Speech - March 25, 2002: Throne Speech Response

THRONE SPEECH RESPONSE

Mr. Wall: — Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to rise again in the Legislative Assembly and enter the debate over the Speech from the Throne, Mr. Speaker. At the outset of my remarks I’d like to once again acknowledge the great constituency of Swift Current, and the people of that constituency which is basically, Mr. Speaker, the city of Swift Current and a small rural area to the north and to the south. I want to thank them again for the unqualified honour that I have to represent them here in the Assembly. And, Mr. Speaker, while I’m at it I’d also like to offer some words of welcome as well to the new member for Saskatoon Idylwyld to this Assembly, and certainly to our colleague, the member for Battleford-Cut Knife. It’s a joy to see him back here in the legislature. I want to acknowledge as well, Mr. Speaker, the support that I receive from my family at home, from my wife, Tami, and our children, Megan and Colter and Faith. We have quite a young family and so her support and their support is very, very important to me and allows me to be able to do this job.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I was looking for some quotes to use from somebody that would aptly describe the Throne Speech as I saw it, and as I’ve heard the various debates. It’s difficult to find just the right quote but I hope I was able to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I found a quote here in a book called With Malice Toward None, and it’s a quote by Abraham Lincoln who at the time of making this quote he was a little frustrated with a US Supreme Court decision called the Dred Scott Decision on the issue of slavery and the citizenship of the slaves at that time. And he was also a little frustrated with the argument that was put forward by his arch enemy throughout his political life, a fellow by the name of Stephen Douglas. He thought his arguments were a little thin and he said of Mr. Douglas’ arguments, he said he found them “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death,” Mr. Deputy Speaker. And I read that quote and it jumped out of the page at me because that is exactly what the Throne Speech is that we’re debating here today.

This Throne Speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is as thin as the soup made from boiling the shadow of a pigeon that starved to death. And if we needed a proof of it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if we needed any proof of that, we only had to listen to the comments by the previous speaker, the member for Regina Victoria. In his defence of this Throne Speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and he actually concluded his speech with it, he basically criticized the official opposition’s response to the Throne Speech, a response that has included specific criticisms but also the presentation of   a plan — and yes, a detailed plan for the future of the province. Mr. Deputy Speaker, he criticized them basically by saying, in his last reference there, that people ought not to dream, that people in this province ought to settle for the way things are, that the way things are today in terms of the out-migration of the tax base and of our population is something that we have to put up with. We can’t do anything about it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, that’s why this Throne Speech is so much thin gruel. It has no hope for the people of the province who now more than ever need that hope. They want to hear from their leaders that it is okay to dream. They want to hear from their government that it’s not okay to settle for what we have to date, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Instead what they get is a Throne Speech that is devoid and bereft of any hope or any ideas as to how we can turn the situation around and, more to the point, it’s supported, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by members, former cabinet ministers no less, that stand up and basically shrug their shoulders and give up, Mr. Speaker — give up on the province of Saskatchewan.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I recall reading the clippings as we were getting ready to come back to session, and the Premier indicated that he believed this session could be characterized thusly. He said it’ll be really a showcasing of competing plans, on competing visions for the province’s future. That’s what he said. And to some extent he’s right. I think many of us on this side of the House would wonder where the other plan is. We’ve certainly presented ours; we haven’t seen theirs yet. But I can assure you, I can assure you of this, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are relishing the opportunity, we’re relishing the opportunity this session and in the months ahead to contrast the plan of the Saskatchewan Party for the province of Saskatchewan and the lack of a plan that’s coming from this government in the Throne Speech. We couldn’t agree more with the Premier and our only hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is that the people of this province have ample opportunity to check out those two competing visions, to hear the comments and the plans from this side and the politics and the lack of a plan that comes from this side. And if they have the opportunity to check out those competing visions, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they’re going to clearly see the NDP approach to governance over these many years, and they’re going to clearly see that that approach hasn’t changed. It is the tired old dogmatic approach to our economy and to our government. Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is an approach that relies almost exclusively on government. It is an approach that puts government ahead of any other sector of our economy. And, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is an approach that has been rejected, that has been roundly rejected by every other free market economy in the world, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is an approach that places a priority on an unwavering confidence in government as the solution to our challenges and all too little faith and all too little importance with the people of the province, with the small-business men and women of the province and the workers of our province. Mr. Deputy Speaker, what we’ve seen in the Throne Speech is representative of the approach of this government.

