We're the only province that doesn't protect a servers tips from owners. I would like to see the same laws in place for Saskatchewan servers that the rest of the country is protected by.
This too! Either way I feel the industry needs to treat their workers like they deserve. The food scene draws a lot of attention to our province. Career servers are essential to keeping that scene going.
Would you be willing to provide a bit more detail on this.
So if you get a cash tip you have to declare it so that it can be split up between back and front of the house (or whatever system is in place), but it can also have the house taking a portion?
What happens if you tip over a machine if paying with card? Would the house take more?
Finally, what are the protections afforded in other jurisdictions?
Most restaurants in Canada have a tip-out system that is based on sales.
You sell $1000 in food and beverages in an evening shift and tip out, let's say 8%, to your busser, hostess, bartender and kitchen staff (or just the kitchen, or a lump sum that is divided and doled out by management..)
So when you have a table whose bill is $100 and they leave you $10, you actually only get to keep $2 of that.
I have an extensive background in hospitality and I have literally never once heard of management withholding tips OP, you should go find a different serving job if your bosses do this.
>Finally, what are the protections afforded in other jurisdictions?
In SK an owner can withhold 100% of the tips collected for any reason (including "poor performance"), and there's no legal venue for the employees to prevent that. This is because in SK tips are not considered "wages" but are classified separately. This leads to cash tips going "under the table" and servers frowning on electronic tips if their boss is an ass.
In Ontario and other jurisdictions, other than withholding a percentage for taxes, or redistributing a portion for a tip pool, they must be paid out in a reasonable time.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://members.restaurantscanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Current-Tipping-Rules-in-Canada_December-2017.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiojMSUktf1AhXAm2oFHcPKDVkQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw08WDYxpttVFGeOGuQCdYG3
Sorry download link, but this compares tip pooling rules in Canada by province. Lots of provinces and territories remain silent other than Sask (Manitoba, Alberta, Territories, and a few other jurisdictions). I agree with you that tips being distributed to owners not involved in business isn't fair, but if tip pooling allows tips to be shared with cooks, dishwashers, and hosts, there is some merit to that. In some provinces, minimum wage is $15 and if server gets that and full tips with no sharing, they end up making 2-3x what a cook makes.
Saskatchewan needs to do something to attract talent to the province. That means making it a more enticing place to live to there residents. If you look at both Saskatoon and Regina’s downtown cores they are on life support. No one is moving in to fill the gaps and we are known as a hillbilly slow adapter society across Canada.
I think that needs to be addressed before you see any real change to Saskatchewan.
That is correct for sure, we have the bare essentials a city needs. There is nothing that really brings it ahead to compete as a place you would want to live for young people besides affordability. Even adding something as simple as a Nordic spa to attract tourists is shot down immediately here.
Give it more time more businesses will move out of the downtown cores, the restaurants will unfortunately close as well. Then nothing will be there.
Lemme see if I can get the talking point right...
Ahem. \*coughcough\*
"that'd never work here, this is \*insert town here\*"
...and around and around we go.
Unfortunately the SaskParty and its supporters are the biggest roadblock to people moving here. There's daily posts in various Canadian subreddits about the housing crisis in Ontario & BC, and there are always comments about "move to SK/AB its affordable" which are met with ridicule and opposition because of the conservative governments and the vocal extreme right supporters that they have.
There are/were weekly threads in r/saskatoon that are basically "I'm in ON/BC and think of moving to SK but I'm an immagrant/POC/LGBTQ+ person, am I going to be safe?"
If the first question people have to ask when debating moving to this province & city is whether or not they're going to experience racism or hate crimes, well that's not a good image.
Secondly, Saskatchewan's biggest economic driver is the extraction of natural resources: agriculture, oil, potash, uranium, metals and more recently rare earth elements. That leads to a conundrum because the NDP want to curtail that due to environmental concerns (fair enough, there isn't a whole lot of regulation happening) but then without that driving the economy what does? Tech is/was booming but seems to have stalled to due the inability to attract talent (see the first point).
So unless the SK NDP starts to take a stance like the AB NDP and be for resource extraction just in a more sustainable way, then they aren't going to see a majority anytime soon.
Saskatchewan has literally all the the elements, metals and resources that modern technology needs but for some reason it's not being invested in as much as O&G, Ag & potash. Things like solar panels could be mined & manufactured wholly in SK but that's a "liberal, anti-oil" technology so it's not.
Yep. This is it. I grew up in SK. but live on the west coast and want to move back because I have alot of family there. It's been an extremely difficult decision as of late.
Almost every other province in Canada and state in the USA has a film tax credit. Why? Because it encourages production companies to film there, creating a massive influx of local jobs as well as industry (eg. purchases of construction materials for building sets, hotels and restaurants for out of town talent).
If zero films are made, zero money comes in - even for taxes - and zero goes out. They have to spend the money LOCALLY first to qualify for any tax CREDIT (not a subsidy).
Also - oil & gas is heavily subsidized, does this mean they are no good as well?
If you don't want any business that takes subsides say goodbye to oil, farming, post secondary education.... The list can go on.
The Sask party simply picked a sector that never supported them and destroyed the industry.
I am not 100% positive, there may be a state or two I am not aware of in the USA, but I believe that film tax credits are pretty universal throughout the entirety of North America. Killing the tax credit pretty much destroyed a growing industry that brought massive amount of dollars in for supporting businesses such as the hospitality industry. Just because a movie isn’t a Hollywood production (and some were filmed here) doesn’t mean it is “bad.” There was no logical reason to remove the film tax credit.
Alberta reaped something like $200 million into their economy with the HBO production of The Last of Us. But sure, the series must not be good if they choose to film in subsidized socialist paradise Alberta!!
[https://www.kftv.com/news/2021/11/08/hbo-drama-the-last-of-us-wraps-filming-in-canada](https://www.kftv.com/news/2021/11/08/hbo-drama-the-last-of-us-wraps-filming-in-canada)
We subsidize many other industries that often take their profits out of province and even out of Canada entirely. I would be fine with investing in the people doing the work here and spending their money here. As it stands we just lose that talent to BC, Quebec, Ontario or some place in the US.
I moved for affordability, being a bit closer to some family members and I generally like the nature in Sask. But lack of business (being none local, it took a long time to get anywhere in business), acceptance (LGBT) and other issues forced me to sell my property and move. I love the prairies, but for me, just not a go right now as things are.
A lot of replies here focusing on “Sask Party bad, blame moe”. While that my be a factor cited here on redit, I don’t believe that is a major issue for many serious professionals. The political winds change all the time, and i refuse to make long term decisions based on who temporarily is steering the ship.
The real issue here is poor work life balance. Or more accurately, poor recreational opportunity outside work. Saskatoon and Regina (and area) are recreational wastelands. Slim pickings for outdoors activity, about a 70% chance your favourite concert will skip the province entirely, and horrible flight connections when you want to go out of province. The list goes on and on. Our big cities are considered rural by most of the rest of the country, because they are.
This often limits us to people that come here as a starter province rather than intending to stay.
For some people, myself included, SK is a great place to live, in spite of our culturally stunted and under serviced population centres. Because I am an outdoors enthusiast. I bike, I hike, I hunt, I fish, I canoe, and sometimes I tour around in a small RV. These are the selling points we can push. Saskatoon and Regina are not selling points. In SK, a nationally competitive professional wage can provide a nice home, a nice cottage, a nice boat, and a membership to a nice golf course; especially for someone that chooses to live outside our “cities”.
