December 11, 2013
WEDNESDAY
A6 EDITORIAL
A few words of holiday caution Now that the holiday pace has picked up considerably as we head into the final week before the major Christmas celebration, a little gentle advice regarding health and safety might be in order. Too often in our rush to get things done, we have a tendency to take shortcuts. Too often those shortcuts lead to some discomforting moments, pain and, on occasion, tragedy. Don’t let tragedy visit you this holiday season, either just before or just after Christmas, which is another time when we let our health and safety guards down. The streets are slippery; the weather is cold. You have lived in Saskatchewan long enough now to realize what the consequences are if you ignore these two facts, so act accordingly. Dress warmly and take extra time to get to where you’re going. Eat properly and in moderation and do the same with consumption of alcohol. Enjoy the little happy buzz that alcohol intake may afford you. Don’t overdo it. We all know those consequences too if you overuse alcohol. Alcohol doesn’t mask anything, it just illustrates your problems more clearly and your capabilities of addressing them, less efficiently. The holiday season is to be enjoyed, not endured. Don’t compromise everyone else’s good spirits by overdoing your selfish pursuits under the influence. Keep reminding yourself that this is the season to enjoy the company of others and to relax. It’s not a time to be combative and argumentative, even if there are mounting pressures on you to make this the best Christmas ever. Always keep in mind that it is the people around you who make the event memorable, not the material things. Be careful with the pace you set for yourself. Cardiac arrest is not what you want for Christmas, but if something of that nature does occur in your presence, do you know what to do? If you are out in public, do you know where the nearest defibrillator is kept? They are easy to use, but in a panic situation, you may need to take a deep breath and listen for instructions. It’s even better if you have received a dry run through the three steps. Are all the defibrillators in the community registered with the 911 service dispatchers? In other words, if you have one, have you told the 911 reception dispatchers about it? Are the defibrillators easily available? They can’t serve any useful purpose if they are under lock and key and you don’t know who has the key. Yes, they cost about $2,000, so we don’t want them damaged or stolen, but then what price is a life? In the event of a cardiac arrest, the critical period of care is restricted to five minutes for response. Also, keep in mind that Saskatchewan laws are such that if you step up to help or to administer assistance, you will not be held liable if the event turns negative on you, as long as your intentions are to save, protect or comfort. And it’s not just defibrillators. When it comes to schools, arenas, businesses, it’s important to know where the fire escapes are located and where the fire extinguishers are to be found. As in most things connected to safety, a little awareness and forward thinking might prove very valuable. In the meantime, enjoy the season to the fullest.
Prairie Perspective MURRAY MANDRYK Murray Mandryk is a political columnist with the Leader Post
An uneasy relationship The mantra from business is government has no business in business. And few would argue with that principle — especially when it’s government competing with private business. But can there be exceptions? Well, people in places like rural Saskatchewan would seem to have acknowledged that there is. For example, it’s been long ago decided in this province that we need to support the perennial money-losing Saskatchewan Transportation Company — even if private parcel or private personal transportation services might be available to provide rural residents at what would be a hefty premium cost. After all, other provinces like Manitoba must heavily subsidize private bus services to rural and remote locations, anyway. Similarly, we clearly now have enough competition in the telephone industry that one might think that a public teleSERVING CANADA’S SUNSHINE CAPITAL
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Playing in the sand box this week If you are concerned about making the payments on your credit card purchases in January, dear diary, keep in mind these two little facts: The Saskatchewan government is currently spending $1.8 million per day more than what it brings in and the Royal Bank of Canada is making $23 million per day for its top dogs, low dogs and shareholders. Does that worry you? I know I don’t know what to think about those numbers. So many big business types are now talking in terms of billions and trillions while I can’t even wrap my head around a million. And speaking of millions, Potash Corp. of Sask. gave up on 440 jobs, and the provincial government immediately dispatched what they refer to as their Rapid Response Team. What the heck is that? Didn’t know they had a typhoon in Lanigan. By the way, those people in Lanigan who don’t have jobs now, remember, they still get two months of pay and by then they should be settled into Estevan where there are lots of jobs. In the meantime, I expect the potash companies will still make a few million in profit and the chief guy, who is apparently the highest paid dude in Saskatchewan, may not take much of a hit in the salary gut. He may lose a few million on the stock options side of things, but we won’t have to hold a bake sale to
