Len Taylor

Expressing frustration with the lack of real infrastructure support from the provincial government for The Battlefords, and hoping to “kick start” some announcements in the near future, local MLA, Len Taylor has launched two petitions to show support for Saskatchewan Hospital and affordable housing funding.

The two petitions, available at Taylor’s office in North Battleford, are aimed at bringing these needs to the attention of the provincial government prior to the provincial budget expected around March 18^th.

“I keep hearing about provincial funding announced for other communities but The Battlefords hears nothing about two previously announced programs that appear to have been ignored in the first year and half of this new government,” Taylor said indicating that funds for the construction of a new Saskatchewan Hospital were first announced in 2006, and in 2007 there was $3 million for affordable housing set aside for The Battlefords but no projects have been announced.

“There is a lot of uncertainty at this time around these funded programs, so I have decided to petition the province to get these previously announced projects underway,” Taylor said.

The Saskatchewan Legislature will begin its spring session on March 2^nd. Taylor says he will present the petitions as they come in, “to remind the provincial government that a commitment has been made to the people of The Battlefords”.

The Saskatchewan Hospital petition calls upon the provincial government to immediately recommit funds and resources for the continued development and construction of a new facility at North Battleford and provide the regional health authority with the authority necessary to complete this essential and much needed project.

The other petition calls upon the Government of Saskatchewan to invest in an affordable housing program that would result in a greater number of quality and affordable rental units to be made available to a greater number of people throughout The Battlefords and across Saskatchewan.

“It is pretty obvious that if we are going to attract workers to fill our job vacancies, and students to attend regional college classes we need more rental units in the community. There has been money set aside to assist in this regard and the province has to bring these funds forward,” Taylor said.

If you are expecting a significant reduction in the education portion of your property tax this year, my guess is that you are about to be disappointed.

Of course this shouldn’t come as a great surprise, but it does show that Premier Brad Wall and his SaskParty government are finding that keeping this major election promise is proving harder to deliver on than they first thought.

And, also of course, it proves Agriculture Minister Bob Bjonerud’s recent comments - that they could say anything they wanted in opposition, but now that they are in government they have to be more responsible.

We know the issue of education property tax relief is still very important because it was raised a couple of times during the past two weeks, especially at the early February meeting of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) in Saskatoon. Brad Wall and company were reminded that they promised significant relief, that they have spent the last year and a half studying the issue further, and that they have financial resources available that no government before them had,

The best response Wall’s education minister, Ken Krawetz could come up with is that education property tax relief is a government priority, but it is also a “competing priority” which means that when there are provincial tax dollars to be spent, education tax relief is just one of many issues that the new cabinet will consider. Some former English teachers out there would argue that something that is a “priority” is something at the top of a list, not one of just many items on a list.

To be fair, this is a big ticket item and everybody (even Brad Wall) knew that a permanent transfer of up to $700 million a year from the property tax base to the provincial tax base was not going to be easy. Five years ago the provincial government sponsored study recommended raising the PST to cover a portion of the cost. The NDP rejected that idea and it would appear that Wall and company will do the same.

The SaskParty gave Rostown area MLA, Jim Reiter the task of studying how the new government should handle the issue. The first week of February Reiter presented his report (which took more than a year to complete) to the Education Minister (Krawetz). It now appears that this report will be kept secret untill after the provincial budget, expected around March 18th, and may in fact never be released. No one in government is expecting this provincial budget to signal any significant relief.

It is interesting to note that while Reiter says it is hard for the provincial government to assume all the costs necessary to provide significant relief because “oil is at $40 a barrel and not $140 a barrel”, but he conveniently forgets that when the SaskParty started calling for significant relief from the former NDP government, oil was between $20 and $30 a barrel. If the SaskParty thought the provincial government could manage tax relief when oil was at $20 a barrel, they should have no issue with managing a solution when oil is almost double what it was at that time.

This is an issue that the people of Saskatchewan feel strongly about. Therefore there could be no better time for the people of Saskatchewan to contact their local SaskParty MLAs and ask them to be sure to include significant education property tax relief (as they promised they would do) in the provincial budget coming down in mid-March. And while you are at it, ask them to publically release the Reiter report, so we can all see what they’ve been thinking for the last year and a half. Brad Wall has a promise to keep.