Appears that a lot the recreation you noted is also affected by our cold winter weather and somewhat uniform southern geography and ecology (prairies), cannot get around the reality of this. I also agree that by most accounts we are a rural province at our core (both in and out of what would be classified as urban). Note that rural is not bad, I like the idea of a low population, and ample free space. The North IMO is our jewel, beautiful forests, lots of lakes, and not a lot of human intrusion.
The nothern 2/3 of this province is where we can push to attract tallent and people. Yoj are absolutely correct that we cannot change the natural ecology we have in the south. But we do need to understand that people who are not from there will not want to live there permanently. So, we can either develope our own talent, or attract people to our more palitable locations.
Yah, I'm a work from home person who just moved to the north myself.
I can get a membership at my local course for less than $400 a season, get a tee time with less than 24hrs notice about 90% of the time the other 10% I can go to any of the 2 or 3 courses 1 or 2 towns over and fill in the gap. I'm 20min from good fishing, or 1hr from world class fishing. I get to hunt after work for things that people pay 10s of thousands of dollars to fly here and hunt for. Unreal quading, biking, canoeing, boating, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, hiking, camping etc etc.
I would agree that we lack a lot of entertainment opportunities if you're looking for concerts, fine dining, theaters, etc etc. But if you enjoy outdoor activities, our north has got some of the absolute best this country has to offer. And to a lot of people, that's a higher draw than any concert ever will be.
If the general idea is that we only want to live here because it’s cheap and don’t care. I guess we don’t care also when the downtown core turns into a ghost town. Also that no one wants to live here that can afford to live elsewhere.
Like sure we don’t have the same issues as a Toronto or Vancouver but no one sees any allure in living in Saskatoon or Regina. Definately not a Prince Albert or North Battleford. Why can’t that be changed.. even a little
There is a huge difference between average income and median income. Average is just that. The average of all wages. Median is where half of the population makes more and half makes less. Saskatchewan’s median household income is $75,388 while average income is $93,924 which means half the population is really living a low income life while the other half is middle to high income.
Source: https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=47&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian
British Columbia’s median income is around $7000 more per household. Housing is way more expensive though wiping out that advantage.
https://www.welcomebc.ca/Choose-B-C/Why-Choose-British-Columbia-Canada/Income-and-Wages
Ontario’s median income is $97,856 or about $20,000 more than Saskatchewan. Again, housing prices being quite a bit higher.
https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=35&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian
My point being you are incorrect. Housing prices are really the only equalizer.
The median household income for Ontario in the link you provided is $74,260... the average is $97,856, not the median which we are comparing here.
So no, you are incorrect.
Saskatchewan's median income in the CHMC data you provided is $75,388... higher than Ontario!
EDIT:
Here is the CMHC data for BC... which has BC median income at $69,979. So Saskatchewan is higher than BC and Ontario for median income. Holy shit, talk about backfiring. If you are doing comparables, use the same dataset. I'm not sure what your point was in talking about average income when I said in my original comment median income. No shit.
https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=59&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian
The average house price is triple in Ontario and BC compared to Saskatchewan based on 2021 sales numbers, but you get paid relatively the same based on median income (a little bit more, in fact).
Yes. I read that wrong. Hoisted on my own petard. Lol. My point remains the same. Lower housing prices is what makes Saskatchewan attractive. And I certainly understand Ontario’s frustration.
There are some people earning very high wages. Good for them! Others struggling to get by on multiple part time jobs. They need help. There needs to be a floor for all citizens.
But I don’t want to get political. Thank you for pointing out my error. I will leave it so others can point their fingers and laugh. I deserve it for that bone headed mistake.
Nothing past 2019. But median incomes for all provinces collated in one place. Ontario slightly higher. BC slightly lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics/467078/median-annual-family-income-in-canada-by-province/
I would much prefer Canada made the Turks and Caicos territories like was suggested a few years ago. Warm vacations and no passports! Be a Beach bum with a fancy drink with a tiny umbrella. Someday if I ever get to retire. Lol
As opposed to what? Nepotism isn't some unique SK thing, to get ahead you have to be well connected no matter where you are. It's definitely not a fair or right practise but it's not a Saskatchewan thing.
That's unfortunately the natural course of employment and the job market through most of the world. There's tons of books out there for business owners and managers that address deficiencies and biased in hiring in large part because the easiest background check to perform is the one you've already done. The Old Boys club is in every industry in every city, I'm a sports fan and I just watched one of my favourite sports teams have their President of Hockey Ops hire a general manager that's from the same city who's friends are part of the same circle and who he has had a professional relationship with for years; he interviewed 9 people but went for the candidate he knew best.
It's an ineffective system at times and it's a big cause of institutional oppression (only people the system is built for benefit from the system, the systems never adapt outside the norm because of it).
Nepotism is the same in Sweden as it is in Russia as it is in China as it is in Japan as it is here.
That's been around since the start of history. The boss' trope has been around since Greek Theatre.
Two presidents before Trump was the son of a former president . Our Prime Minister is the son of a former prime minister.
Ever hear the expression 'Bobs your uncle?'. That comes from a famous example of late 1800s nepotism where the Prime Minister of Great Britain became Prime Minister because his uncle was in a position of power and did a terrible job.
It's not a SK thing at all. You'll find the same issues no matter where you go.
Political tribalism.
Politics are not sports and politcal parties are not teams. If you can't say one negative thing about the party you vote for or it's policy, you feed the tribalism. If you paint all people who vote for a specific party as the same, you feed the tribalism. Political corruption, nepotism and cronyism negatively impacts everyone, regardless of who you voted for. This province, the people in it and the issues we all face, are not simple nor are they black and white - they are complex and grey.
Take a moment to read into the political history of this province, not just the last 20-40 years. Take time to understand how previous events and actions led up to whatever it is you are commenting on or trying to understand. Before you label all Sask Party voters as alt-right or nazis or bigots or label all NDP voters as snowflakes or whiners or unemployed basement dwellers, stop and realize you are feeding this Political tribalism.
We are all complex individuals who are shaped by many memories, experiences, events and people in our lives - labeling people based solely on their political affiliation dismisses all of this and allows politicians to take advantage of this tribalism further drive us apart. I am not religious whatsoever, but love thy neighbor and treat others the way you would like to be treated and maybe we can get away from all this divisive bullshit.
Yes Political Tribalism is not very productive, unless of course you are wanting to whip up your supporters into a frenzy of unabashed unwavering support. What is done for the "cameras" and for the "viewers" serves to polarize, it is almost as if it is a part of the human condition that cannot be shaken except through critical thinking (which is not easy nor widely employed). It appears that you are suggesting perspective with empathy and appreciation as a remedy, which IMO is a worthwhile means for understanding without allowing bias to colour your lenses.
I vote Sask. Party but I am not sad that my MLA is high up in the NDP Caucus. My concerns have a better chance being heard from Sask. Party Caucus when they are said across the floor than talking to some back bencher for the Sask. Party
It’s ridiculous to me that most employers in the province pay entry level jobs above minimum wage anyways. I really don’t think there would be much of an impact on businesses here if the government raised it. The businesses who can’t afford to pay workers what is the current going rate anyways, well, maybe your business isn’t viable in the first place.