Norm Park All Things Considered help him out of the pinch. There are still the bonuses, shares and benefits. Plan A for the potash people here was to cling to status quo and see how things worked out over in Russia and Belarus. Well, now they have launched Plan B, which apparently is to move 1,100 employees out of the mine and place them under a bus. Oh well. Speaking of money, it talks in every profession. Did you not find it interesting that emergency doctors were suddenly found in Regina, but only after the pay scale was increased 13.7 per cent? We cannot kid ourselves folks, the medical world is very political, too. Pressure is applied on the payee when pressure is seen to be needed. On to one other thing this week, and then I’ll quit. With the passing of Nelson Mandela, the world lost a champion. He laid out the map and set the route for Africa and peace. Now it’s up to the African nations to follow the map. Any bets? And while we’re talking about peace, my vote for a Nobel prize goes to Malala Yousafzai, the young girl who took a bullet
phone utility like SaskTel is an outdated notion. But just try getting cell coverage in most of rural Saskatchewan without SaskTel’s generous cell tower system. There seems a role. That said, if there’s one place where government has truly no business it’s in the resource sector where there’s always been ample private investment dollars. In fact, one can rightly point to Saskatchewan’s privatization of publicly owned natural oil, uranium and potash resource companies in the 1980s as one of the few success stories of the Grant Devine government. The massive success of the privatized PotashCorp remains the prime example where a money-losing Crownowned potash company turned into a massively profitable and expanding private operation. But does that mean that government has forever forfeited any say or comment in now privately run PotashCorp’s decisions? Well, again, the answer has quickly become more complicated than one might think. PotashCorp has decided to permanently lay off 18 per cent of its workforce — 1,045 people in all, including 440 Saskatchewan employees. Admittedly, government should never be directly telling private business how to run its business because private business needs to be able to make its own tough decisions for its long-term interest. One of the reasons the publicly owned Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan floundered is that the previous NDP government viewed the potash mining Crown’s operation like an employment agency — contrary to the approach of PCS as government-run operation.
BRANT KERSEY: Publisher CHAD SAXON AND NORM PARK: Co-Editors CINDY BEAULIEU: Advertising Sales Manager Member Canadian Community Newspapers Association. Member Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association. Audited by Audit Bureau of Circulations.
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to the head because she wanted to go to school. She survived, recovered and is now speaking out, “not for myself, but for those without a voice,” she told the United Nations assembly. As it was noted, it just takes one child, one teacher, one book, one pen to win. Quiet confidence and determination is her key. Of course we have a fi ne example of that right here in Canada. Look who we have as our winning entry … Justin Bieber, confident and determined, maybe not so quiet. Our Justin doesn’t have to be quiet. While Malala talks about education, Justy is peeing in floor scrubber’s buckets in hotel kitchens, bad mouthing past U.S. presidents and trashing $200,000 vanity vehicles just because he can. I wonder if Justin knows anything about Malala? OK, I know, just one more thing. Our new Canadian polymer bills, you know, the ones you can’t fold, crumple or crease? Ya, those bills, the Botox bills, I don’t like them. We used to refer to our credit cards as being the plastic money. Now we have plastic money as the plastic money. If you would like to follow Park on Twitter … we advise you to go out and get a life. You must have better things to do, like taking out the garbage or replacing a light bulb.
That said, privately run PotashCorp has also been very successfully in lobbying for royalty holidays even as it laid off workers. It also has received massive government subsidies to relocate head office jobs to Saskatchewan. And three years ago, it went cap-in-hand to government demanding government protection from a bid by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton to prevent a hostile takeover, which is also really just business doing business. But despite Saskatchewan government support for this, we are now seeing massive PotashCorp layoffs not just at its Saskatoon head office but also in rural communities like Cory and Lanigan. And while a very uncertain potash market is clearly a big factor in such decisions, this is a company that announced in its last quarter a $356-million profit and the second-highest cash flow from operating activities in company history. Provincial budget projections for potash royalty revenue have been largely determined by not only the business operation decision of companies like PotashCorp but also by the information these companies provide government. So when PotashCorp and other industry players told government prior to the 2009 budget to expect massive potash sales and price increases that year, the government budgeted accordingly for an unprecedented $2 billion in potash revenue. The problem was, the industry’s projections were dead wrong and government lost a fifth of its annual revenues it needed to build roads and run hospitals and schools. So whether it likes it or not, governments do have a vested interest in what goes on at a company like PotashCorp.
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