Will Mandryk Eat His Privatization Crow?

Has anyone watched Mandryk eat crow about this doozy of a column defending Wall’s last campaign yet?

“NDP must get off privatization merry-go-round“

“On Tuesday, Wall emphatically said “no” to selling SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SaskTel, SGI and even STC. He reminded voters he signed the old NDP Crown Corporation Protection Act and noted his only proposed change to that law is on the sale of liquor stores.

Yet there was Broten, becoming the fourth straight NDP leader telling us of their opponent’s hidden agenda to sell off all Crown corporations, including SaskTel, SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SGI, STC, etc.”

“Broten has a smoking gun. Don’t let it get around, but … pssst …. Saskatchewan is running a deficit.

 

“He’s not talking about his plans for privatization, but we know, in his desire to go after quick, one-time money … anything is on the table for him.” Broten said.

 

Well, there you have it. What more proof could anyone possibly need? Wall and the Sask. Party intend to commit political suicide by first being forthright about selling liquor stores, then lying to the voters about selling off everything else.

 

So why does the NDP keep doing this?

There is the sentimentality.”

Ugh. He even mocked the smoking gun(s). Maybe he’s just sentimental about beating up on the NDP when they don’t even deserve it, instead of when they do.

This May, Wall closed STC, and changed the law in order to sell off half of SaskTel, SGI, SaskEnergy, etc. for a quick buck and to destroy public services in the hope that the private sector offers them instead. STC has been shut for weeks now, and Greyhound has expressed an interest in NOT operating buses on profitable bus routes in Saskatchewan. We went from having the best inter-city bus line in Canada, to NO bus service between the province’s largest cities of over a half million people collectively.

Mandryk’s column defending the Premier’s campaign deception, when he should have known better, helped make this possible.

—

Mar 18, 2016 11:24am

 

Media: ‘Why won’t both parties stop talking privatization?’

3rd party: ‘Change Crowns to public-owned co-operatives.’

Media: *silence* then ‘Why won’t the NDP stop talking about Crowns?’

Wall Built A Saskatchewan You Can’t Easily Leave

Saskatchewan Blogger Tammy Robert wrote about the bad governance of Brad Wall.

So Brad Wall had his Finance Minister write about the character of Tammy Robert.

Meanwhile, Wall’s Government has brought about a very justified human rights complaint by a Cree woman who wants to save the lives of people she hasn’t even met. That’s what the Premier should want to do, but clearly he’s more preoccupied with what’s written about him in Macleans.

3 years ago, a week before I died (temporarily), Regina City Council made illegal the Sask Party’s solution to STC’s closure. You can’t even thumb a ride to get away from Regina if you’re stuck here. WALL: That spells prosperity. Regina has a Wall, and you can’t walk, hop a train, or take a bus to get around it.

 

Greyhound and RCMP Bring #StarlightTours To Manitoba

Do you remember the Starlight Tours? Now you don’t have to be drunk to experience this police mistreatment, only be a First Nations person who is unwell.

A shameful story of racism out of Manitoba today. This is one of the companies the SaskParty is looking toward to offer replacement bus service due to the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) closure and sell-off happening in 2 days!

Spence said he pleaded with the police for help, asking if there was a way to get a ride or find some place to get away from the cold.

“They said there was nothing around here. I said, ‘What should I do?’ They said, ‘Your best bet is to start walking,’” Spence recalls.

Greyhound said in its defence:
“After further investigation, it appears the customer may not have been intoxicated and may have been experiencing a non-alcohol related issue.”

What the hell do they mean by “a non-alcohol related issue.”?

“Spence says at one point he was being followed by a pack of dogs.

“I just kept calm, and kept walking and eventually the dogs left me alone,” he said.”

““They should compensate me. I was scared for my life,” he said.”

This man was thrown off the bus, literally to wild dogs. Greyhound should be giving this man free bus rides for life, for this horrible mistreatment.

Sask Party Putting People Out of Work

The Sask Party has hit a new low.

“Province laying off 251 custodial workers, “lowest paid government employees,” says union”

A tender for cleaning services at SGI’s head office was sent out last week.

Those being laid off work in government-owned properties, like the Legislative Building and the T.C. Douglas Building in Regina.

“Unless the public will stand up and tell the government what they’re doing is wrong, or there is backlash, they’re going to do it and that is too bad,” said Bymoen.

There is concern from SGEU that the 251 employees, who currently earn a living wage, will take lower paying positions with the company or companies who may be contracted by the province to do the work.

He said when you go into non-government buildings, it is often minimum wage employees doing the maintenance and cleaning.

“They’re working odd hours, minimum wage, and whoever is hiring them is taking a premium for hiring them and managing the contract,” he said.