And frankly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it’s the economic approach that governments have offered in this province for 60 years. For 60 years we have seen the same sort of a strategy and approach from different governments of Saskatchewan. And to be fair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that approach has been forwarded, not just by the NDP, but by three other parties — by their predecessors, the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) and, to a large measure, by Liberal governments and Tory governments in this province that have not substantively changed our province’s reliance on the government. For 60 years, we have tried precious little else than this unwavering and unbalanced dependence on the government for everything on the economic side of government and on the more soft or social side of government. Governments of those four different political stripes have relied on government intervention. They’ve relied on a very active Crown corporation sector. They’ve relied on direct investment. They’ve relied on indirect investment. They’ve relied on a lot of program spending, frankly. One of the best examples that I can think of is the home improvement programs that we heard about in the 1980s. Very, very costly programs, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the treasury, the benefits of which I think everyone would agree are questionable. I remember the home improvement program of the ’80s and, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that program though, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was matched. In fact, it was exceeded in a bit of a bidding war by the NDP. In that 1986 election I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they wanted to one-up the government of the day. They wanted to outspend the government of the day. They wanted to out-gift the government of the day. So they introduced something, I think it was called the 7-7-7 program. I think that’s what the NDP called it.  You see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, regardless of political stripe, up until this point we have had political parties that differ only on the margins. They differ only on the margins when it comes to how we can grow our economy and what we can do to turn our province around. For the most part, they have agreed and relied on government and on the Crown sector.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, all that seems to have changed is the names of the programs. Maybe a few new Crowns, or maybe a lot more new Crowns, under this government — 70-plus and counting, if you can believe it. Mr. Speaker, the program names have changed, the governments’ names have changed, the names of the parties in place have changed, the names of the premiers have changed, the names on the door of the cabinet offices have changed, but what has not changed is our approach in this province and the approach of the government, led for the most part by the NDP and the CCF. And so if we’ve tried the same thing over and over and over again for 60 years, I think it’s fair to say that now is probably a good time — maybe 30 or 40 years ago would have been a better time — but now is as good as time as any to try to evaluate what those 60 years have wrought for us, what that unwavering reliance on government has left us here in the province of Saskatchewan. 

Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in 1929 our population was just under 1 million people. And today it’s just under 1 million people. In 1944 the province of Saskatchewan accounted for about 35 per cent of the population of the Prairies; and we’re down below 20 per now. We account for less than 20 per cent of the population of the Prairies. What about our private sector? Has it grown after these 60 years of reliance on government; after all these years of NDP-CCF rule, inter-sprinkled by parties that didn’t change much in a substantive way in terms of its economic approach? Well no, Mr. Deputy Speaker. For a province that is 100 years old, for a province that is the Dominion’s second-largest producer of oil and gas, the world’s number one producer of uranium, a province with the most arable acres in all of Canada, all of those assets, you’d think in 60 years or in 100 years that our private sector would be vibrant, our population would have grown. None of those have . . . None of that’s occurred, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In fact I think the Minister of Finance was lamenting, in some of his pre-budget media interviews, he was lamenting, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the government, this government had budgeted about $300 million in corporate income tax this last budget year and they were going to receive about $150 million this past year. Half what they budgeted — just barely more than a point on the PST (provincial sales tax), Mr. Deputy Speaker. And perhaps most important, what has this approach to government, to the administration of our province, what has it done to our ability to afford medicare or an excellent education system or social services?

Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, today it’s pretty clear that there are precious few resources — too small a tax base, some would say, to support the kind of health care we want for our constituents. And it’s more than just rhetoric of course when you consider it can be measured in terms of Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan having the longest waiting lists, the longest waiting lists in all of Canada. Our education system is creaking under the weight of an increasing reliance on the local property tax base, because this government, this NDP government downloaded $300 million in education funding to local governments and to the property tax base. So what are . . . the reasons for all of this are pretty clear, Mr. Deputy Speaker. And this government perhaps is the best example we have had yet. For 60 years we have had governments that have focused themselves on cutting up the same pie. They have focused themselves on redistributing wealth, comfortable that almost all of the corporations in our province of any critical mass are government owned and government controlled, comfortable with the tired old notion that the government can somehow generate wealth, that the government can create jobs. They just try to look at that same pie, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and find a different way to cut it up.