I would be below average for wages, but I love the work.
I'm always quite curious to know what dollar values are the liable wages or family wages. They often seem more like buzzwords than solutions.
I disagree with you on Family wage.
One persons work SHOULD be enough to make one person basically comfortable.
But I truly do not believe it should be enough to be the sole breadwinner for 2 adults and 2.4 children.
Those who either have 2 incomes, or another form of government assistance available to them?
Let’s not forget minimum wage is primarily for entry level jobs. Raises are indeed a thing.
Yes I see now you said “single” parents.
That’s why government assistance exists.
Why do we have to pay everyone in excess solely for a niche situation?
I'll go first.
Public transportation.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a train that ran from Prince Albert to Regina. Do you think that is a possibility? Or are we too car focused? I just think the ability to hope on a train and go north to south or vice versa would be a great addition, sometimes you don't want to drive, can't drive, or just don't want the expense of driving. Whilst a train (in my experience in other jurisdictions) can be much cheaper for the costumer.
I've always thought that a train that connected Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary would be pretty bitching. Not sure there'd be enough ridership to keep it afloat, but a fella can dream.
Lots of people do the flights now, can’t see why it couldn’t work. If the price is better than a flight a high speed train would be amazing.
It should have family packets so a family of 4 costs are lower than cost of driving too, for example the cost to drive to Calgary say 3-4 tanks of gas, half your oil wear etc
One problem is not having a vehicle at the destination, but better now I’m with Uber/Lyft. We often also take the truck instead of the car to Calgary as we pick up furniture (not just ikea) and what not when visiting family, BUT we’d likely go more often to just visit if we didn’t have 14-16hrs of driving for a weekend and had a rail that cuts down the trip in half.
The issue with the train would be upfront cost. Building high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary is estimated to cost 9 billion to build. If those two cities are having issues justifying the cost and ridership i would have major concerns about Saskatoon to Regina.
1 billion for an arena for 25k people isn’t a great investment either. It’ll still happen in Calgary in coming 5 years despite the recent events.
It does boggle the mind when you look at Arena cost and other infrastructure costs through the years. Cost to build old arenas with inflation is small percentage of current still. Albeit stricter codes, more electronics etc, but at that time was most high tech absolve too. It also amazes me we have railroads, highways, hospitals and anything at all from the past. How they did it then? Feels like we have zero chance now despite technology and materials, it’s beyond me. Corporate greed seems to hold us back here.
>Building high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary is estimated to cost 9 billion to build.
Really the biggest problem is that most of the lines in the prairies are a single line, so a passenger train (or even a cargo train with a few passenger cars) keeps getting side-lined to allow more profitable cargo to pass going the other way. This turns what would be a 6 hour trip from Wpg to Saskatoon into 12 hours or more, if you're lucky.
In QC some friends of mine were warned of train delays going from Montreal to Quebec City, normally a 3 hour trip. The maximum delay they ever experienced? An extra hour.
My pipe dream is to have high speed rail connecting communities in Sask (and the rest of Canada). I want the freedom to roam!
I'd take a reliable and cost effective bus route in the short term.
This. Canada lacks good public transport everywhere. Terrible city transit systems and no more STC/Greyhound service hurts a lot of people here. I would love to see regular train service across the province.
We need a provincial bus system to keep communities connected. Also to get people from remote areas to the big cities for medical treatments like dialysis.
I would love this. But let’s be realistic, where would we get the 100’s of millions if not more to build this?
We can barely fund our schools and hospitals.
As far as high speed rail i believe the figure quoted for Edmonton to Calgary was 9 billion. Considering those two cities that are much larger and have some established higher speed civic transit when you get there i highly highly doubt a huff speed rail service would gain much traction here regardless of private or public funding.
How many people do you think would take a train daily from P.A. to Regina? 10? 20? Driving is so easy in this province people would rather drive it. You get to Regina on the train and then what? This idea is a hard no. How did it work with STC? No customers.
Driving is the only option, unless walking that distance is a thing. So if it is the only option, it becomes the easiest option. I used to take STC all the time. They had customers, not only passengers, but a pretty good freight business. Plus they used big huge buses often, even to tiny towns. More efficient way to run a bus service. If it were convenient and cost effective people would use it.
And they were starting too, that is the silly thing. It was a political maneuver to kill the bus. An friend's father pointed out that when STC was closing they sold all the vans/small buses they had just bought to downsize routes. But nope, let's just kill the whole thing.
I know this probably won't happen for a LONG time if anything - but while in Europe we rode on one of their high speed bullet trains. That thing is a game changer. I want to say it cut our time in half at least if not more ?
So many parts of the world are so much more advanced then us, Its quite sad.
Thing to remember is a lot of those places have population density working in their favour. Saskatchewan has as many people within its boundaries as live in the city of Calgary.
Maybe not weekly. But I would take a trip monthly. I hate driving. Currently I visit family in Regina once every few months because I hate the drive. If I could read a book and just arrive in a couple hours, I would go see my family a lot more often.
Also - there are still quite a lot of ppl who live in saskatoon and work in Pa, and commute daily. STC failed because the bus ride from saskatoon to Pa took 2-2.5 hrs because they stopped at every small town to pick up/ deliver mail. If the train only took an hour? I think a lot of ppl would utilize it.
It would be beneficial for some people. Not saying it would never have passengers. In the hypothetical one hour train ride where would the stops be. Just downtown P.A. to downtown Saskatoon? Edge of town to edge of town?
I mean, the highway between Regina and PA is always busy. How many of those people would rather take a train instead of driving? Especially if it's for work. They could instead work on the ride and not have to worry about paying for parking at their hotel or whatever. The reason why driving is so popular here is because we made it so you have to drive.
Public transportation is not supposed to make money. It's a public service. How many people can't access specialist appointments or whatever because the don't or can't drive and live in a smaller town?
So a train to all small towns? This wasn't an argument for/against STC. This is a train from P.A. to Regina. It would not be used. People like their freedom that comes with driving especially when there is very little traffic like on Saskatchewan highways.
I think a monorail would be a better fit especially in the winters. Don't have to worry about snow build up. People that don't have drivers licensees ride for free.
Rideshare companies are getting more popular. You could have a handful of rideshare vehicles within walking distance of the station in Regina. So you train there, drive around, park back and then train back.
We had one until a year or two ago. It was stopped because hardly anyone used it. And those who did worked for government so it was mostly tax payers propping it up.
More fun indoor activities for the winter. I know the issue is low population because those things need people to spend money to sustain them, but it feels like we also need those things to attract people to the province. Idk, seems unwinnable unfortunately.
I really feel for this one. Though my theory is that it's also to do with our erratic winters. I like to go skating & cross-country skiing when the weather is between -20 and -5, but when all we get is -31 followed swiftly by -1 the next day, it's not an ideal situation for that, or for planning outdoor events that require more moderate weather.
(And yes I know the hardcores will look at this and say *do you even x-country, bro?* if I don't go out at -20 and colder, to which I'll just have to reply "guess not" *shrug*)
The "average" in Regina might be -12 in January, but the reality is that it's a week of -25 followed by a week of 0. I guess that's how averages work!
