Long-term promises coming back to bite Wall

Say this about Premier Brad Wall and his Saskatchewan Party government: They haven’t been afraid of making commitments.

But as we saw this week on the issue of the high school graduation rate — one of the many commitments Wall made a year after the 2011 election in his Saskatchewan Plan for Growth: Vision 2020 and Beyond — his longer-term post-election commitments are becoming more troubling.

This is not to say that Wall has been especially reckless in any of his promise-making. He hasn’t had to be.

Consider some of the 53 promises from the 2011 Sask. Party platform he’s already kept: Funding 2,000 additional childcare spaces; $120,000 in forgivable student loans for new rural doctors and nurses; an additional $80 per month to Seniors Income Plan recipients; $2.2 billion in highways investments; 20 new training seats and expanded scope for nurse practitioners; increased disability benefits; and, a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.

Admittedly, the Sask. Party’s 2011 platform book was actually rather light on costly promises — this, despite the fact the government had just come through the most economically prosperous four-year term in Saskatchewan history.

Moreover, the Sask. Party’s 2011 platform turned out to be a brilliant contrast to then-NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter’s ill-defined commitment to begin discussion on revenue-sharing with First Nations — an issue that not only was unpopular with the largely white Saskatchewan electorate, but also one still haunting current leader Cam Broten, who must now deal with a split in his ranks over this very policy. Whether or not this was deliberate or all a happy political coincidence for the Sask. Party will be debated for some time. But Wall’s prudence during the last campaign — notwithstanding the fact that we were still enjoying $90 US a barrel of oil during the last campaign — has served him well.

In fact, in the grander scheme of things — and let us presume that a premier more focused on his third term than the second he knew he was destined to win would be somewhat viewing the world in the grander scheme of things — it allowed Wall some wiggle room to unveil his arguably more costly longerterm blueprint a year after his 2011 re-election.

In October 2012, Wall unveiled the eight-year “Vision 2020 and Beyond” growth plan. Its overarching theme was that there is no value in growth for growth’s sake alone and it pitched many remarkable goals to make Saskatchewan strong.

The centrepiece was clearly the plan for a population of 1.2 million by 2020 — an achievable goal given that Saskatchewan cracked 1.1 million before the end of Wall’s first term. The target was buttressed by adding 60,000 more working people by 2020, doubling Saskatchewan exports by 2020, and increasing crop production and food exports by five billion tonnes by 2020.

These goals outlined 31/2 years ago are on the way to being achieved or have already been achieved simply by good fortune. For example, freakishly good growing conditions in the 2013 crop year meant that goal was immediately met.

However, other goals are proving far more difficult to accomplish. Among these are: reducing surgical wait times to no more than three months by 2014 (a goal already unachieved); eliminating emergency room wait times by 2017 (a goal now abandoned); and, cutting in half the provincial debt by 2017 (it skyrocketed to $13.1 billion in the mid-year 2015-16 budget report — up from $11 billion in 2007).

And during a legislative public accounts committee meeting this week, the NDP Opposition was told that 2013 Saskatchewan graduation rates were 74.8 per cent overall. Meanwhile, self-declared First Nations and Metis students graduated at a pathetic rate of 37.4 per cent.

This flew in the face of the 2012 document’s call to lead the nation in the Grade 12 graduation rate, with an 85-per-cent target.

Sure, graduation rates appears to be a stalling of progress rather than going backwards as we seem to be doing on debt reduction goals and eliminating ER wait times.

Nevertheless failure to meet this and some other 2020 goals would be problematic.

If the 2011 Sask. Party platform book didn’t give the NDP much fodder, the 2012 Plan for Growth document gives it more to chew on.