Well, Mr. Speaker . . . well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there is a reason why the province of Saskatchewan, rural and urban, are responding to the Saskatchewan Party plan. Because for once, in six decades, someone is talking about growing the pie, growing the province, so there are more resources, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so there are more resources for health care, a larger tax base to generate wealth for education and social services. Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I said, we’re going to be having our 100-year birthday and isn’t it sad that when we mark that special occasion that our private sector, that sector of the economy that can do the things that we want it to do for health care, education, and social services is so incredibly small? It’s no wonder, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it’s that small. The private sector, small-business men and women in our province, have had to endure 60 years of socialism — 60 years of trying to compete with their own tax dollars, 60 years of high taxes on investment and high taxes on productivity, 60 years . . .

Mr. Wall: — Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Mr. Deputy Speaker, we were commenting on how, in 2002, our private sector is so unfortunately small in the province of Saskatchewan. And it’s little wonder, for what our private sector have had to endure, what our small-business men and women have had to endure in terms of high taxes on productivity and in terms of the ever-intrusive family of Crown corporations often competing with those small businesses with their own tax dollars. Well eventually all of that takes its toll, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Eventually all of that has an impact. Eventually entrepreneurs get fed up. They are by nature among the most restless group of people out there. Entrepreneurs are by nature in a hurry, and there’s only so long they’ll wait. There’s only so long they’ll wait for the business climate they need to go ahead, make their investments, create jobs, and generate a tax base for the province of Saskatchewan. You see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what this government doesn’t understand, and the Throne Speech is more evidence of it, is that venture capital investment is the lifeblood of any free market economy or society; it’s the lifeblood, Mr. Deputy Speaker — that venture capital is the only thing, the only thing that generates wealth. It’s the only thing that creates permanent, lasting, economic development. It’s the only thing that creates a job. It’s the only thing that creates employment for people so they can pay the PST, so they can pay the income tax, so they can pay their property tax, so they can enrol their kids in a school division. It is the only thing that allows companies to pay their corporate income tax, their corporate capital tax, the PST, their small business tax if that’s the case, their education tax. That is how we’re going to be able to fund the things that we want to fund off of the tax base. And, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether we like it or not, venture capital follows the path of least resistance. It always has and it always will. Maybe we wish that it weren’t so, but it is. That’s the nature of venture capital — it’ll always follow the path of least resistance. And so what can a government do in that respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Well a government can either put barriers in the way of that venture capital stream. It can pile rocks in the stream until it backs up and eventually just goes elsewhere. Or it can remove those barriers. It can get those roadblocks, those dams, it can get them out of the way. And that is what the Grow Saskatchewan plan is all about.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — Mr. Deputy Speaker, you can pick any one element of the plan, and in and of itself it’s not revolutionary, whether it might be a reduction on the taxes in productivity, reducing the corporate capital tax in Saskatchewan, or maybe ensuring that our labour legislation is fair for both employees and workers. But when you take it as a whole, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you take that plan as a whole, it represents a fundamental change for the province of Saskatchewan. In and of itself each point may not be revolutionary, but taken as a whole it represents the very first time in 60 years that any political party has understood how we can grow this economy in a lasting way — that’s what it represents.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — Compare that with the attitude of the speakers opposite. Compare that with the remarks from the member for Regina Victoria who unbelievably stood in the Assembly and said, well you know there isn’t really anything we can do; we’re kind of an agrarian economy and other agrarian economies are having trouble. And sort of throw up your hands — there’s not much you can do. Well he makes one fundamental mistake in that assertion, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is one thing that we have not tried in this province. There is one thing that we have not tried and it’s a recognition in the ability of entrepreneurs, it’s a recognition in the ability of venture capital to create a tax base for this province so that our health care system is sustainable. We’ve never tried it, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The good news is that after the election we will try it, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We will try it.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — Mr. Deputy Speaker, you could measure the toll of 60 years of this kind of government intervention in statistics. You could talk about unemployment statistics. You could talk about out-migration. You could talk about demographics. Today though, I’d like to underscore exactly what the results of that kind of approach that we see from this government is in terms of a story of a family from my constituency. They are a relatively young family, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in their 40s or so, and my colleague from Indian Head-Milestone assures me that that indeed is very young. They live just outside of Swift Current and they’re in the constituency of Swift Current. They came here about 10 years ago and they established a business. And throughout that business they were able to employ some people — different people at times, sometimes one and a half employees, maybe sometimes two but they always had people on staff. The wife of the family also started a number of businesses, catering. They tried whatever they could, whatever they could, and they worked very hard. And, Mr. Deputy Speaker, here lately they had to move on and try another business but they tried it here in Swift Current, here in Saskatchewan. They wanted to make it work. And while they were here for those 10 years, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they did employ people. They paid income tax. They paid the sales tax. They paid their property taxes. Their kids enrolled in local schools to help an excellent rural division that we have called the Prairie West Division and an excellent school called Wymark where their kids went. And they contributed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the local economy and to their area. And then a week ago Sunday the pastor in our church made an announcement. He announced that this particular family was moving to Claresholm, Alberta; and he thanked them for the work they had done in the church and confirmed that indeed they were leaving to Claresholm. And you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when we raise these individual cases or when we talk about out-migration in general, we often hear the Economic Development minister say: well it’s farming, that’s the problem; it’s agriculture; we wouldn’t have depopulation if it wasn’t for agriculture. That’s what the Minister for Economic Development says. I want to tell you where this gentleman is going to work, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He is going to work in southern Alberta where They’ve had a drought arguably a year longer than we have and he’s going to work in agriculture, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He’s going to go work on a farm. He’s going to go get involved with a feedlot operation there.  And they’re going to be leaving this weekend, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and we hope to see them off because it’s my brother, Barry, and my sister-in-law, Glenda, that are leaving. And you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we’re family, so certainly I’m going to miss them and my folks will miss them, their friends will miss them, the church will miss them. But more important for this debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the province will miss them. The province is going to miss their income tax and their small-business tax and all the consumables they purchased. They’re going to miss the kids in their local school and their taxes to the local school board, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