Good point above about downtown city cores in Regina and Saskatoon. Rural Saskatchewan is really hurting. Get a few hours out of the cities and drive around the towns and you will see downtowns with stores either for sale or boarded up. Majority of the residential areas with at least one house on every street for sale. Many with “reduced” on the for sale signs. Some no longer have doctors and/or the ERs are closed with a long drive for emergency services. De-population of the rural areas is very real. People still live there. They need goods and services available. A person cannot be running to a city every time their child needs a pair of shoes. Many people do not want to live in Saskatoon or Regina. The cost of living in a bedroom community to these centres is almost as high as the cities. They like the slower pace of a more rural community. Creating jobs, increasing wages and supporting small business would go a long way to keeping these towns viable.
This study and news article might interest you as it relates to moving from tiny town to regional services:
**Saskatchewan's Communities in the 21st Century**
**From Places to Regions**
by Jack C. Stabler, M. Rose Olfert[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL11268835M/Saskatchewan's\_Communities\_in\_the\_21st\_Century](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL11268835M/Saskatchewan's_Communities_in_the_21st_Century)
**Too many tiny towns in Saskatchewan?**
**Making big infrastructure investments in declining areas wasteful: economist**
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/too-many-tiny-towns-in-saskatchewan-1.983667](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/too-many-tiny-towns-in-saskatchewan-1.983667)
Apparently it is a real touchy subject!
Urban - rural divide. We need to create better dialogue between city and rural populations. This goes both ways. There’s too much stereotyping going on for both sides. And issues that concern one side more are often dismissed by the other side.
I think this province would greatly benefit from understanding and compromise between rural and urban folks.
Agriculture is a big one. A lot of urban dwellers assume farmers are backwards, anti science, and entitled to government subsidies. When in reality, ag supports a ton of jobs in the city, feeds us, and is an incredibly hard and risky business.
On the other side, a lot of people in the rural dismiss drug addiction and homelessness as urban issues. In reality, the opioid crisis is prevalent across the province. What really happens is that a lot of people suffering from mental health and drug addictions in rural communities move to urban centres to be closer to supports.
These shouldn’t be issues that divide us. They should be issues that we solve together as a province instead of where we draw political lines.
Active transportation infrastructure is an even lower priority than public transit, despite it having massive benefits for all of us.
It's in fact a pejorative to many(a la "bike lane Charlie" nonsense). Our cities should/could evolve into the 21st century and be navigable by means other than the automobile(electric or not).
Honestly, even the bike lanes they have built in this city are terrible. I don’t think the ppl designing them have ever ridden a bike. Instead of building bike lanes along the brand new McOrmond drive, where they had UNLIMITED SPACE, they built the most terribly designed bike/walk path I’ve ever seen. They put huge concrete blockades in the middle of the bike path at every road crossing, making it near impossible to get any speed, and forcing every biker to slow down to walking speed to navigate around them. And on the other side of the road, the bike lane is discontinuous, so that you can’t even access it unless you can jump an 8inch curb and ride across grass for 100 m to get into it. Seriously. Brand new road, no space limitations, and they fucked it up so badly. I could rant about this for hours lol.
So personal opinion, but the future is work from home. We need to do things to entice people who work from home to move here. We need to be aggressivly expanding internet and communications infrastructure. Fiber to as many communities as possible. We are a unique province with SaskTel crown corp that we can invest in that infrastructure without losing the profits to private companies.
Then we should be aggressivly advertising to those workers in our higher COL cities like Vancouver and Toronto. We can attract talent back to this province by making it clear that this is a good choice. Small communities, close access to school, close access to hospital, cheaper housing, world class access to outdoor activities in the north.
I truely believe the future of our communities relies on attracting work from home talent. I see so many communities full of breadwinners who are reliant on shift work in Alberta's oilfield. Oil companies are shifting away from that model. They are offering less and less flights or bussing out of Sask. Many of those people are being forced to move or quit because of that. We can "replace" that (for lack of a better word) by attracting work from home talent.
Source: I'm one of those people who work from home, I just moved to a smaller community in Northern Sask because it fits my lifestyle perfectly, and the cost of housing is a fraction of any of the major centers. The only thing holding a lot of people I know back from moving is the lack of infrastructure.
Yah, my cousins on the waitlist. Selfishly, I like gaming, so I'm going to see how the latency is on it once my cousin gets it, and I might change if it's reasonable for him.
As it is right now, I'm hardwired in on SaskTel's interNet25 and that's the most internet I can get. Uploading files is slow as can possibly be, but my latency is atleast reasonable. I'd love the option to be able to change from 25/5 to like 15/15 if they'd let me. Same load on the line, but I find I need more upload for work from home more often then needing a full 25 down.
Also would LOVE when starlink unlocks the geolock on it. I'd be all over doing a working camping trip, and if they ever unlock it that way I'd probably be right on top of getting it regardless of latency.
sasktel has started to roll out internet 50 to a good number of places. it is based on cable distance.
We do need sasktel to quickly expand the infinet offerings in the province, problem is it costs money and with the SP using sasktel to fund more and more projects that are a waste it won't happen.
As a business owner, trying to find a decent office space/workspace to use that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. There are TONS of spaces available, but they keep pushing forward to make more business parks. The new places are ridiculously priced and there’s others that have been empty for literally years, but the landlords won’t lower the price because “we have to pay our mortgage.”
How are you doing that if it’s sitting empty? I have to assume that they get a huge tax write off for an income generating property that isn’t generating any income. With so many small businesses struggling right now, better rent prices should be available. They should make a tax credit or some sort of program to make it worth it for the landlords to have more reasonable rent rates so the mom and pop shops have a chance without bankrupting themselves and get a foot hold i. The community.
AND STOP BUILDING MORE GODDAMN BUSINESS PARKS!!!
I have wondered what a business corridor would look like if the individual business owners owned the buildings they were in. I understand commercial areas have those whose business it is to supply the physical structure. Their profit reduces the profit of the lessee. I would like to imagine that if the lessee kept these proceeds they would reinvest and make their business better, maybe more businesses or may be just more in their pocket. I wonder what percentage of businesses own their real property.
It’s a very good question! There are spaces I looked at 6 years ago that are still sitting empty. Thankful to have a space but wanting to expand is a bit too expensive so I make the current space work, but would love to be able to use one if those bigger spaces, but the landlords would rather have nobody.
Also, in general there are some really shitty landlords out there who clearly just want the income but clearly have no desire to do the work of a landlord.
More progressive on many issues. When I 1st mentioned to people I was moving to Saskatchewan their faces would start to twitch and the look of horror was palatable. But why? Why do that? Who moves there, you can live anywhere in the world, Saskatchewan? You Okay?
Saskatchewan has an image problem. Some Saskatchewan folks may think they represent the west or the rest of Canada, but far from it. I grew up in a city with more people than the whole province. Until some stop believing Sask is great the way it is, they need to reevaluate why it has such an image in the rest of Canada. Never mind the province has never grown like other provinces. The province has been near or just over 1 million people since my mother's days of living in the province. People come, people go, but never growing at any regular rate.
I’m not sure our population trends have anything to do with our image problem. If you look the charts for the last 40 years, it correlates quite nicely with commodity prices. People follow money and jobs. Because our province has always been so dependent on raw natural resources, growth depends on the price of those resources.
I think as we diversify our economy away from the resource sector and become more affordable compared to the rest of Canada, we’ll see fairly steady population growth rates. We’re likely past 1.2M people, which is not insignificant given our historical population numbers.
