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EDITORIAL
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A loss of accountability The Sun Country Health Region (SCHR) released what will likely be its final annual report at the end of August. The document is always an interesting snapshot of what is happening in the health region, with a look at activity levels for hospitals and health centres, accomplishments for the health region in the previous year, plans for the current year and the future, and a key component for every inquisitive reporter, financial statements. You can question how much the general public actually cares about whether the health region (and other government agencies) makes money, or how much the CEO makes. But these documents are an important part of transparency. Those in the public sector likely aren’t too eager for the general public to know how much they made in the 2016-17 fiscal year, but it’s part of public sector life. Taxpayer money pays their wages, so taxpayers ultimately have the right to know how much these people make. Whether the public actually cares is up to them. Once the Sun Country Health Region
From the Top of the Pile BRIAN ZINCHUK
Atlas Shrugged, and entrepreneurs want to Several years ago, one of those weird bits of trivia struck me. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States from 1987-2007, de facto chief economist and banker of the world, apparently derived a great deal from book, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. He eventually became a friend and collaborator of Rand and was deeply tied to her philosophy of objectivism. I’ve never got around to reading it, but it’s likely the next on my audiobook listening list. The publisher’s summary on Audible. com says, “In defense of those greatest of human qualities that have made civilization possible, one man sets out to show what would happen to the world if all the heroes of innovation and industry went on strike. Is he a destroyer or a liberator?” Obviously there’s more to it, but the gist, from what I gather, questions what would happen if the people who are the prime doers in society said, “To hell with it!” and buggered off. I spend much of each week talking to entrepreneurs and professionals. I can tell you from many of my conversations in recent weeks, along with reading in mainstream
and the other 11 health regions in the province are rolled into the new, monolithic Saskatchewan Health Authority, these regional annual reports will be lost. Instead, we can look forward to one annual report for the entire province, just what we see with Crown corporations. The information will now reflect healthcare for the province as a whole. The days of finding out how many kilometres were travelled by ambulances in the Estevan area will likely be over. There might be some breakdowns for the individual healthcare facilities in the province, after all, the government will want people to know how busy these facilities are for a variety of reasons, including if there are calls to close hospitals or cancel services. But most of all, we’ll lose the fiscal accountability brought about by these reports. They are a way for the government to be transparent on how much money they’re spending, where they’re spending that money and who is receiving that money. It’s going to be more difficult to hold the health regions accountable for individual expenses and employee wages now.
Because of these annual reports, people can find out that Marga Cugnet made more than $900,000 in her final year as health region president and CEO, thanks a combination of her base salary, the money she received when she retired, and the vacation time that had to be paid out. Or that Murray Goeres, the former vice-president of health facilities, received more than $550,000, for the reasons listed above. It might be an infuriating number for some, and the public doesn’t have to like it, but it’s one of the perks of being a top person with a health region who has more than 35 years of experience. Once the health region amalgamation occurs, that information will be much tougher to find. Those wages will get lost in a long list of workers making more than $50,000 per year. Furthermore, the highest-paid employees will be working out of the head office in Saskatoon. There won’t be executives in the new mega health authority working out of Estevan or Weyburn. It’s yet another thing that will be lost later this year when 12 health authorities become one.
and social media, that is precisely the feeling that many entrepreneurs and professionals in Canada are feeling right now, in the face of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed tax changes to Canadian private corporations. Getting the “rich” to pay a little more, in the name of fairness, lends itself to a lot of questions about fairness, itself. Yes, there are tax advantages to incorporating. Yes, people who do incorporate tend to make more money, if they are successful in business. But there is no guarantee of success, and indeed, many ultimately fail. Take this Facebook post that crossed my screen: it laid out a grid of benefits employees get, but entrepreneurs do not. I realize not everyone gets all these benefits, but most wage/salary employees do have access to most of them. Those benefits include: minimum wage, overtime pay, paid vacation, employment insurance, maternity benefits, employer contribution to Canada Pension Plan, health benefits, employment standards, consistent paycheques, pension contributions, paid sick days and employee stock options. Entrepreneurs do have the privilege of losing their personal assets and, for the time being, income splitting. But that income splitting will disappear with the changes. The accounting costs to file taxes, already orders of magnitude more than a tax software package, will go much higher. Taxation rates will go from high to confiscatory on investment income and capital gains. Looking at the list above, it makes one wonder why anyone would want to go into business. That’s the general trend of the discussion. These people take enormous risks to be in business. In doing so, they employ many people whose own risks in life are largely diminished. So why are they now being punished?
Our daughter, Katrina, is constantly asking about different possible career paths. She is very cognizant that she is in Grade 8, and the class choices she makes in Grade 10 will have a profound impact on her future. I keep explaining to her the various different trades and professions, but I also point out a consistent message: the people who get ahead the furthest, from my experience, are the people who own their own business. And it’s not just the people running the trucking firms or retail stores. A doctor or dentist’s practice is, in fact, their own business. So is a law firm in many cases. Ditto for many plumbers, farmers and electricians. For everyone else who works in the private sector, but is not a business owner themselves, their job is primarily to make money for the people who own those businesses. That receptionist at the doctor’s office is there to ensure the doctor can continue to see patients, and bill for those treatments. So what would happen to Canadian society if, after these proposed tax changes take affect, a huge swath of the Canadian small business and professional class, just said, “To hell with it?” Most of them don’t have that luxury of mobility. They can’t just relocate their business elsewhere, be it farming, retail or legal. But some can – particularly medical professionals. Doctors and dentists could easily pick up and find work south of the border. Poof! Years and years of work trying to build up the number of doctors in this country could erode like a sand castle in the path of a hurricane storm surge. Faced with Trudeau’s proposed changes, a great many Canadian business people are questioning if they should shrug, too. And if they do, we are in serious trouble. Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@ sasktel.net.