And I have tried, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to understand, in light of that recent development in our family, I’ve tried to understand the Minister of Economic Development’s remarks when he says that, well maybe a good way to look at population loss is that there will be more left for the rest of us. And I can’t square it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because in his case, in their case, and in the cases of so many other people that are leaving, there will be less for the rest of us. There will be much less for the rest of us, and not just in terms of finances, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but in terms of the contribution that they make to their community. And so it leaves me a little bit angry, frankly, when I hear the Minister of Economic Development make those sorts of comments that a population loss maybe isn’t so bad because there will be more for the rest of us. We need a government, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that believes that losing families like that is unacceptable, that it’s never good, that it’s never right, and we better . . . Mr. Deputy Speaker, we better move heaven and earth to find a way to keep them in the province of Saskatchewan, and that’s the difference tonight between this side and that side of the Assembly.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — Mr. Deputy Speaker, for thousands of people, it’s too late. It’s too late for my brother and his family. Anything that a government could do, any government could do, is too late. And you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it’s almost too late for a whole other group of people that are planning an exit strategy. And they really are. But the bottom line is, and the good news is, for the rest of us it’s not too late just yet, it’s not too late. But it will be if we can’t change the government, if we can’t change the attitude of the people that sit to your right hand and have a government in this province who fundamentally understand that we can do better in this province and that we will do better if we try something that we haven’t tried for 60 years, if we try something that has worked in every other jurisdiction that has tried it in earnest.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, Mr. Deputy Speaker one of the barriers I spoke of earlier in terms of what the, what the governments of Saskatchewan have put in the way of venture capital and entrepreneurs, one of the barriers is Crown corporations. Not the Crown corporations themselves — the Crown corporations themselves and many of the staff and management at those Crown corporations, at those Crown corporations are absolutely assets; they’re assets to our province. It’s the management of the Crowns. It’s the direction of the Crowns by the members opposite that’s a barrier to growth in this province. The only thing, I should think, that consumes their thoughts more than Crown corporations and how they can further expand their influence and purview, the only thing that they obsess more, I think, is our position on Crown corporations, is what the official opposition thinks about Crown corporations. And so, Mr. Speaker, we often hear them — and they’re chirping from their seats right now to prove the point — we often hear them inventing opposition Crown corporation policy. I think I heard the member from Regina Wascana in her speech say and I quote, that we would, quote, “sell everything that’s not nailed down.” Well that’s a genuine intervention in the debate, Mr. Speaker. That’s a reasonable statement to make. We’ve heard other members say, we’ve heard the Minister for CIC (Crown Investments Corporation of Saskatchewan) say the same thing. When he has no answers in question period, he sort of resorts to rhetoric and that’s the kind of rhetoric that we hear. Every single time, Mr. Speaker, you hear that kind of statement coming from those benches over there, you’ll have to know, Mr. Speaker, that it is not true — it is not true. And were I allowed, I’d use stronger language than that. Mr. Speaker, if you have a doubt of that I simply invite you and through you to any other member in the House to bring some sort of shred of evidence, some sort of utterance that we’ve made that they can base this outlandish claim on.