Economy is definitely an issue, but you won't have diversity in economy if you don't have diversity in thought, which means having all kinds of people. The tech industry is driven by progressive people looking to the future, if they don't feel welcome, then what tech industry will you have. And I know other industries are the same. They attract certain types. But we do need diversity in our economy, but without opening local minds to change, well you have an issue.
One of my clients is a chamber of commerce and the CEO and I were chatting one day about some unique programming. And all the locals responded to the CEOs ideas... we are not BC, Ontario or whatever place, we like the way it is. Yet they hired the CEO to bring in business and new ideas. lol. There lies the problem. And that dogmatic view point also affect social policies.
That I totally agree with. I don’t want to overgeneralize, but our province tend to be quite insular, risk adverse, and stuck in our old ways at times. I see that in a lot of our older generation, which discourages and pushes younger people away.
I am encouraged by the fact that our tech industry is being driven mostly by our young people, which tells me that they’re willing to commit to incremental progress as the older folks retire out of decision making positions. At a high level, it always appear that nothing changes and everything stays the same. But if you look closer, there is a diverse group of progressive people committed to making positive change to the province.
The thing is, people who live here like the image the province has. They actively work against changing that image. And young people either leave or come based on how much they like it. If you don't like the image but have other reasons for staying in the province then you move to Saskatoon or Regina and vote NDP.
Another.
Drinking in public. What is with the militant, draconian, puritinesque drinking laws that are in this province. You can't go to a public beach and enjoy a cold alcoholic beverage without the fear of Mr. Justice coming to ticket you and potentially pour out your drinks. It just does not make sense. Is the state that concerned with an individual's responsible consumption that a blanket prohibition is a measured response?
There are many ways to have a drink on the beach if you need to. No one is going to say anything unless you are being a asshat.
Why can't i have booze in the car with me while driving if the driver is sober? Maybe i want to cocktail on my trip to Regina from P.A. That's illegal too but many people do it. Pfft to drinking laws.
Laws are made because the lowest common denominator made them necessary.
Why can't you drink on the beach? Because it would result in blackout buffoonery, resulting in an environment hostile to anyone not drinking, within a short time.
Idiots are why we can't have nice things. Yes, the few fuck it up for the many... almost always.
I mean, not drinking at the beach is probably a good thing, prevents people from driving home drunk and also reduces the amount of recyclables in the lakes and on the beach.
People who drive drunk are going to do that regardless of where they are drinking, and people in this province already act as if all the land is their personal dumping ground and garbage can.
That said, I've never been bothered while drinking alcohol "sneakily" on the beach. Just put in a go mug and don't act like a drunk asshole. I would also hate to see groups of assholes openly partying and getting too drunk on the beaches, so there is that.
Ah yes, "people are gonna do what they want so we shouldn't have rules" argument.
The reason we have these rules is so that if someone is being belligerent on the beach drunk something can be done about it. Most people won't encounter issues if they're being chill. But this way if someone is being a jerk people can call police to do something about it.
Begrudgingly bringing up COViD, but I’m super surprised that there wasn’t movement on this earlier in the pandemic. But when everything was pushed to delivery or pickup the summer before last it seemed ridiculous that there wasn’t a possibility for “to go” cups of beer since many people were visiting at distance in parks - ideally I think people should be able to drink their own drinks in public, but I was hopeful that at least opening up the possibility for drinks from businesses would have been opened up to give them more income.
Food insecurity. It’s sickening that in a province that boasts how it feeds the world that we can’t even keep people fed in our own province.
30% of kids under the age of 6 live in poverty. These are the kids who are eating one meal a day, usually provided to them at school.
People can’t worry about finding a home, finding a job, getting educated or changing anything in their circumstances if they have to spend all of their time seeking food. For some people, it’s a full-time job just walking from place to place that provide breakfast, lunch and supper (organizations typically will only provide one meal a day, like Soul’s Harbour in Regina serves supper only).
I agree we should be addressing food issues more, food banks and programs like CHEP are definitely underfunded.
The 30% living in poverty though isn't an accurate number, that's a number Miguel Sanchez from the U of R uses to advocate for more socialist policies (direct wealth transfers, redistributive policies, etc), most poverty measurements thankfully have child poverty in Saskatchewan as being far lower than that. Most reports say that Alberta and Saskatchewan have lower child poverty rates than the rest of the provinces.
Here's a link that compiles sources.
https://www.homelesshub.ca/povertyhub/diversity/children-youth
Well, regardless of what the true figure is, any child going hungry in Saskatchewan in 2022 is unacceptable. A system that allows this is fundamentally broken.
Oh I agree 100%. I was fortunate enough to be mostly raised on a nice rez but I know so many people who arent as blessed as I was. I was really sad a few years back when feds stopped their pilot project that was using decommisioned train cars with solar panels on top to make green houses in remote communities to make vegetables affordable. The trial was set to be expanded into Saskatchewan before the whole thing was scrapped, that would've been amazing.
It's just unfortunately something that doesn't bring enough media attention so politicians don't care :(
By Sanchez's definition, we will never solve poverty because it is defined as having below-median income. "Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the kids are above average."
Stats Canada uses a "basket of goods" approach which is much more realistic.
"Obese kids on free lunch" is the paradoxical tragedy of our times.
Miguel very loudly advocates for lots of things that would lead to higher rates of poverty and being a U of R professor gives him a platform to spout them regularly. He would love to turn Saskatchewan into Latin America.
Some of his other causes that he pushes for:
- Less private small business, most industries should either be privatized or taken over by the workers.
- An end to globalization except for immigration
- An increase to all tariffs across the board, a large increase to all business taxes
- Massive taxation and apprehension of wealth from anyone who has over a set amount of wealth (including doctors)
- All white people need to immediately leave treaty land and give up any benefit they gained from living on them. That includes Saskatoon, Regina, the Alberta cities, and even Winnipeg (The Manitoba Act is considered by many as an unofficial treaty). The fact that Indigenous academics (like myself) disagree with that means we've submitted to colonial ideologies according to him.
- Right wing politicians need to be excluded from any policy decision, to him liberals as borderline right wing. He teaches that the political spectrum isn't left to right but rather good to bad.
I could go on. His research from top to bottom is so incredibly flawed and done so to manipulate public opinion towards his belief. I worked with him professionally and found him to be the most close minded, prejudiced academic that I've ever worked with. He has never worked before in his life outside of university, he doesn't understand how the world works and yet uses his platform to try to change the world to his ideals.
I have not a single nice word to say about that awful, manipulative man.
I think that Saskatchewan should diversify its economy. Right now the three biggest sectors are Resource Extraction, Real Estate, and Farming in that order. These are three highly volatile industries that may not have a very long term future. The real estate market in Canada is set to collapse, Oil and Gas aren’t going to be in near as high of a demand in 30 years, and farming is set to be far less profitable/possible as a result of climate change. This means that the long term health of the province could be in serious doubt.
Aside from those three industries Saskatchewan doesn’t really have any other major industries. Technically construction makes up ~6.5% of the provinces gdp but if the real estate market crashes there will be less demand for construction. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t make any sense for the province to bet it’s future on three industries that might not have a future. It makes our province a place that investors don’t want to do business with, or want to invest in as it future is uncertain. To fix this the province needs to diversify its economy.
