Wall deserves some credit for trying

In the midst of worldwide tough times, people in Saskatchewan are responding by abandoning logic for emotional rhetoric and by turning the ordinary humans sitting in the legislature into scapegoats (because, of course, there must be someone to blame, right?).

Critics of the Sask. Party accuse the government of past “mismanagement” which they “prove” by citing a handful of projects gone bad.

But this is the sort of superficial cherry-picking one can do at any time with any government of any stripe.

Even a quick glance at the provincial budgets over the past decade shows most of what the Sask. Party spent was on infrastructure, programs, wage settlements and other things the public wanted and demanded.

All of our expectations were set way too high.

Could the Sask. Party have been smarter about putting money aside during the boom?

Sure, but so could have many businesses and families. Governments don’t own crystal balls and the economic experts were telling them and the rest of us that the boom was going to last another decade.

In the aftermath of the budget, Wall has been compared to Devine, but there is an important difference. Devine created a deficit and then left the painful work of fixing it to Romanow.

We can debate whether the current deficit is Wall’s fault, but at least he has taken responsibility and is taking the slings and arrows of getting the province’s finances back in order so that his successor – of either stripe – won’t have to.

For that at least, he deserves credit. Lyle Hewitt, Regina