Group home mess shows how politicians lose sight of their jobs

To be elected is to be asked to do the right thing on behalf of all people.

This shouldn’t be all that hard. Yes, opinions vary on what that right thing is, but the beauty of elected public service is that it’s a job designed so anyone can do it. Whether you’re at the local, provincial or federal level, all you really need is reasonability, a sense of decency and the courage to speak up when you know in your heart something’s not right.

This is where Weyburn city council has failed miserably in its recent decision to not allow a four-person Saskatchewan Housing group home for physically and mentally challenged residents in a specific posh neighbourhood of $700,000 houses because local homeowners feel the “stigma” attached to disabled people will lower their precious property values.

Sadly, though, we also witnessed a dishearteningly weak response from both the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP Opposition. The right thing to do would have been to immediately and unequivocally state this is nonsense and that Weyburn council needs to fix this. No one did this until they were embarrassed into doing so by the media.

Really, this has become a national embarrassment for this province and what’s really sad is that it wasn’t so long ago that — much to the credit of Brad Wall, June Draude and Donna Harpauer — the Sask. Party government was leading the nation on this particular file.

Sure, it might seem a tad heavy-handed to lay all this on some small-city, largely volunteer councillors whose preoccupation at the Monday council meeting when all this happened was getting through mundane matters like paving requests, liquor licences for an oil and gas show and the purchase of city grading equipment from local dealers without stepping into a conflict of interest.

And, yes, it’s also good that Weyburn councillor Bob Wheeler apologized for his most egregious comment that “it’s not politically correct to say there’s a stigma attached to them, but there is. You have to be honest with yourself.”

But if you are being completely honest with yourself, shouldn’t you also realize your job on city council sometimes goes beyond looking at an issue from the small-minded notion this is somehow only about a discretionary zoning bylaw and those in the neighbourhood worried about lowered property values?

Did anyone on council think for a moment about how ridiculously outdated and wrongheaded it is in 2019 to even think disabled people lower property values?

If you truly “call ’em like you see ’em,” as Premier Scott Moe claimed he does this week, wouldn’t you send your social services minister to say something stronger than the government is “disappointed”? Shouldn’t you have immediately said Weyburn council is dead wrong and needs to fix this? If you are an Opposition supposedly concerned about children this session, shouldn’t you have immediately demanded in question period accountability for today’s children struggling with this “stigma?”

Sadly, it wasn’t until former premier Brad Wall tweeted that Weyburn council’s decision “must be changed” that anyone from the Saskatchewan legislature saw fit to send out a truly strong message.

Seriously? The Sask. Party government must wait for Brad Wall’s proclamation of what is the right thing?

It was a mere six years ago that Wall was making the notion of Saskatchewan being “the best place in Canada to work, live and raise a family” more than 2007 and 2011 campaign rhetoric by announcing it had found group home space for every one of the 440 people with intellectual disabilities who had been on a waiting list.

By putting $62.5 million into a five-year program producing 75 new group homes, Wall and then-social services minister Draude were able to announce in April 2013 that the wait list was eliminated — something the previous NDP government failed to do.

Evidently, the Sask. Party government has long known what is the right thing here, because they were doing the right thing six years ago.

So why did so many politicians struggle to do the right thing now?

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post.