“Flabbergasting”

“Flabbergasting”
If you need to hear every Conservative talking point repeated without a thought in the world, try the Regina Chamber CEO’s take on CTV: “Nation building” “tidewater” “energy independence” “What’s in the best interest of the country” “a lot of money that comes from the United States that fuels these environmental groups” “Stand up when we need to stand up”

Why would getting our oil to tidewater, so it can be shipped overseas, play into us being energy independent?
His hand-waving, saying we’ll now not have energy independence, is totally false. We can build renewable energy systems, and storage systems that will provide Canadians with true independence from Big Oil which takes subsidies to keep it economically viable.

"[It] has been largely radio silence. We are on our own." https://t.co/JDDiV7KYKx #OilSpill #GreatBearRainforest

— Sierra Club BC (@SierraClubBC) October 15, 2017

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#CrudePower The Price of Oil tonight at #UofR

We haven't ignored the sour gas story in SE sask. We broke the story two years ago https://t.co/DQFhI1m7pY

— Geoff Leo (@gleocbc) October 4, 2017

So this is the resulting attention from that story 2 years ago. Does the public not care, or is it being silenced? #CrudePower #PriceofOil pic.twitter.com/XEIxzp6Aqi

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) October 4, 2017

Wall says he is concerned the energy industry is seen as a liability in Canada http://t.co/rPAPbCt4U3 #skpoli pic.twitter.com/fLDZZQ2TFQ

— CTV Regina (@ctvregina) July 15, 2015

Yet then-economy minister Bill Boyd’s ministry made no mention of Bunz’s death, and documents obtained by journalists through freedom of information requests and other sources show repeated “failures in performance by oil and gas companies, including serious infractions, failed safety audits, daily H2S readings beyond provincial air quality standards.”

This, from a government highlighting all OH&S violations weekly? This, from a government from which the lone and most important news release Tuesday was about a Saskatoon moose-poaching case?

After the Toronto Star-led investigation Monday, there was no public news release or ministerial press conference.

Plastic Is Out of Hand

Plastic almost always ends up as waste within a year or two of its production. We’re making too much of it also, at an increasing pace.

“Of the 8.3 billion metric tonnes of virgin plastics ever made, half was made just in the last 13 years,” Geyer said. “Between 2004 and 2015 we made as much plastic as we made between 1950 and 2004.”

It’s sick. The problem is accelerating. We need to ban plastic bags in grocery stores in Regina, as a local starting point to fight the problem.

The Core Of the Problem Is Austerity

Then you proclaimed "Transportation Week" because “Saskatchewan’s transportation industry … is vital to the success of our economy."

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) June 7, 2017

"you have to ask the question; is [a bus] the core function of government?" -You
Is it transportation perhaps?
Yes!#TransportationWeak

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) June 7, 2017

In the Saskatchewan Legislature Thursday, Premier Brad Wall says a decision to stop STC bus service and lay-off 250 people did not come easy.

Wall says the decision was difficult but ridership had declined significantly.

“As ridership declines and the costs increase, that per-passenger subsidy is well up over 90-dollars,” said Premier Brad Wall. “Almost 100-dollars per passenger, Mr. Speaker. And at some point you have to ask the question; is that the core function of government? To subsidize to 90-dollars per passenger for the bus company?”

STC’s the very definition of a “sustainable core service“! It costs less than a municipal transit service!

@PremierBradWall March 22, 2017:
#skbudget outlines a 3yr plan to balance: controlled spending, sustainable core services, less reliance on resource rev & keep econ strong.

==

There is presently no replacement bus service as the Minister indicated there would be. People are being stranded daily now, in Saskatoon and Regina even, unable to directly get to the other city without desperately going through Winnipeg, hitchhiking (illegally in Regina) or flying on expensive airline tickets.

Today, and last week, Greyhound’s website indicates “no service available” between Regina and Saskatoon! I’ve been in contact with Greyhound perhaps more than the incompetent Saskatchewan Government, to try and fix this problem.

There are companies other than Greyhound applying to operate in Saskatchewan, but the government has dragged on with deciding, until after the deadline arbitrarily set for STC’s privatization closure and subsequent sell off.

“The province is confident many of the routes that STC covered will be taken over by other privately owned companies.
Minister Responsible Joe Hargrave says they have already received an offer from a major bus company to take over some routes that will be cancelled when STC is done and Saskatchewan is the only province that still operates a bus company like STC.”

The Highway Traffic Board is supposed to be independent but……
“The HTB is, according to its website, a “completely independent body” that consists of members appointed by the Sask. Party government.
Its chair, Bill Missal, is a long-time Saskatchewan Party supporter who has, according to Elections Saskatchewan, donated to the Sask. Party.
He has also worked with Sask. Party MLA and former Highways Minister Don McMorris at election time.”

