So Other Than Government Ads…What’s On TV?

Ads, ads and more ads.  Speculation that the Premier was ready to call a general election this spring was fueled in part by the spate of government television advertising.

Crown corporation TV commercials warning residents not to drop plugged-in hair dryers into sinks or stick knives into toasters were among the millions of dollars worth of advertisements purchased by the government this spring.

The government’s Future is Wide Open campaign played a huge role in those television advertisements.  The Official Opposition does believe it is important to promote Saskatchewan as a great place to work, play and raise a family.  We believe, however, that the government should first ensure that improvements are made to the business climate including lower taxes on growth, more balanced labour legislation and an end to the practice of the government competing with Saskatchewan businessmen and women with taxpayers’ dollars.

And when those improvements are made, promoting Saskatchewan across Canada and around the world can be a positive use of taxpayers’ dollars.  In the meantime the government seems to be ignoring the need for these basic changes and spending a majority of these promotional dollars promoting Saskatchewan inside Saskatchewan.

Its not hard to understand why Saskatchewan people, while supportive of the concept of promoting Saskatchewan, are growing increasingly cynical that this particular program may have more to do with the NDP government’s election year strategy than growing Saskatchewan.  For example of the over $1 million spent in advertising the Wide Open Future campaign, almost $600,000 has been spent inside Saskatchewan promoting our province to those who are already living, investing, working and raising our families in our great province and who believe in the future of Saskatchewan.

Max TV Costing Max Dollars…With Min Customers

After spending at least $21 million (some have estimated close to $60 million) to develop their digital interactive TV product known as ‘Max’, SaskTel is admitting disappointment at only have attracting about 5000 customers – or less than a 2% share of the market place.  The pending disaster for taxpayers could make the Spudco scandal look like small potatoes.

What’s particular disappointing about this is that SaskTel had plenty of forewarning of what is now unfolding.  Telephone company after telephone company has tried and subsequently abandoned their own experiments with digital interactive TV costing their shareholders millions.  In the case of New Brunswick’s VibeVision, their telephone company, Aliant, actually bought all of their digital interactive TV customers satellite dishes when they abandoned this scheme.

But here in Saskatchewan, the NDP government has forged ahead.  This is particularly disheartening as the latest evidence that the government simply doesn’t understand how badly it is eroding the strength of a company like SaskTel.  The corporation has lost over $60 million on out of province investments in places like Georgia, Tennessee and Australia.  Furthermore, ill-conceived schemes like Max TV provide no new service but instead compete with existing Saskatchewan companies and cooperatives.

As I have said on a number of occasions as the Opposition Crowns critic, SaskTel does an excellent job of serving Saskatchewan and competing with larger phone companies when it sticks to its core competencies.  It’s the out-of-province investments and risky schemes away from their core business that seem to get the NDP government and sadly the taxpayers into millions of dollars worth of trouble.

The Opposition position was supported recently by the Dominion Bond Rating Agency which said that one of SaskTel’s key challenges is its “funding of its non-core investments.”

The Election That Wasn’t Called

Premier Lorne Calvert recently confirmed in the media that he would not be calling an election this spring.  He cited various reasons for the non-election call, but it would seem recent polls showing the government in serious trouble are the likely reason for the delay.  The non-call provides still more evidence that we need set elections in our province, something that the Official Opposition has been committed to since the last election.  We need to stop playing games with the timing of elections.  Set election dates do not preclude a government being defeated in a vote in the Legislative Assembly, but they do create a political atmosphere of greater certainty in which voters will know the date by which they will be able to judge the government on its performance.

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My email address is bradw@bradwall.com  Our website is www.bradwall.com