The province’s brave, new attitude is paying off

It occurred to me at the recent opening of Saskatoon’s stunning Remai Modern art gallery that this province has grown and changed in unimaginable ways.

I had precisely the same feeling at the home opener of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 2017 season at the magnificent new Mosaic Stadium.

From the Remai’s sweeping staircase with reflections of light through high ceilings and postcard views of the South Saskatchewan River to Mosaic’s grandeur and functional architecture, the senses are assailed in the right way.

But in these world-class facilities there was the underlying Saskatchewan question — as if undeserving — “how did this happen here?”

For generations, the quietly proud and hardworking people of this province convinced ourselves that remarkable or even good things happened somewhere else.

Great legacy projects aren’t cheap — community centres and schools in robust and growing cities, new provincial hospitals, the immense Highway 1 bypass in Regina, the South Circle Drive freeway and new bridges in Saskatoon.

Some of the capital spending will be financed over decades and is a function of demand from population growth and a dramatic rise in international immigration at levels unseen in nearly 100 years.

Legacy projects and big infrastructure builds are also rooted in attitude.

Over the past decade, as the world discovered Saskatchewan, we decided to change and ultimately leave tradition behind, from our political choices to a braver, more robust and confident view of our place.

As Brad Wall marks the

10th anniversary of his first election next week, it should be a humbling and proud moment for a man who has profoundly changed Saskatchewan.

Governments do not generally make things happen but they can foster the environment and provide the catalyst for empowered citizens, investors and newcomers to create change and improvement.

In the case of Premier Wall, a political leader and his government set an attitudinal tone where new and braver choices were possible.

Recently, as political critics have gone on the attack, the montage keeps playing in my head of the big, new and confident Saskatchewan. And that’s not going to change.

In politics, critics are apt to overplay their hand. It’s one thing to dislike a government’s budget — particularly when it’s spending less money and raising taxes in order to rein in a deficit — but it’s quite another, especially from left/progressive activists who have despised Wall from the beginning, to imply that the province is now falling apart. It’s not.

By any objective criteria, from dramatically reduced health-care waiting lists to health, education and social spending that have exceeded historic growth rates, Saskatchewan is not in trouble.

Certainly, in recent months, the government has tightened its belt as Saskatchewan has been mired in a two-year recession sparked by a resource downturn, which shrunk our economy by roughly one per cent per year.

In response to this, companies rationalized, adapted and sometimes closed down. At the same time, public employees — from civil servants to university professors — still got pay raises in 2015 and 2016.

Economists say the provincial economy should turn around in 2018 and grow slightly, not the annual averages over the past decade of 2.5 per cent per year, but growth nevertheless.

The fundamentals of Saskatchewan are sound and as solid as they have ever been. The staples of the economy — agriculture, oil/gas, potash, uranium and manufacturing — are cyclic, but increasing demand in a growing world and the value and quality that we add to our resources is improving Saskatchewan’s prospects.

In addition, the digital economy and big data are driving significant changes in technology. Autonomous agriculture and the tech sector’s work on software development, app design and web-based marketing are among some of the promising developments.

Politics is important. But it won’t detract from the remarkable Saskatchewan story that is being written.