A friend of mine calculated the “savings” the province is seeking in doing this privatization:

“The province says it is exploring the option to determine if there would be savings…” B.S. 251 employees at a living wage costs about $10.4M at $20 an hour. To contract it out to the private sector that cost would go down to a minimum of about $5.6M, and only if the employees got minimum wage and the contractor (read: business friend of the Sask Party) didn’t take a premium for the service. In other words, the actual savings would be less than $4.4M and people who rely on being paid a fair wage would be screwed. Take my $4 a year and treat people with respect!

@LHubich @noahevanchuk and the 'savings' are paltry in the face of wasteful projects like the Bypass. https://t.co/NXXYDpx0M7 @ccherneskey

— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) January 13, 2017

Today's column: Nonsense to call dumping government cleaning staff a business decision. It's ironic and sad. #skpoli https://t.co/utuNsMY6Yb

— Murray Mandryk (@MMandryk) January 14, 2017

A Tax on Everything Is Coming

Run for the hills!

.@CNN #PriceOnCarbon article: "because we've been so slow to act on this crisis, bold action is now required" https://t.co/PvV1Y1oFdM

— Pembina Institute (@Pembina) October 5, 2016

I realize several people who I’m friends with, think Premier Wall is great for Saskatchewan. I’ve never held a high opinion of the man, I think he’s arrogant, short sighted, and nothing close to a “man of the people” that he pretends to be. When was the last time you were invited to Bilderberg as he is?

For a decade we’ve endured his constant fiscal mismanagement of our province, giving us deficit budget after deficit budget, and what do we have to show for it? Our boom/bust economy is still so fragile, that Wall admits a $10/tonne #carbontax might cripple it, even though that’s the equivalent to a 2.4 cent/L gasoline price increase by reasonable calculations.

People who live in Regina may remember the last mayor refusing to raise property taxes. Not so hard when property values were stagnant, but then 2006/7 came around, and prices doubled or tripled here. Without the benefit of incremental changes, many were caught with their pants down.

Now the same has happened with the Liberals back in Ottawa, and with 10 years of Conservative stagnation on incremental environmental pollution controls, we’re going to experience a little sticker shock when we have to buy the next generation of technology to get by in the changing world.

There will be a lot of fear and ignorance on display, but what else could we expect after the Conservatives paid (using our tax money) to deliver black and white propaganda to our mailboxes, proclaiming that a “tax on everything” was coming with Dion and Goodale.

Buying Coal Time, Burns Ours

2. Because if coal's "demise" is anything like Big Tobacco's, the industry didn't shut down after lawmakers' cracked down some.

— Saskboy (@saskboy) August 26, 2016

Man bites dog:#Coal industry executive in secret meeting tells allies to stop denying #climatechange.https://t.co/fpiO0EfDBd

— Tim Ream (@ourcarbon) August 26, 2016

Zimmerman seized on Reavey’s “poor/no science” line when reading the document.

“It’s maybe not an explicit denial, but it’s certainly an implicit denial,” Zimmerman said. “He’s still trying to undermine the science.”

Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigations Center and a former Greenpeace campaigner, read Reavey’s presentation, too.

“What he’s saying is ‘Coal, you can survive, look at tobacco,’” Davies said. “It’s a guy coming from tobacco sort of trying to teach coal,” he added. “Instructing them to go heavy on the clean coal, it buys you credibility, it buys you time.”

We cannot afford coal burning on an industrial scale anymore. If people light up at home, that could still pose a problem to our civilization’s survival.

Yet we put Ministers in charge of “Advanced Education”, like Eyre, who deny that there is even a problem with pollution.

#PremierPipeline: Good Work Premier Brad Wall

“People are advised not to consume fish caught in the river, and to avoid water activities that may result in river water being ingested,” said a news release put out Tuesday morning.

– six days later.

“Good work Premier Brad Wall. No loss of life like at Lac Megantic oil tanker rail disaster. Naturally occurring biological decontamination will help clean up this oil spill in no time!” – Tim

Yes, this is the sort of deranged partisanship that makes Canada’s most popular Premier able to slither out of responsibility for an oil spill that has poisoned the major drinking water source for Saskatchewan’s 3rd largest city and other cities and towns and farms and beyond.

Great Blue Heron?
Naw, it’s just a Big Red Herring, apparently. That damn bird might cost the province future pipelines, and isn’t that the real tragedy here?

“The company responsible, Husky Energy, has been very cooperative and as soon as they were aware of the incident they notified us,” Kotyk said [Friday].

“In an email, Husky communications official Mel Duval confirmed with CBC that the report submitted to government was incorrect.

Husky now says “at approximately 8 p.m. [Wednesday] the pipeline monitoring system indicated pressure anomalies as several segments of the pipeline system were being returned to service. This is common during startup operations.””

The deputy minister for the Ministry of Economy, which regulates pipelines, said Husky has an emergency response plan in place, filed with the government.

But Laurie Pushor doesn’t know if it was followed.

Good work Premier Brad Wall. Bravo. Encore? We have a SOUTH Saskatchewan River too awaiting your next slick triumph.