I like that idea...can folks tell me what's happened with right wing govts in other provinces in those regards?
Well, when the BC Liberals defeated the BC NDP in 2001, their first order of government was an across the board 25% income tax cut. That was followed up by massive cuts to every government ministry save Health and education, though the budgets for those departments were frozen. I believe 1/3 of all central government employees were laid off.
Post-Secondary tuition fees, which had been frozen from 1996 to 2001, were deregulated, and doubled at most institutions. BC went from the second lowest tutition fees in 2001 to the second highest tuition fees in 2005.
The BC Liberals reformed/attacked welfare. First, they made further reductions in rates beyond the the 17% rate reduction imposed by the NDP in 1995. They also decided that persons could only receive welfare for 2 out of any given 5 years, and that persons receiving welfare had to be living on their own for 2 years to receive it.
The BC Liberals eliminated BC's social housing program, which was among the last remaining social housing programs in Canada. Cancelled all sorts of other government programs designed to help various segments of society.
The labour code was gutted. The BC NDP had instituted the most progressive labout code in Canada, having replaced Secret Ballot unionization with union card certification (where if a majority of members of a employee sign a union card, the workplace is unionized), and banned replacement strike workers. The BC Liberals reversed both provisions of the labour code.
The BC Liberals also gutted the Employment Relations Act by allowing employers to force employees to sign agreements that would allow any or all of the provisions in the act to not apply to them, and moved to employee complaint enforcement of the act. Plus they reinstituted child labour by allowing kids as young as 12 to work with only the signature of one parent. Finally, they instutitued the 6$/hour "training" wage that employees could pay to workers with less than 500 hours of paid work, rather than the 8$/hour wage that applies to all other workers.
Gutted the tough new forestry regulations brought in by the BC NDP. No longer were forestry companies required to prove they would comply with the regulations before logging an area. They now only have to comply with the regulations if they want to prevent the government from going after them "after the fact" (after the damage has been done). Even then, the government only goes after the companies if there's a complaint.
Have allowed massive clearcutting of BC's interior pine forests since 2004, in response to the pine beetle problem. The clearcutting includes all wood, not just the pines that are dominant in these forests. Though the interior forest industry in BC is booming as a result, I suspect it will crash around 2012 and send BC's economy into a downturn similar to what happened in Newfoundland when the Cod fishery collapsed in 1992.
The BC Liberals engaged in a partial privatization of BC Hydro, the details of which I'm not clear on. What I do know is that independent operators were allowed into the electricity market (BC Hydro previously had a monopoly), and decreed that all new power generation would be Private, with BC hydro not allowed any new power generating capacity.
Many schools and hospitals in rural BC were closed. Private, for-profit clinics have been allowed to expand, and the BC government has done nothing. Also contracted out all the food and cleaning jobs at BC hospitals (ripping up the Contract with the Health Employees Union workers to do so). Cut the wages of the remaining Health Employees Union workers by 15%.
The BC Liberals privatized BC Rail, which is now run by CN. All the former employees of BC Rail lost their jobs, and the accident rate on the line has increased significantly.
The BC Liberals turned BC ferries into a "quasi" private company. Though it still receives government funding, the government no longer has to approve any of the decisions that the new board of BC Ferries makes. Also, government funding to BC ferries has been frozen.
The BC Liberals seem to believe that all projects receiving provincial government money should be P3s. The BC Liberals forced Translink to build the skytrain line to Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport as a P3, in order to receive any provincial funding. The government has also forced the Fraser Valley Health region to build a new hospital in Abbottsford as a P3. Now they are well into the plans to twin the Port Mann bridge over the Fraser River and expand a siginificant poriton of the Trans Canada Highway in the lower mainland to 8 lanes, again as a P3 with a tolled bridge.
Even this is not a complete list. Not all of it is stuff that the Saskachewan Party could do in Saskachewan if they win the election, but much of it is.
Topic: Saskatchewan Election Blogger (Read 2766 times)