Beyond The Book Lecture: John Gormley – #UofR 2014
I’ve been to a lot of University of Regina lectures over the years. None by a right wing radio commentator, until tonight, and it didn’t turn out how I expected.…
Saskatchewan
The Blustery Winds of Stupidity Hit Weyburn Hard #skpoli
At least 2 Weyburn City Councillors were not duped by anti-Wind propaganda that afflicts many municipalities. There’s probably no bylaw against this family running a noisy, polluting diesel generator in…
PotashCorp Projects Low Royalties
Today’s fourth-quarter report indicates that PotashCorp paid “provincial mining and other taxes” of $194 million on potash sales of $3 billion in 2013. In other words, Saskatchewan’s resource surcharge and…
Dutch Disease, Prices and Wages in Saskatchewan
Jim Stanford recently pointed out that many of the conservative economists who had defended the overvalued loonie have quickly shifted to applauding its depreciation. The Government of Saskatchewan may be…
Saskatoon Shiners #exploresk
Saskatoon is a beautiful city, so don’t let these photos fool you. Every city has a few shiners here and there. “There”, in this case, is downtown. This is the…
Future Proof: Ice Storms
Last year Shane vlogged about ice storms. Let’s not wait until a big storm hits Saskatchewan before we future proof our homes being built today. You can check out Shane’s…
New column day
Here, on how well-planned public infrastructure and a strong community spirit have helped Saskatchewan through weather that’s caused far more problems elsewhere – and how we’re in danger of losing…
Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses the link between perpetually-increasing inequality and the loss of social trust: Unfortunately, however, trust is becoming yet another casualty of…
Canada-Europe Deal Not About Trade
I have the following letter to the editor in today’s Prince Albert Daily Herald: Canada-Europe Deal Not About Trade In their letter of Dec. 3, Darryl Hickie and other Sask.…
First Nations Get $0.3M for Solar Research #skpoli
The Conservative government generously gave First Nations in Saskatchewan enough grant money to build one impressively sized solar array that could power a half dozen homes. Ontario is going with…
Weir vs. Wall on Potash Profits, Dividends and Royalties
Earlier this week, PotashCorp laid off 440 workers in Saskatchewan. Here are the closing paragraphs from today’s front-page story reporting a letter from Premier Brad Wall asking the company to…
A Nuclear Error: Uranium Royalty Cuts
On Thursday’s Lang & O’Leary Exchange (at 24:45 in this CBC video), I noted that while the Government of Canada just signed a deal with Kazakhstan allowing Cameco to invest…
Canadian Uranium Subsidies to Kazakhstan
Here’s an important story for Canadians, and Saskatchewanians in particular, which doesn’t have to do with the Riders or the Senate scandal. The Green Party of Saskatchewan (GPS) wants to…
The Perils of Passivity
Almost a year ago, Paul Krugman wrote a blog post entitled “Inaction is the Greatest Risk.” He was addressing American monetary policy, but the same theme applies to Saskatchewan politics.…
Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Bloomberg reminds us of the nest egg Norway has built up by taking ownership of its own natural resources (and the consensus among…
This is Not the Saskatchewan NDP’s Official Position
I have the following opinion piece in the latest (September 2013) edition of The Commonwealth, accompanied by this disclaimer: “The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the…
Royalties should be the Keystone of Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Policy
The Saskatchewan Party has appropriated the province’s name, flag and football team. More recently, it asserted a new symbol of Saskatchewan patriotism: the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Earlier this year,…
Sask. Party Spin Outstrips Population Growth
Sask. Party spin appears to be growing even faster than the province’s population. Today’s Saskatchewan government news release quotes Premier Wall as saying, “We have the strongest job growth and…
Regina’s P3 Columnists
As the referendum on whether to privatize Regina’s wastewater plant nears, the Regina Leader-Post is printing a column a day advocating the P3: John Gormley on Friday, Bruce Johnstone on…
What Does India Have In Common With Regina? Asbestos
One thing we share is an abundance of unsafe Quebec chrysotile AKA asbestos. Most of the world stopped using the miracle mineral once they realized what a global disaster its…