You might also like:
https://saskboy.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/weak-transportation-week/
https://saskboy.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/transportation-not-meeting-demand/
https://saskboy.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/stc-bus-shut-down-by-callous-saskparty/

Transportation Not Meeting Demand

It’s been kind of a bad year for transportation in Saskatchewan. Aside from the potential Supercharger for Swift Current, there haven’t been many tangible bright spots for Saskatchewan.

• Premier Wall rejects the carbon tax plan to reduce emissions
• SGI says they’re not considering a rebate on Zero Emission Vehicles, as they once had 5 years ago until Minister McMillian of SGI (now President McMillian of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Procurers) cancelled the rebate. Gee, no bad optics there, right? Just an oil industry lobbyist directly encouraging people to buy trucks over EV or hybrid vehicles.
• The SaskParty closed and sold off the STC Crown, with no replacement for bus service apparently in mind. As a result, there’s no bus service between Saskatoon and Regina! I emailed a company reported in the news as seeking to offer service, and they replied:
  

  We have not been approved for scheduled passenger service yet

  Sincerely
  Mitch Blyth
  General Manager
  Carpe Diem Group featuring our new Land Jet mobile office division.
  Regina, Saskatoon & Yorkton Sk.
  []531-9626

• Cumberland House still doesn’t have sufficient transportation to/from it.
• Via Rail offered unlimited $150 passes and travel in July to youth under 25, then only to 1867 youth, then several thousand, but stopped before demand was satisfied, and failed to offer the pass for additional months, or add additional train service to meet the obvious demand. Saskatchewan only has Via service to 2 cities, Saskatoon and Melville. Regina, Moose Jaw, and Swift Current are left out even though they are on the Trans-Canada as is Calgary in Alberta.

Considering I was hoping a passenger rail line between Saskatoon and Regina could one day be built, it’s especially appalling that the government has ended bus service between the major cities this year.

So what can one person do? I attended the large rally at STC headquarters in March. I’ve pushed on City Council several times encouraging them to have Regina Transit buy STC resources and operate it on profitable routes as a money maker for the City, while providing a valuable service the province has abdicated itself from.

STC Bus Shut Down By Callous SaskParty

Today is a terrible day in Saskatchewan history. The Brad Wall government has ended public transportation to most Saskatchewan communities. There is tomorrow no bus service between Saskatoon and Regina, a sort of event you’d expect after a major natural disaster, not an incompetent government decision poised to directly harm thousands of people, and inconvenience tens of thousands more.

Cody, who served as the minister overseeing STC back in 1978, argues the decision to shut the bus service down was philosophical, not economical.

“There’s no such thing as a profitable transportation system,” he said. “It simply isn’t there. They tell us you can’t afford $15 million or so over the next five years. If that’s the case, then why would you sell SaskTel, which makes $130 million? There’s a philosophy here and I don’t think it really has anything to do with the money.”

Regina alone spends more than double "$17M per year" to offer transit to residents and visitors of our city. @SaskParty is being reckless.

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 31, 2017

2. Does the @SaskParty need someone who has actually used an STC bus to explain that reducing communities served means fewer riders?

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 3, 2017

Ritz: More Dense Than A Gas

Saskatchewan has a lot of ignoble MPs, but Ritz took the cake this past week. He’s helping to spread nonsense that is solidly a line from anti-science climate change deniers.

@GerryRitzMP @davidakin Carbon is the building block of all known life. Carbon is contained is more poisons than can be listed here. Did you mean CO2? CO? CH4?

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 23, 2017

@GerryRitzMP @davidakin That specifically CO2 is useful to plants for photosynthesis doesn't mean tailpipe & smokestack dumping "isn't pollution". That's so daft.

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 23, 2017

@GerryRitzMP @HannahThibedeau I realize you're not big on science, but permafrost is melting in Canada's north too. Drastic results. https://t.co/TT9DbRtNpo

— Lexy Cameron (@LexyCameron) May 19, 2017

@GerryRitzMP @jasonwatson13 @LexyCameron @HannahThibedeau You said "one poll [sic] thaws and one freezes".

— ❄️ Lori ❄️ (@subloke) May 20, 2017

“Janice Green: Grow up and read something other than propaganda.
That is called weather not climate change. There is something called evaporation. Which happens when it warms up. Then rain falls the – ocean doesn’t rise. As the north melts the south freezes. The world has managed without your help for a long time. Get over yourself you are just another animal on this planet.”

Could this be the source of Gerry and Janice’s fanciful, and delusional thinking on this subject:

“Revisiting IPCC Official’s “North Pole Melts after 50 million-year Freeze”

blog.heartland.[]org/…/revisiting-ipcc-officials-north-pole-melts-after-50-million-year-f…

Oct 30, 2013 – And one of his friends said, “I think you should check out this Fred Singer guy who’s telling you that climate change isn’t such a big problem…”