But they won’t do it, Mr. Speaker. They won’t do it because that would get in the way of the time-honoured NDP political tactic of fearmongering, Mr. Speaker. That’s what it would get in the way of. You know, Mr. Speaker, people ask us incredulously, how can they do that? How can they just say something that they know fundamentally isn’t true? To tell you the truth, Mr. Speaker, we don’t know the answer to that. But we do know, but we do know it’s part of their political heritage. We do know that it is their political stock-in-trade to fearmonger. That’s what they’ve been about for 60 years in this province, Mr. Speaker. It used to be, it used to be the medi-scare and everyone knows about the medi-scare. Anyone who has ever been involved in any political campaign in the province of Saskatchewan, they know all about the NDP medi-scare. The medi-scare is pretty simple, Mr. Speaker. The medi-scare is as follows. Any party that opposes them, any organization that opposes them would take away your medical care. They’d take away medicare. That’s their stock-in-trade, Mr. Speaker. I think it was a by-election in Assiniboia-Gravelbourg, a by-election in Assiniboia-Gravelbourg in the late 1980s, if you can believe this, Mr. Speaker, that the then leader of the opposition, Mr. Romanow, sent out a letter and an accompanying press release, and I think the letter went to every single municipality in Assiniboia-Gravelbourg. And do you know what he said, Mr. Speaker? Know what the letter said? Mr. Speaker, the letter said that, if you voted for our opponents, for the NDP’s opponents, if you vote for them, they will close down every single hospital in the constituency. I think there were five. Mr. Speaker, that is the NDP tried and true tactic of fearmongering. Well, Mr. Speaker, the medi-scare tactic doesn’t work any more because of what they have done to medical care in the province of Saskatchewan, because of the hospitals that they have closed. And every time they try to perpetrate that kind of bunk on the people of Saskatchewan, they remember things like the 50 hospitals that were closed. They remember the Plains hospital, Mr. Speaker. It doesn’t work any more. Mr. Speaker, that party, that party trying to tell the voters that they should be scared of the Saskatchewan Party’s health care policies, that’s like Dracula telling people that they should be scared of Harry Potter, Mr. Speaker. It doesn’t wash. But they’ve moved on to a new scare tactic since the health scare, the medi-scare tactic doesn’t work any more. They found something else to fabricate. They found something else to whip up.

And it’s easy to see why they would be a little sensitive about Crown corporations, frankly, Mr. Speaker, because what is the real fright in all of this is the NDP’s record on the Crowns. Their record on the Crowns, Mr. Speaker, is what they desperately don’t want the public to know. They’ve sort of wavered. For the most part they’ve been about expanding the Crowns. But we found out last session they were looking to privatize up to a third of SaskTel. We know they certainly don’t mind privatizing non-core assets. They sold a bunch of shares in Cameco not long ago, Cameco which used to be, used to be SMDC (Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation) which was a member of the family of Crown corporations, Mr. Speaker. But maybe we should review though, Mr. Speaker, and I’m certainly prepared to do that. Maybe we should review about . . . review the actions of this government as it relates to Crown corporations and how the Crowns have strayed from their original mandate. There’s perhaps no better example of a Crown corporation that has strayed from its original mandate, its public service mandate to provide telephony to the province of Saskatchewan, than SaskTel. Last session we found out that SaskTel had lost about a million plus in something called IQ&A. IQ&A, Mr. Speaker, was an ill-fated attempt by this government to set up another sub of another Crown to sell people’s personal health care information. So they wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money until they found out that no other government in Canada wanted to sell their health care information. That was the first example we raised. The second was a company, an ingenious . . . an ingenious plan by the government opposite called Clickabid. And Clickabid was going to compete, if you’ll remember, Mr. Speaker, with eBay, the world giant Internet site that offers on-line auction services. And they lost a couple million in Clickabid and wrapped that up. There was agdealer.com, Mr. Speaker, where the government invested in a business that directly competes with a burgeoning, a wonderful new company in Outlook. They invested in that as well — an Ontario-based company to compete with a Saskatchewan-based company. There was tappedinto.com, which is a video/audio streaming dot-com in Nashville, Tennessee. The other shoe hasn’t dropped on tappedinto.com, Mr. Speaker. We don’t know how much money the taxpayers have lost in that. There was SecurTek, Mr. Speaker, which confirmed — which confirmed for us last year, and we’ll hear more this year — that they have lost millions of dollars of SaskTel’s money. Money that could be used to expand cellular service, money that might have been used to improve SaskTel service to the province, has been squandered in these ventures. And what’s worse . . .

