LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

GET BACK TO BASICS

All three levels of government need to learn how to do basic budgeting.

First, I am not sure how the City of Saskatoon will only save about 10 per cent, $700,000 on its snow removal budget this year, and then only if there is no significant snowfall in March. By my estimation we should save at least 50 per cent if not more, as we have had at least 50 per cent less snow than normal this winter.

Second, the Saskatchewan government already is predicting a shortfall in its budget as resource royalties are down from potash, and the oil and gas sector. Its answer was to take money from a Crown corporation to make up the shortfall, passing the buck to Saskpower to raise rates. Either way the taxpayers, homeowners and business owners will pay.

Third, the federal government is expecting everyone to work longer. It will continue to pay politicians’ pensions and Old Age Security to people who already earn more than $67,000 in pensions annually. However, the hardworking, lower income earners in the construction and service industries will be expected to work for another two years and the people who choose to be stay at home parents or devote their lives to volunteer work will have to wait.

Yet it’s the low- to middle-income earners who keep the economy strong and growing. Colleen Foss Saskatoon

DISSERVICE TO CITY

Re: CETA vote sends

right message (SP, Feb. 9). Columnist Gerry Klein does an injustice to SP readers by dismissing a “free” trade deal that could eliminate 150,000 jobs in Canada and seriously erode the local and regional economies that still hold this country together.

And some of this is done — as was explained to city council — by curtailing procurement practices that would favour local enterprise. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement also poses a challenge for local governments in encouraging public enterprise in sustainable energy, transportation, water, etc.

Challenging CETA is not about “perpetually being against corporations.” It is about supporting our local economies that include private enterprise, co-operative enterprise and public investment.

Klein also wrongly accuses some councillors of promoting fear. What was evident at the city council meeting on Feb. 6 was the already existing fear expressed by councillors who voted CETA because they didn’t want to discourage the business community. It does take courage not to be intimidated by one constituency over others, and to govern wisely and fairly for the common good. Don Kossick Saskatoon

KEY POINT MISSED

Saskatoon councillors and business groups celebrating the recent vote against a municipal exemption from the CanadaEU trade deal might be missing the point.

If there’s one thing the Council of Canadians and other groups have been emphasizing in meetings with local governments, it’s that the rules on public spending in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) have nothing to do with trade.

They are needlessly restrictive and represent a marked change from existing internal and international rules on government procurement.

There’s no ban in the Agreement on Internal Trade or even the New West Partnership to “offsets” — described in CETA and in the WTO procurement agreement, to which Canada is a party, as “any condition or undertaking that encourages local development.”

Canadian content preferences are allowed within reason under the AIT, as are some incentives to encourage local development. These would be disallowed by CETA.

This is a new problem. Saskatoon will lose important tools that most other global cities have retained.

We either can lean on platitudes about being “open for business” and the importance of trade to Canada’s economy, or we could take a closer look at what is being asked of municipalities under CETA.

We are all pro-trade. We all appreciate open and fair procurement. But CETA won’t improve on Saskatoon’s openness in that respect. It will, however, needlessly remove tools from Canadian municipalities that others worldwide rely upon to make good use of public spending to create jobs and support sustainable development. Stuart Trew Trade campaigner, Council of Canadians

TARGET ALL ABUSE

It is interesting that the public, councillors and civic administra- tion have taken notice of the inconveniences and costs associated with the alleged abuse of parking privileges by persons presumed to be entitled to park at downtown metered parking spots on account of disability.

It even made front-page news in The Starphoenix last week.

It is equally interesting that the same public, council and administration tend to largely ignore the inconveniences and costs incurred by persons with disabilities because of the abuse, inadequacies and insufficiencies of designated disability need parking spots in Saskatoon.

Complaints from this perspective seem to hardly, if ever, get acknowledged, let alone make front-page news.

Might I suggest that if there is such abuse and disregard when it comes to parking privileges, the matter in either case should be considered of equal importance. The law against abuse should be rigorously enforced. There should be no discrimination. Julian W. Bodnar Saskatoon

GET IT TOGETHER

We have a prime minister who, with a deft swipe of his pen, recently signed over some of our natural resources to China, a country that refuses to support the United Nations Security Council on issues concerning Iran or Syria.

At the same time, he can’t seem to successfully get a few measly mobile houses set up on the Attawapiskat reserve. Talk about human rights violations.

It seems as if Canada has been overrun by some other country — one that I don’t recognize and one that I don’t like. Ours has become a country where the government doesn’t even pretend to honour human rights, protect the environment, respect First Nations people and our treaties, or to respect the democratic process itself.

The prime minister needs to be told that, in the end, when every river, animal and fish is polluted, you can’t eat money.

In a memorable quote that’s sadly becoming more and more applicable to us, Mohandas Gandhi was once asked what he thought of western civilization. He replied: “I think it’s a very good idea.”

Let’s get it together, Canada. We need to be a country that upholds human rights and preserves the environment, not one that ignores and debases them. Martha Kashap Saskatoon