| -Honourable Janice MacKinnon:--debating the economic underdevelopment of Saskatchewan | ||
| 
 | By Mario deSantis, February 10, 2000 |  | 
| Yesterday morning, I visited the Web Site of The Leader Post and I read the | ||
| National Post's articles depicting
			Saskatchewan  | article "Province defended(1)." In reading this article, I was astonished to | |
| realize that the National Post ran a series of articles, last Monday's and | ||
| Saturday's editions, on the economic conditions of Saskatchewan and that they | ||
| came up with the same gloomy conclusions I synthesized in the article | ||
| "Making money is not creating wealth Mr. Premier Romanow(2)." Janice MacKinnon, Minister | ||
| of Economic Development, was particularly offended by the National Post's articles depicting | ||
| Saskatchewan as the "Mississippi of the North." MacKinnon responded to the one-dimensional | ||
| newspaper stories with her own stories. She said "How do you explain that Saskatchewan was | ||
| chosen, using the UN criteria, as the best of all the provinces in Canada in which to live, in | ||
| terms of quality of life?' | ||
| Janice MacKinnon doesn't understand yet that she must clean up our house first(3) before she | ||
| GNP is not an evidence of the progressing welfare | references the opinion of an outside agency such as the UN. She showed her two-dimensional | |
| or flat expertise by adding that "...the stories overlooked the fact Saskatchewan had the country's | ||
| highest rate of economic growth from 1992 to 1997 and was the only province to reduce its child | ||
| poverty rate between 1989 and 1997..." Janice MacKinnon doesn't understand that the rate of | ||
| growth of the GNP is not an evidence of the progressing welfare of our province. | ||
| not being able to provide an adequate education to our children | For instance, Esso Petroleum did business in Tisdale(4) and this economic activity provided a | |
| contribution to our GNP; however, the related cost of pollution caused by this same business is | ||
| not included into our GNP. Another example, the building of the Synchrotron(5) will provide a | ||
| monetary contribution to our GNP, but the corresponding loss of not being able to provide an | ||
| adequate education to our children or students is not counted into the calculation of the GNP. | ||
| 40% of our children live in such poor conditions | MacKinnon's claim that Saskatchewan was the only province to reduce its child poverty rate was | |
| possibly true and due to the grim reality that Saskatchewan has had the highest child poverty rate | ||
| across Canada; in this respect, the Provincial Auditor has recently stated that 40% of our | ||
| children live in such poor conditions that they are at risk of doing poorly in school(6). | ||
| Janice MacKinnon is not in touch with the people, and she is not in touch with reality; no wonder | ||
| she is hiding in the Ivory Tower of the University of Saskatchewan(7). | ||
| ---------------Endnotes: | ||
| Province defended, by Mark Wyatt, The Leader-Post, February 9, 2000, Regina, Saskatchewan http://207.195.66.66/cgi-bin/LiveIque.acgi$sch=frontpage?frontpage | ||
| Making money is not creating wealth Mr. Premier Romanow, by Mario deSantis, February 7, 2000 | ||
| A governmental responsibility is to clean up our house first, by Mario deSantis, December 6, 1999 | ||
| Valdez parked in Tisdale, FTLComm - Tisdale - December 19, 1999 | ||
| Few Words on the Synchrotron, Politics and Education in Saskatchewan, by Mario deSantis, April 4, 1999 | ||
| Report of the Provincial Auditor, 1999 Fall Report, Volume 2, Chapter 2-Education, page 123, Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, Regina, Saskatchewan. http://www.auditor.sk.ca | ||
| Honourable Janice MacKinnon is the wife of Peter MacKinnon, President of the University of Saskatchewan. Refer to the article: University of Saskatchewan: A Vision Built on Privileged Education and on the Synchrotron, by Mario deSantis, October 25, 1999 | ||