STC reminds Wall it’s not easy to tear down what others built
On the bald, flat prairie there’s no place to hide. For good or bad, most everything can be seen from a long distance away.
Maybe this is why building things here has always been so important to Saskatchewan governments.
Sure, Regina has the Hill towers, but that skyline is mainly dominated by the SGI, SaskTel and SaskPower buildings — Crown corporation headquarters all built through a collective fashion.
By contrast, Saskatchewan’s private-sector successes tend to be humbly rooted to the soil — smaller agriculture implement manufacturers or successful farmers who don’t generally flaunt their accomplishments.
No such humility has ever really been displayed by Saskatchewan governments. Regardless of stripe, they all love to build and especially love to build monuments to their own administration to rise above the landscape.
It was CCF-NDP governments that built those downtown Crown headquarters, arts centres and even potato storage sheds. And it’s now Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government eager to build hospitals, schools and stadiums.
It isn’t just upright obelisks that are important. There are flatter ones as well — none more important than the roads. As much as a practical necessity, newly paved highways have long been a Saskatchewan metaphor for a province moving forward.
And as important as potholefree highways are, also important are what run on top of those roads — light vehicle traffic, heavier grain-hauling semis and, much to the amazement of Wall’s government, buses.
There have been numerous lessons for the Sask. Party in its decision to shutter the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.
One important lesson is that this province that doesn’t always measure success by profit ... or even by how much public money is being lost. Wall’s most compelling argument — that the $85 million that would otherwise have been spent on STC in the next five years could be put to better use — seems to have been lost in the lack of belief that the Sask. Party will actually do that.
Another lesson is that such decisions — largely done in the isolation of government planning — do set off a domino effect of unintended consequences. Perhaps some of the problems associated with the loss of the under-utilized STC services are being exaggerated, but others are setting in. One is the loss of bus services between Calgary and Saskatoon — because, according to Greyhound, its interline partnership with Alsask Bus Service also ended with the closing of STC.
Wall’s government has also surely learned by now that the transition to a private-sector replacement for STC — even without the futile intervention of those appearing before the Highway Traffic Board — is no simple matter. It’s also learned how easy it is to make a bad political situation worse.
Last week, Wall’s executive council, in its infinite wisdom, responded to a “Stop the Cuts” news conference on the STC shuttering with the following: “If Stop the Cuts is interested in starting its own passenger service, we would encourage them to make the appropriate application to the Highway Traffic Board. We would note that passengers could be enjoying seamless transportation service at this point by interested companies if not for opposition to their operating authority certificate applications.”
Setting aside the wrong tone and thinly veiled partisanship in a taxpayer-paid-for statement, it demonstrates how obtuse this government has become to the nature of Saskatchewan.
STC was, evidently, still seen as a monument in this province, and Saskatchewan people don’t like their governments tearing them down. After all, such monuments connecting people in this broad, flat province are few and far between.
Really, there’s no place to hide in Saskatchewan when you make a mess of one of them.