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THE STAR PHOENIX APRIL 16, 2011
The Saskatchewan Party government is falling into a pattern of behaviour for which it once successfully criticized it predecessor.
From base political pandering to pork barreling to rewarding friends and striking secretive deals, it didn't take long for Premier Brad Wall and his gang to adopt habits that usually are typical of governments much longer in the tooth.
The latest evidence of it was the government pandering to a marginal group that opposes the storage of nuclear wastes in Saskatchewan.
There might be good reasons not to allow such wastes to be stored here, despite the blow it could deal to northern communities that are badly in need of the economic potential of such an enterprise and are pressing for solid scientific evidence on the project's safety and viability.
If Mr. Wall's statements this week are to be taken at face value, however, neither scientific evidence nor economic development amount to much in the face of a petition from a group calling itself the Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan.
This group may be a coalition but, by the shape of its policy position, it can lay claim neither to being clean nor green. It brags of its success in scuttling the construction of a green nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan, and continues to tout the success of the anti-nuclear movement's opposition to a uranium refinery near Warman in the late 1970s.
Consider the global impact of these initiatives. Saskatchewan is among the most fossil fuel dependent jurisdictions -including its reliance on burning the dirtiest of coals to produce more than half the electricity used in the province.
Scientists point out the deadly dilemma of using such sources to provide energy. For example, while in 2005 the United Nations Chernobyl Forum reported that no more than 4,000 people would die prematurely because of the worst nuclear accident in history, by using a similar method to calculate mortality rates, epidemiologists postulate that every year 2,000 people in Southern Ontario die as a result of the province burning coal to produce electricity.
The movement to retard the development of nuclear power, which was at the heart of the Warman initiative, has to take at least some of the responsibility for the rapid expansion of the use of coal over the last decade, while the nuclear industry struggles to catch up.
At their side must stand those politicians who ignored the scientific evidence, refused to take a leadership role and instead buckled under the pressure of the minority.
It is worth remembering the passionate defence of the nuclear industry made by former premier Allan Blakeney, and his admonishments that Saskatchewan has a global responsibility to promote the use of this clean technology. However, his government and the NDP failed to find the resolve to support what has subsequently demonstrated to be the morally correct course.
It is distressing to now have Mr. Wall speculate on the need for legislation to block the storage of nuclear wastes -presumably in spite of what any scientific study would determine -as he tries to cater to these same anti-technological ideologues rather than take a more pragmatic stance and a leadership role.
But it is not just the lack of leadership that is a concern.
Government Services Minister Laura Ross told the legislature this week that she was doling out subsidies to Regina businesses in the form of a confidential 20-year lease for office space in the third Hill Centre Tower now being constructed in downtown. However, she refused to admit the true cost to the people who are paying the bill, because such secrecy had been the practice of the former NDP government.
Besides, Ms. Ross added, the real estate industry doesn't like it when the government tells taxpayers what they pay for office space, or even whether that space is really needed. This after the government already had provided direct subsidies to Mosaic Co. for every office in the same tower it's willing to occupy.
If the market for office space exists, it should not require any government subsidy. And if the government doesn't have space of its own, it should have open bids to make sure taxpayers get the best space at the cheapest price.
This comes in the wake of news that Advanced Education Minister Rob Norris for months had ignored or overlooked concerns of union and administrative officials about the financial and accounting irregularities in a merger of St. Peter's College and Carlton Trail Regional College.
Even though Mr. Norris was told in May that the man leading the merger had a fraud conviction dating back to 1995, he continues to toss his departmental officials under the bus rather than take responsibility.
These typically are the actions of a tired, old government, not one about to campaign for its second term.
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