ideology only benefits the ownership class.

It sure doesn’t seem like Scott Moe and the Sask Party is standing up for Saskatchewan. It seems like they are following in the footsteps of our neighbours immediately to the west by pursuing a cruel and irresponsible agenda to destroy public services and trust in government, at a time when much of the Western world is falling apart due to out-of-control corporate greed and unchecked neoliberal selfishness.

Because of decades of conservative governments with no foresight, Alberta is looking more and more like a dying petro-state. Their UCP government is taking advantage of the suffering of Albertans to further erode the rights of the environment, of workers, of women, of the indigenous, and of the LGBTQ+ community. Saskatchewan must not become like Alberta.

On the other hand, the economy in B.C. has been doing relatively well in recent years, while their government fights for workers, families and the environment. On Saturday, voters rewarded that minority NDP government with a majority. We aren’t B.C. but we are facing similar challenges as they are.

People need jobs. Workers need livable wages. Families need affordable childcare. Those suffering mental illness need effective healthcare. Students need attention and support. The environment needs to be protected if we want an economy in the future. Scott Moe and the Sask Party fails at every one of these. On Monday, let’s not reward their failure.