Private sector only serves large markets

On Aug. 30 CBC Saskatchewan reported that the government is reconsidering its Crown Corporation Privatization Bill. Premier Brad Wall may be finding out what former Premier Tommy Douglas already knew: the private sector only serves the largest and best markets.

In Douglas’s time this meant private telephone and utility companies would only serve the biggest cities. They would not serve smaller cities, towns, villages, farmers, or Saskatchewan’s north. Douglas proved them wrong and showed that properly organized Crown corporations could work. He did the same with insurance and the provincial bus system.

In terms of the bus system, maybe it is time for Wall to reconsider his stance on that as well. The response of the private sector has been woefully inadequate and cancer patients, farmers, our Indigenous peoples, seniors, and others are all without service.

The government says it was costing $13 million in subsidies. Put that way it seems large. But it is less than 1 per cent of the government’s budget. One could argue to support a network serving 253 communities this is cheap. Ontario thinks so. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have supported a Crown corporation, Ontario Northland bus service.

Douglas used Crown corporations very effectively. They literally revolutionized people’s lives, especially those of women on the farms. Having power meant they had electric stoves, fridges, vacuums, washing machines. The telephone and bus companies dispelled isolation and linked Saskatchewan to the world.

The Saskatchewan people value this service, and this legacy.

Leslie Boehm, Toronto