Sask Party Watch is going to start a new feature that highlights historic speeches and articulate elocution by Members of the Saskatchewan Party Caucus who may one day succeed Brad Wall as leader: Enjoy!
The following is a speech by Arm River MLA, Greg Brkich on March 26, 2004 - Address In Reply To The Speech From The Throne:
"Talk a bit about the Crowns and why a lot of people are, some people are dissatisfied with them. I will talk about . . . I have two communities, Craik and Imperial, that have their own cable companies. They entered an agreement with SaskTel, I think it was . . . I have the paperwork down in my office. I may be wrong on the date, but it was roughly around the 2000 to 2006, for a certain amount to pay for pole use. In 2002, SaskPower comes in, takes the contract away from SaskTel, rips it up. Doesn't inform the towns that had the contracts except to send them a bill saying that they're going to increase the rates over the next two years. The first year is a 67 per cent increase, the third year a 73 per cent increase, and the next year is an 80 per cent increase. Didn't even consult with the towns, basically just tore it up. With that extra money, it's not like they're providing more service, more infrastructure. All it is, is . . . The agreement that was made on it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was poles. The towns are using SaskPower poles to run the line of their own cable company on this pole. A little tiny, little thin line — it's already there. Using that, SaskPower has decided to basically gouge these towns throughout the province.
You have to ask yourself why. I don't think it's a big demand on the power poles. I don't think that little line has tore down many power poles. And besides, you have a contract up to 2006.
The town says, hey we're willing to renegotiate at the end of the contract. We signed a valid, legal contract. We're willing to negotiate. If the price wants to go up afterwards, hey that's what we face. We designed our cable companies with the price in this contract. When we set out our services, we sent out a rate for the . . . yearly, to our customers to get them signed up. That's what we used.
So now we've got this added increase. So we have to go back, Mr. Deputy Speaker, go back to the people and say, we have to charge you more to use this cable, to use this cable. How is that helping small rural towns who are basically trying to get their own cable companies, own little things? That's just one instance of the Crowns always trying to compete with the local businesses instead of working with them. Over the number of years, the Crowns want to run things of every little business.
And at the utility end, they're very good at it. Do their job. Stay in the utility end. But why do they want to get into businesses?
Outlook was another one. The IRON Solutions magazine, they had to go buy one in Ontario to compete with the one in Outlook, employs 20 people. I mean, right now he's struggling.
That's 20 less people that could be out of a job because a Crown had to buy another dealership magazine, and keep it in Ontario, that services Western Canada. Now how is that helping rural Saskatchewan? How is that helping it grow?
They had made . . . Another agency, Rural Revitalization. That was supposed to work with that and help problems with that.
And there has not been one instance where they've actually helped the businesses out in rural Saskatchewan, worked with it. You want to really grow the businesses, get the Crowns trying not to drive the small businesses out of town, out of business out there in rural Saskatchewan.
Health care, on the Throne Speech . . . you know, no vision out there and that scares a lot of people. Over the years, I've read a lot of petitions on people that are scared about losing their services in Imperial and Craik and Davidson. Right now there's rumours that some of the little hospitals are in trouble. There's a rumour. . . I've even had calls from Moose Jaw about a rumour about a seniors' complex that may be closed. You know, people are very worried out there.
The beds . . . right now Davidson, a long-term care and Imperial . . . I'm not sure about Davidson. Now Imperial is five. There's five on the waiting list. You close some more beds out there; where are these people going to go? They're going to overload the system somewhere else, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
You're going to have to look at trying to expand the services and work with the people. I mean we can talk about the waiting lists going down the line. When I look at the response from the Health minister out there and the Finance minister, I get very worried that they're going to be cutting some more hospitals out there and some more long-term care beds out in rural Saskatchewan. And there's nothing left to cut. They're cut basically right to the bone. You cut any more out there and this system is getting ready to explode out there.
You want to . . . Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you look at a government, you should be looking at their legacy. And you look at the Chrétien government, it's going to be remembered for the scholarship scandal,(Editor's Note: I think he means 'Sponsorship Scandal ??) Mr. Deputy Speaker. You look at the Devine government. It did a lot of good things, but when you mention its name, debt always seems to be associated with that particular government.
But what is this legacy of this particular government going to be? If it continues down the same path that it is going, Mr. Deputy Speaker, its legacy was going to be having the most longest waiting lists. It's going to have the poorest health care, having people, Mr. Deputy Speaker, people die unnecessarily under its watch. That's what this government, if it continues down this path, that's what it will be remembered for.
And then we can talk about the debt that this Premier is starting to incur. The previous premier had left a little surplus there.
Now this Premier is running close to $1 million-a-day deficit. What do you think he's going to be remembered for 20 years down the road? He's going to be remembered, I think, with disgust and contempt, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That's what he's going to be . . . what this government is going to be remembered by, if it continues down the path of the way it is serving rural Saskatchewan with health care throughout the province. That's how it's going to be remembered.
It's going to be remembered, Mr. Deputy Speaker, of 19 quarters — 19 quarters of continuous population loss, the only province in all of Canada that that is happening in. That's what people are going to be remembering this government — the
depopulation of rural Saskatchewan. The gutting of rural Saskatchewan — that's what this government is going to be remembered for. And it's going to be remembered by disgust and contempt over . . . many years from now. And that contempt and disgust is out there in rural Saskatchewan. All you have to do is look around the members here they've elected, over the number of years. And that disgust and contempt is there. And it's going to be there for a long time.
And you know what, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it's creeping into the cities, the disgust and contempt for that Premier and that government with the three new members that we have here.
And it's going to keep growing, Mr. Deputy Speaker. And eventually we will be getting rid of that government. We came that close to it. When we get rid of that socialist government, it will be the best times for Saskatchewan. And that's what we
need, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Finally maybe we can get this province on the right track and get it growing, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at that end.
With that Mr. Deputy, I think you probably get the idea I'm not going to support this Throne Speech. I've listened to four Throne Speeches that made the same promises. And what did we have, Mr. Deputy Speaker? What did we have after each
Throne Speech through that year? We had population loss. We didn't have any growth in rural Saskatchewan. We had the waiting lists get longer after each and every Throne Speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
And I can't see one bit of difference with this Throne Speech.
It's about time this government actually did some action, maybe thought outside the box, forgot about their socialist ideological ideas that just has to be basically just straight socialist. If they're not running it, if the government can't run it, than nobody else can run it. They can't work. Well till this government starts thinking outside the box, this province will keep going backwards, Mr. Deputy Speaker."