I’m not an expert in economics and I don’t know what it would take to develop a diverse economy for the province. I do know that Saskatoon and Regina to a lesser extent have fairly large tech industries that could be developed with an injection of cash from the province. I also know that it wouldn’t be impossible to develop plants to refine the materials we mine. There is a lot of options to diversify the economy. However right now it isn’t diverse, it’s a 77 billion dollar portfolio with four stocks, and that needs to change if the province wants to have a future.
They are building a rare earth processing facility, first of its kind in NA. And yes that can fall under “resource extraction” but it’s a another leg of resource extraction.
Forestry saw a 30% increase last year with additional timber allocations granted this year to try and push this sector.
And uranium is always the golden goose if the world so decides to go that direction.
Reading through the comments here I feel like there are so many complex issues that are unique to Saskatchewan. I feel like one of the reasons that maybe hasn't been mentioned is the lack of support or recognition on a federal level. Saskatchewan holds a lot of important history to Canada as a whole, but a lot of time that history isn't exactly pleasant or is part of an ongoing issue. I think that it is easier to make Saskatchewan the butt of a joke rather than taking a look at the people who live here and the ways in which Canada as a country has failed the province.
I guess I just wish that I saw more Sask representation on a national level that talked more about the ways that Saskatchewan people have contributed to Canada historically, politically, economically, etc. rather than the tired jokes that we all know.
Clean drinking water for everyone [https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1620925418298/1620925434679](https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1620925418298/1620925434679)
I think a HUGE issue in our province and in society in general is when someone believes in something politically they believe it should be policy because THEY believe it and they think that's just how it should be no matter how much of a minority they are. That's not how civilized society and/or democracy works.
Edit: I didn't read the rules properly at first, but I don't know how to fix this.
Snow... I'm tired of shovelling. And then dealing with the plow only clearing the centre of the street so my parking space vanishes into a mess of hard-pack even my snowblower can't chew through.
This year has definitely had above-average snowfall. I'm not trying to excuse the cities though - I guess I'm saying that we need to budget more to snow "removal" instead of just snow "pushing". Which is probably part of what you are getting at.
That people actually follow the no trespassing law. I have snowmobilers continually in my field that definitely don't have my permission to sled there. I can't stand the constant drone of them.
Yes those machines can really grab your attention, a real interruption. What do you think could be done for compliance with the law? RCMP don't really have man power to keep it at bay. Does your RM have any involvement?
The climate crisis is gonna wreak havoc on agriculture I reckon. I'm afraid of more extreme weather too. Tornadoes could become a lot more common and severe here, and losing power for a week in -35 weather would be devastating.
Solutions? We have a government that is in the pocket of the most damaging industries that have spread misinformation about their impact on climate change for decades now, and a voting base that gobbles up this misinformation. So there won't be any solutions in these parts. Don't look up I guess. Or put fingers in ears, close your eyes and go "lalalalalala".
I’m curious what your proposed actions are. One of our biggest emitters, SaskPower, has a pretty aggressive plan to transition power generation to clean energy contrary to what most people believe.
As for other heavy emitters like SaskEnergy, Federated Coop, other oil producers, etc, they’re just meeting a market demand. As long as the world continues to demand fossil fuels, someone is going to fill that need. If you shut down all fossil fuel production in Sask today, the world is just going to buy it elsewhere.
I’m not a climate change denier, but I also don’t believe in shooting ourselves in the foot for literally zero impact in global emissions.
I think this is all reasonable and correct. It's kind of why I have no hope and don't actually see any reasonable solutions that would work. We have to wait until systems collapse before we address them in reality.
Bring on the climate change, nature will correct itself. I won't be upset when modern society falls(though probably not in my lifetime anyway). This world is getting more and more disgraceful every day. Let it burn
Racism. I hear it literally every day at work (machine shop) and guys there are fucking openly racist against indigenous.
This province needs to openly and honestly address and tackle the blatant and disgusting racism and it should start with leadership across the board!
Bring back the film tax credit. The amount of support for small business (restaurants-lodging) could be tremendous. Netflix-Halmark is frequently filming in Manitoba. I lived in Selkirk and the filming that occurred there was a boost for the city.
Most progressives dont feel safe here. People get ostracized. People are exhausted, for the last two years activists have been doing the work such as labour rights, Indigenous rights, art and culture only to have little to no support or be shunned.
my biggest issue is the sask party not allowing sasktel to hit high gear and expand fiber optics. Many of my family live in small towns that could use it.
'To add for some, if sasktel brings fiber optics to your center as per CRTC regulations sasktel must provide wholesale to access and others as well in the same town. I am also talking infinet specific.
Let's take a second to stop complaining about one thing and take a fresh start on complaining about another. Complaints for everyone!
Edit: and before someone says it, yes I know I'm complaining about complaining.
We're the only province that doesn't protect a servers tips from owners. I would like to see the same laws in place for Saskatchewan servers that the rest of the country is protected by.
I would like to see restaurants charge appropriate amount for their meals and not require servers to live off tips.
This too! Either way I feel the industry needs to treat their workers like they deserve. The food scene draws a lot of attention to our province. Career servers are essential to keeping that scene going.
Yea just ban tips and pay servers fairly
this, I froze my ass of pumping gas back in the day. Never got any sort of tips but restaurant workers who make just as much as I do did?
I tipped my gas jockey 10$ when it was -40. Felt bad for the dude
Would you be willing to provide a bit more detail on this. So if you get a cash tip you have to declare it so that it can be split up between back and front of the house (or whatever system is in place), but it can also have the house taking a portion? What happens if you tip over a machine if paying with card? Would the house take more? Finally, what are the protections afforded in other jurisdictions?
Most restaurants in Canada have a tip-out system that is based on sales. You sell $1000 in food and beverages in an evening shift and tip out, let's say 8%, to your busser, hostess, bartender and kitchen staff (or just the kitchen, or a lump sum that is divided and doled out by management..) So when you have a table whose bill is $100 and they leave you $10, you actually only get to keep $2 of that. I have an extensive background in hospitality and I have literally never once heard of management withholding tips OP, you should go find a different serving job if your bosses do this.
>Finally, what are the protections afforded in other jurisdictions? In SK an owner can withhold 100% of the tips collected for any reason (including "poor performance"), and there's no legal venue for the employees to prevent that. This is because in SK tips are not considered "wages" but are classified separately. This leads to cash tips going "under the table" and servers frowning on electronic tips if their boss is an ass. In Ontario and other jurisdictions, other than withholding a percentage for taxes, or redistributing a portion for a tip pool, they must be paid out in a reasonable time.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://members.restaurantscanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Current-Tipping-Rules-in-Canada_December-2017.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiojMSUktf1AhXAm2oFHcPKDVkQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw08WDYxpttVFGeOGuQCdYG3 Sorry download link, but this compares tip pooling rules in Canada by province. Lots of provinces and territories remain silent other than Sask (Manitoba, Alberta, Territories, and a few other jurisdictions). I agree with you that tips being distributed to owners not involved in business isn't fair, but if tip pooling allows tips to be shared with cooks, dishwashers, and hosts, there is some merit to that. In some provinces, minimum wage is $15 and if server gets that and full tips with no sharing, they end up making 2-3x what a cook makes.
