By Ron Walter
Saskatchewan: hard to spell, easy to draw, apparently easy to ignore.
That was my conclusion after another outburst by my wife and partner.
We were watching the national weather news. The newscast talked to people from Winnipeg about the cold snap, shifting to talk to Albertans about the extreme cold in that province.
The weather map clearly showed most of Saskatchewan was also suffering from extreme cold. The weather cast moved on to the Ontario situation. “What about Saskatchewan?” my partner exclaimed, noting we had severe weather too.
She, like many Saskatchewan-born residents, has a fierce passion about this province and is easily slighted when Saskatchewan is overlooked.
Having arrived here because I needed a job 54 years ago, Yours Truly developed a passion for this province’s people, history, cultural mosaic and resources but not in the pit bull manner of some folks.
Born and raised in Alberta and having lived in B.C. and Ontario gives me a different perspective.
I tend not to sympathize with Alberta whining about the provincial deficit and the tax money sent to Ottawa. If Albertans swallowed their pride and implemented a sales tax like every other Canadian province their deficit would be of no concern. There would be no need to fire thousands of nurses and teachers.
But I digress.
A 1976 Grey Cup party was my first experience of how passionate and emotional Saskatchewan residents can get about their province.
Our hosts had invited the newspaper editor, a dyed-inthe wool Saskatchewan-ite. When the Roughriders lost the game 23-20 to Ottawa, the editor tearfully whined for a few minutes about how Saskatchewan never gets a fair shake, from wheat prices and farm aid to football. He was not alone. Many residents of the province are thin skinned if they think Saskatchewan isn’t getting the respect they feel it deserves.
One common complaint involves how Saskatchewan is overlooked as if it were a wasteland between the large cities of Winnipeg and Calgary. It’s like Saskatchewan is the centre of a rainbow between these two cities. The disrespect phenomenon may explain why Premier
Scott Moe always picks fights with Ottawa, and why almost every premier since 1905 has had it out with Ottawa.
Even though Saskatchewan has almost half the farmland in Canada, the largest potash and uranium reserves in the world and second largest Canadian oil and gas sector, the rest of Canada seems to routinely ignore us. The reason is simple. We are a resource rich province but people poor. We only have about three per cent of the population in Canada.
To get our share of time in a 60 second weather forecast means we will get not quite two seconds of exposure, barely enough to glance at the weather map. Our population, although growing fast, is still so small we would lose one or two of our federal MPs were it not for geographic expanse.
As Saskatchewan residents regularly facing this kind of treatment, we need to get over it, be proud of our province, rich in culture, heritage and resources and keep on building the place.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are THOSE OF THE AUTHOR, AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REflECT THE position of this publication.