The Speaker: — Order, please. Order, please.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — What’s worse, Mr. Speaker, it’s bad enough that SecurTek’s been losing SaskTel’s money and the taxpayers’ money, but in the bargain — in the bargain — they’ve been Competing with Saskatchewan businesses. There’s a constituent in Swift Current who’s now out of that business because of the competition he faced from his own Crown, from his Crown corporation. People in Swift Current were very surprised late last year, I think it was, when they found out that SecurTek’s latest investment was to buy a monitoring company in Medicine Hat, Mr. Speaker. Investing in Medicine Hat, the city that poses the greatest economic threat to Swift Current, and this government through SaskTel throws a little more money their way. You know, Mr. Speaker, I got a call not long after that from a business person in Medicine Hat, who were in that same business that SaskTel had invested in through SecurTek, and they were upset. You know, Mr. Speaker, not only do Saskatchewan business people resent competing with the Crowns, but apparently Alberta business people don’t like it very much either. That was her concern; now she’s competing with the Saskatchewan taxpayers there in Medicine Hat. Mr. Speaker, they are currently speculating on the Australian Stock Market at SaskTel; we know that. We know that they’re currently in the ditch and we understand it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. If it gets better. We know, Mr. Speaker, that they’ve announced $80 million for a place called Newcastle, Australia, where they’re going to invest in telephony and in telecommunications in Australia.

And you know, Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard members opposite stand up and sanctimoniously defend these kinds of schemes saying, well we need to do these things to invest in Saskatchewan if you want us to build out the infrastructure in Saskatchewan. That’s just ridiculous, Mr. Speaker. How about the $80 million they’re going to spend in Australia’s infrastructure system? A lot of people in Saskatchewan are saying, why don’t you use that? Why don’t you use that if you need some resources to develop the cellular network to improve service in the province of Saskatchewan? Why don’t you put the people of Nipawin ahead of the people of Newcastle, Australia, Mr. Speaker? That’s what the people of the province are asking. We can move on to SaskEnergy. They’ve been investing for some time now in Chile. Last year in Crown Corporations Committee we asked, well how’s that going; have you made  any money? No, no, we haven’t made any money, but boy, we’re going to; we’re going to make more money. Like we’re so sure we’re going to make more money that in November they announced they’re going to spend more money in Chile and Mexico to boot. With some hope, some prospect of return maybe. But these are high-risk investments — $30 million in Chile and Mexico. SaskPower. What about SaskPower, Mr. Speaker? Well in December there was a rate review panel that was commissioned to look at SaskPower’s rate increase request. And that rate review panel did the right thing. They hired an independent consultant. And the independent consultant looks at the books of SaskPower and that independent consultant concluded that SaskPower International’s plan to spend almost $500 million over the next number of years could well show up on our power Bills  Saskatchewan SaskPower customers could be paying for still more ill-fated, ill advised investments. That’s what the independent consultant said, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the latest example of SaskPower comes into place close to home, and many members on this side have talked about it. It has to do with the wind farm. It has to do with the wind farm near Gull Lake where the government kind of, sort of, kind of half got it right last year when they went down this road because they wanted to partner with the private sector. And two companies out of Alberta were ready to play the game; they were ready to make an investment. They needed certain assurances from SaskPower. They got the assurances they needed and the projects went up, I think on time and on budget. I think they are generating power. I think they are more efficient than anyone expected them to be, and so SaskPower had to look at that, I guess, and thought to itself, well . . . and the NDP thought to itself, well it worked so well, why don’t we just do it ourselves? Why don’t we just leave the partners out of this and why don’t we do this ourselves? And if anybody, Mr. Speaker, has any doubt about the impact of that on RMs (rural municipalities) in the area — I think the two are Carmichael and the RM of Webb — they need to only go down and ask the people down there how that works, because the private/public partnership model is paying taxes — 70,000-plus I think is what they’re paying.