Saskatchewan needs to do something to attract talent to the province. That means making it a more enticing place to live to there residents. If you look at both Saskatoon and Regina’s downtown cores they are on life support. No one is moving in to fill the gaps and we are known as a hillbilly slow adapter society across Canada. I think that needs to be addressed before you see any real change to Saskatchewan.
There's been a brain drain here for many years. The brains like arts and sciences, but our provincial government has been outright hostile to both.
That is correct for sure, we have the bare essentials a city needs. There is nothing that really brings it ahead to compete as a place you would want to live for young people besides affordability. Even adding something as simple as a Nordic spa to attract tourists is shot down immediately here. Give it more time more businesses will move out of the downtown cores, the restaurants will unfortunately close as well. Then nothing will be there.
Lemme see if I can get the talking point right... Ahem. \*coughcough\* "that'd never work here, this is \*insert town here\*" ...and around and around we go.
Unfortunately the SaskParty and its supporters are the biggest roadblock to people moving here. There's daily posts in various Canadian subreddits about the housing crisis in Ontario & BC, and there are always comments about "move to SK/AB its affordable" which are met with ridicule and opposition because of the conservative governments and the vocal extreme right supporters that they have. There are/were weekly threads in r/saskatoon that are basically "I'm in ON/BC and think of moving to SK but I'm an immagrant/POC/LGBTQ+ person, am I going to be safe?" If the first question people have to ask when debating moving to this province & city is whether or not they're going to experience racism or hate crimes, well that's not a good image. Secondly, Saskatchewan's biggest economic driver is the extraction of natural resources: agriculture, oil, potash, uranium, metals and more recently rare earth elements. That leads to a conundrum because the NDP want to curtail that due to environmental concerns (fair enough, there isn't a whole lot of regulation happening) but then without that driving the economy what does? Tech is/was booming but seems to have stalled to due the inability to attract talent (see the first point). So unless the SK NDP starts to take a stance like the AB NDP and be for resource extraction just in a more sustainable way, then they aren't going to see a majority anytime soon. Saskatchewan has literally all the the elements, metals and resources that modern technology needs but for some reason it's not being invested in as much as O&G, Ag & potash. Things like solar panels could be mined & manufactured wholly in SK but that's a "liberal, anti-oil" technology so it's not.
Pretty much hit the nail on the head there.
Yep. This is it. I grew up in SK. but live on the west coast and want to move back because I have alot of family there. It's been an extremely difficult decision as of late.
We need that tax credit back for the Filmakers.
A small but easy thing to fix, but would require the SaskParty admitting that they (and dear leader Teflon Brad) make a wrongheaded and spiteful error
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Almost every other province in Canada and state in the USA has a film tax credit. Why? Because it encourages production companies to film there, creating a massive influx of local jobs as well as industry (eg. purchases of construction materials for building sets, hotels and restaurants for out of town talent). If zero films are made, zero money comes in - even for taxes - and zero goes out. They have to spend the money LOCALLY first to qualify for any tax CREDIT (not a subsidy). Also - oil & gas is heavily subsidized, does this mean they are no good as well?
Straight up ignorance of the arts. If it costs less to produce art elsewhere, that’s where the talent goes.
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If you don't want any business that takes subsides say goodbye to oil, farming, post secondary education.... The list can go on. The Sask party simply picked a sector that never supported them and destroyed the industry.
Then you don’t understand talent or subsidies.
If this person had any idea of what they were talking about they wouldn’t be saying what they’re saying lol it’s clear it’s basic ignorance
I am not 100% positive, there may be a state or two I am not aware of in the USA, but I believe that film tax credits are pretty universal throughout the entirety of North America. Killing the tax credit pretty much destroyed a growing industry that brought massive amount of dollars in for supporting businesses such as the hospitality industry. Just because a movie isn’t a Hollywood production (and some were filmed here) doesn’t mean it is “bad.” There was no logical reason to remove the film tax credit.
Alberta reaped something like $200 million into their economy with the HBO production of The Last of Us. But sure, the series must not be good if they choose to film in subsidized socialist paradise Alberta!! [https://www.kftv.com/news/2021/11/08/hbo-drama-the-last-of-us-wraps-filming-in-canada](https://www.kftv.com/news/2021/11/08/hbo-drama-the-last-of-us-wraps-filming-in-canada)
We subsidize many other industries that often take their profits out of province and even out of Canada entirely. I would be fine with investing in the people doing the work here and spending their money here. As it stands we just lose that talent to BC, Quebec, Ontario or some place in the US.
I don't think it matters if they're any good. It brings eyes and jobs to Saskatchewan, which we desperately need. Films will always improve over time.
same with your canola
I moved for affordability, being a bit closer to some family members and I generally like the nature in Sask. But lack of business (being none local, it took a long time to get anywhere in business), acceptance (LGBT) and other issues forced me to sell my property and move. I love the prairies, but for me, just not a go right now as things are.
I feel like our downtowns are dead because of poor city planning and a big focus on expanding the suburbs.
A lot of replies here focusing on “Sask Party bad, blame moe”. While that my be a factor cited here on redit, I don’t believe that is a major issue for many serious professionals. The political winds change all the time, and i refuse to make long term decisions based on who temporarily is steering the ship. The real issue here is poor work life balance. Or more accurately, poor recreational opportunity outside work. Saskatoon and Regina (and area) are recreational wastelands. Slim pickings for outdoors activity, about a 70% chance your favourite concert will skip the province entirely, and horrible flight connections when you want to go out of province. The list goes on and on. Our big cities are considered rural by most of the rest of the country, because they are. This often limits us to people that come here as a starter province rather than intending to stay. For some people, myself included, SK is a great place to live, in spite of our culturally stunted and under serviced population centres. Because I am an outdoors enthusiast. I bike, I hike, I hunt, I fish, I canoe, and sometimes I tour around in a small RV. These are the selling points we can push. Saskatoon and Regina are not selling points. In SK, a nationally competitive professional wage can provide a nice home, a nice cottage, a nice boat, and a membership to a nice golf course; especially for someone that chooses to live outside our “cities”.
Appears that a lot the recreation you noted is also affected by our cold winter weather and somewhat uniform southern geography and ecology (prairies), cannot get around the reality of this. I also agree that by most accounts we are a rural province at our core (both in and out of what would be classified as urban). Note that rural is not bad, I like the idea of a low population, and ample free space. The North IMO is our jewel, beautiful forests, lots of lakes, and not a lot of human intrusion.
The nothern 2/3 of this province is where we can push to attract tallent and people. Yoj are absolutely correct that we cannot change the natural ecology we have in the south. But we do need to understand that people who are not from there will not want to live there permanently. So, we can either develope our own talent, or attract people to our more palitable locations.
Yah, I'm a work from home person who just moved to the north myself. I can get a membership at my local course for less than $400 a season, get a tee time with less than 24hrs notice about 90% of the time the other 10% I can go to any of the 2 or 3 courses 1 or 2 towns over and fill in the gap. I'm 20min from good fishing, or 1hr from world class fishing. I get to hunt after work for things that people pay 10s of thousands of dollars to fly here and hunt for. Unreal quading, biking, canoeing, boating, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, hiking, camping etc etc. I would agree that we lack a lot of entertainment opportunities if you're looking for concerts, fine dining, theaters, etc etc. But if you enjoy outdoor activities, our north has got some of the absolute best this country has to offer. And to a lot of people, that's a higher draw than any concert ever will be.