Mr. Wall: — Seventy-six thousand, the member for Rosthern says. So how much do you think the family of Crown corporations is paying to the RM that they are going to be located in. Bupkis, Mr. Speaker. They are paying absolutely nothing. And if you want, if you have a question, if members opposite have a question, Mr. Speaker, as to what model might be best in the future, public partner private . . . public/private partnerships, where Crowns might build joint venture relations with other private sector companies or just the government blindly, ideologically proceeding with the Crowns, if you want to ask them the question of which they prefer, the answer is pretty clear. They want to try something new. They want to get away from this tired, old attitude that the government has to do everything. It doesn’t have to do everything. And when it does do everything, side by side with a private sector alternative, it becomes pretty clear which is more effective, which is more beneficial for the tax base. You know, Mr. Speaker, the latest one that we were talking about in this Assembly was a company called . . . was a company called Retx. (Retail Energy Transaction Exchange). We raised Retx in the legislature last week. Retx is an Atlanta-based dot-com company that the government got into a couple of years ago. It first got into it with about 49 per cent and now it owns well over 60 per cent and the taxpayers have $20 million in this thing. We asked in Crown Corporations Committee last year well how is this investment doing. Making any money here? Well no, our share of the losses are about $265,000 — Saskatchewan’s share, the NDP’s share on behalf of the taxpayers. So I guess we haven’t gave an opportunity for the minister to stand in his place and tell us how much more money they’ve made in the months that have passed since then. Apparently it hasn’t made any money either, Mr. Speaker. It hasn’t made any money. How many jobs did it create in the province, we asked. None. It created a job for a Saskatchewan person in Atlanta but it created nothing for the province of Saskatchewan. So then in trying to be constructive about the whole mess — and that’s what we consider it — we suggested to the government that since it’s a dot-com, since it’s Internet-based and its location is not that crucial, would the government use its 60 per cent majority position and relocate the company to Saskatchewan? You know what the minister said? The minister said, that’s ridiculous. That’s a ridiculous suggestion. He said it in here and apparently he said it out there. Well, Mr. Speaker, through you and to that minister, maybe he lacks the confidence to be able to sell the benefits of this province. Maybe he lacks the ability to go down there and tell them about a 60-cent dollar they can take benefit from. Maybe he lacks the ability to go down and talk to them about our burgeoning IT (information technology) industry and how there would be some synergies between that sector and this new company. Maybe he lacks the zeal or the will to do it but we don’t, Mr. Speaker. We are prepared. We would be prepared and we will be prepared to go out and attract companies back here and sell the assets, not just simply give up . . . the minister, the member for Regina Victoria said. Not just simply give up, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the other issue that we raised last week with regard to Crowns was the government’s involvement with Great West Brewery and my colleague, the member for Indian Head Milestone, asked some questions, some very reasonable questions. He didn’t argue with the actions of the government in ’95, but in light of the fact . . . but in light of the fact that the employee shareholders and the other shareholders of Great West Brewery didn’t ask for the government to convert its debenture into equity. Nobody asked the government to do that, Mr. Speaker. From what we can gather the brewery didn’t phone up the minister and say, would you please convert your debenture into equity and become an 80 per cent shareholder in a brewery. Nobody asked that. They just did it anyway. And so the member for Indian Head-Milestone stood in his place and said, well fair enough; we can’t figure that out but won’t you at least commit to an exit strategy? When are you going to get the taxpayers out, ensuring the stability of that company? But apparently they’re going to just stay in it I guess, Mr. Speaker — I’m not sure. Mr. Speaker, when the business community from across Canada looks in on our province, when they read in the newspapers and on the national wire services about these sorts of measures — the government investing $20 million in an Atlanta-based dot-com; the government converting a debenture to equity so it owns 80 per cent of a brewery, even though no one asked it to; the government, Mr. Speaker, offering itself as the one true solution for what ails our economy and our province — what do they see when they look in at our province? These are people who potentially could invest. These are venture capitalists who are always looking for opportunities. What do they see when they look across the way and they see their actions? Watching the government spout 1970s, left-wing, blindly ideological rhetoric — rhetoric — and then putting that rhetoric to action in terms of the government getting in the way of business and putting more barriers in that stream of venture capital. That’s what they see. See a government sitting at its desk, probably working diligently on two inches of shag rug by the light of lava lamps I’m sure they have from the 1970s. But, Mr. Speaker, we need to send a signal — not just to our business community in the province, but to entrepreneurs and investors and venture capitalists from across Canada and around the world — we need to send them a signal that Saskatchewan gets it. Finally after 60 years they’ve changed the government, they’ve got someone running the show that gets it, that understands that government doesn’t create jobs but that business creates jobs.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — And so, Mr. Speaker, and so we’ve mapped out a non-ideological position as it relates to the Crown corporations. That’s pretty clear. We’ve said, Mr. Speaker, as regards the four major Crowns in the province, we’ve said look, we can’t afford to be ideological about it. We can’t afford any particular party or government that says government ownership is bad so we have to sell them. But neither can we afford any ideology that says government ownership is good, so the status quo must remain forever. We can’t afford either. We need to be pragmatic, Mr. Speaker. If, for example . . . If, for example . . . If, for example, a business from elsewhere in Canada recognizes the strength and the ability of one of our major Crowns and they approach the Government of Saskatchewan and say, you know we have a lot of respect for what that Crown corporation is doing and we think we could do a lot more together; there’s some specific developments we could pursue. And we think we can strengthen and protect head office jobs, maybe add to head office jobs in the province of Saskatchewan. We think we can do that and all you need to do, and all the government needs to do, is consider a joint venture, maybe 51 per cent of their equity — maybe 51 per cent of their equity. And in this new joint venture that would be located in the province, that would employ people of the province, that would protect head office jobs, that would add to economic development of the province. Mr. Speaker, do you want the kind of government, do you want the kind of government that would just say no to that deal, based on ideology? Do you want the kind of government that said know what, you know what, we checked the manifesto from nineteen tickety-two, and it says that the government has got to retain 100 per cent? Is that what the city of Regina wants? Is that what the province of Saskatchewan wants? Is that the kind of government we want? Or do we want a government that says look, let’s put down the ideological textbooks for just a second and consider what’s best for the province of Saskatchewan. Let’s do that. How about that, Mr. Speaker?

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — And that is the difference between our policy and their policy. They have ruled out anything but the status quo. They’ve ruled it out. And we, Mr. Speaker, have said look, we need to review the Crowns so that we can ensure that they are still providing a service, that they return to the taxpayers what they should return, that they continue to employ as many Saskatchewan people as they can. But outside of that, let’s review the Crowns, let’s review them with a view to doing what’s right for the province of Saskatchewan. We would do a couple of other things. Pending this review, we would put a moratorium on all out-of-province investments by the Crown corporations. And, Mr. Speaker, we would put an end, an unequivocal and absolute end to the amazing practice of this government of using the Crown corporations to compete with small-business men and women.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — You bet we would do that. You bet we would do that. Mr. Speaker, the Premier is right about one thing in terms of this session. He was right about one thing, that this session in the months that will follow will clearly demonstrate the difference between the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP. It’ll clearly demonstrate the different approach. It’ll clearly demonstrate the vision that this side of the House has compared to the complete lack of vision on that side of the House, Mr. Speaker. It will clearly demonstrate that the Saskatchewan Party is interested in growing Nipawin, and the NDP would like to grow Newcastle, Australia; that the Saskatchewan Party is interested in growing Moose Jaw, and the NDP are interested in growing Mexico; that the Saskatchewan Party would like to grow Alida, and the NDP would like to grow Atlanta. Those are the differences in the next election, Mr. Speaker.  

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Wall: — Because there’s absolutely nothing in this Throne Speech that would send a signal to anybody here or to the people of Swift Current or southwest Saskatchewan that a change is coming, that there’s a government in Regina that understands that we need to do things differently. I will not be supporting the Throne Speech, Mr. Speaker.

Some Hon. Members: Hear, hear!