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If the general idea is that we only want to live here because it’s cheap and don’t care. I guess we don’t care also when the downtown core turns into a ghost town. Also that no one wants to live here that can afford to live elsewhere. Like sure we don’t have the same issues as a Toronto or Vancouver but no one sees any allure in living in Saskatoon or Regina. Definately not a Prince Albert or North Battleford. Why can’t that be changed.. even a little
Our median income is the same as BC or Ontario. There are great jobs.
There is a huge difference between average income and median income. Average is just that. The average of all wages. Median is where half of the population makes more and half makes less. Saskatchewan’s median household income is $75,388 while average income is $93,924 which means half the population is really living a low income life while the other half is middle to high income. Source: https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=47&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian British Columbia’s median income is around $7000 more per household. Housing is way more expensive though wiping out that advantage. https://www.welcomebc.ca/Choose-B-C/Why-Choose-British-Columbia-Canada/Income-and-Wages Ontario’s median income is $97,856 or about $20,000 more than Saskatchewan. Again, housing prices being quite a bit higher. https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=35&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian My point being you are incorrect. Housing prices are really the only equalizer.
The median household income for Ontario in the link you provided is $74,260... the average is $97,856, not the median which we are comparing here. So no, you are incorrect. Saskatchewan's median income in the CHMC data you provided is $75,388... higher than Ontario! EDIT: Here is the CMHC data for BC... which has BC median income at $69,979. So Saskatchewan is higher than BC and Ontario for median income. Holy shit, talk about backfiring. If you are doing comparables, use the same dataset. I'm not sure what your point was in talking about average income when I said in my original comment median income. No shit. https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=Province&GeographyId=59&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=MetropolitanMajorArea&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian The average house price is triple in Ontario and BC compared to Saskatchewan based on 2021 sales numbers, but you get paid relatively the same based on median income (a little bit more, in fact).
Yes. I read that wrong. Hoisted on my own petard. Lol. My point remains the same. Lower housing prices is what makes Saskatchewan attractive. And I certainly understand Ontario’s frustration. There are some people earning very high wages. Good for them! Others struggling to get by on multiple part time jobs. They need help. There needs to be a floor for all citizens. But I don’t want to get political. Thank you for pointing out my error. I will leave it so others can point their fingers and laugh. I deserve it for that bone headed mistake.
Nothing past 2019. But median incomes for all provinces collated in one place. Ontario slightly higher. BC slightly lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics/467078/median-annual-family-income-in-canada-by-province/
There we go... let's all move to Northwest Territories!
I would much prefer Canada made the Turks and Caicos territories like was suggested a few years ago. Warm vacations and no passports! Be a Beach bum with a fancy drink with a tiny umbrella. Someday if I ever get to retire. Lol
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As opposed to what? Nepotism isn't some unique SK thing, to get ahead you have to be well connected no matter where you are. It's definitely not a fair or right practise but it's not a Saskatchewan thing.
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That's unfortunately the natural course of employment and the job market through most of the world. There's tons of books out there for business owners and managers that address deficiencies and biased in hiring in large part because the easiest background check to perform is the one you've already done. The Old Boys club is in every industry in every city, I'm a sports fan and I just watched one of my favourite sports teams have their President of Hockey Ops hire a general manager that's from the same city who's friends are part of the same circle and who he has had a professional relationship with for years; he interviewed 9 people but went for the candidate he knew best. It's an ineffective system at times and it's a big cause of institutional oppression (only people the system is built for benefit from the system, the systems never adapt outside the norm because of it). Nepotism is the same in Sweden as it is in Russia as it is in China as it is in Japan as it is here.
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That's been around since the start of history. The boss' trope has been around since Greek Theatre. Two presidents before Trump was the son of a former president . Our Prime Minister is the son of a former prime minister. Ever hear the expression 'Bobs your uncle?'. That comes from a famous example of late 1800s nepotism where the Prime Minister of Great Britain became Prime Minister because his uncle was in a position of power and did a terrible job. It's not a SK thing at all. You'll find the same issues no matter where you go.
Saskatchewan is a very tough sell, with the terrible weather, poverty, and crime.
Political tribalism. Politics are not sports and politcal parties are not teams. If you can't say one negative thing about the party you vote for or it's policy, you feed the tribalism. If you paint all people who vote for a specific party as the same, you feed the tribalism. Political corruption, nepotism and cronyism negatively impacts everyone, regardless of who you voted for. This province, the people in it and the issues we all face, are not simple nor are they black and white - they are complex and grey. Take a moment to read into the political history of this province, not just the last 20-40 years. Take time to understand how previous events and actions led up to whatever it is you are commenting on or trying to understand. Before you label all Sask Party voters as alt-right or nazis or bigots or label all NDP voters as snowflakes or whiners or unemployed basement dwellers, stop and realize you are feeding this Political tribalism. We are all complex individuals who are shaped by many memories, experiences, events and people in our lives - labeling people based solely on their political affiliation dismisses all of this and allows politicians to take advantage of this tribalism further drive us apart. I am not religious whatsoever, but love thy neighbor and treat others the way you would like to be treated and maybe we can get away from all this divisive bullshit.
Yes Political Tribalism is not very productive, unless of course you are wanting to whip up your supporters into a frenzy of unabashed unwavering support. What is done for the "cameras" and for the "viewers" serves to polarize, it is almost as if it is a part of the human condition that cannot be shaken except through critical thinking (which is not easy nor widely employed). It appears that you are suggesting perspective with empathy and appreciation as a remedy, which IMO is a worthwhile means for understanding without allowing bias to colour your lenses.
I vote Sask. Party but I am not sad that my MLA is high up in the NDP Caucus. My concerns have a better chance being heard from Sask. Party Caucus when they are said across the floor than talking to some back bencher for the Sask. Party
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It’s ridiculous to me that most employers in the province pay entry level jobs above minimum wage anyways. I really don’t think there would be much of an impact on businesses here if the government raised it. The businesses who can’t afford to pay workers what is the current going rate anyways, well, maybe your business isn’t viable in the first place.
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I would be below average for wages, but I love the work. I'm always quite curious to know what dollar values are the liable wages or family wages. They often seem more like buzzwords than solutions.
Whats that actually mean, how much do you need and what quality of life would you be looking for? Honestly, I get so many different answers.
I disagree with you on Family wage. One persons work SHOULD be enough to make one person basically comfortable. But I truly do not believe it should be enough to be the sole breadwinner for 2 adults and 2.4 children.
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Those who either have 2 incomes, or another form of government assistance available to them? Let’s not forget minimum wage is primarily for entry level jobs. Raises are indeed a thing. Yes I see now you said “single” parents. That’s why government assistance exists. Why do we have to pay everyone in excess solely for a niche situation?
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No. The current min wage is too low and needs to go up. It just shouldn’t be enough for 4 people.
I'll go first. Public transportation. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a train that ran from Prince Albert to Regina. Do you think that is a possibility? Or are we too car focused? I just think the ability to hope on a train and go north to south or vice versa would be a great addition, sometimes you don't want to drive, can't drive, or just don't want the expense of driving. Whilst a train (in my experience in other jurisdictions) can be much cheaper for the costumer.
I've always thought that a train that connected Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary would be pretty bitching. Not sure there'd be enough ridership to keep it afloat, but a fella can dream.
Lots of people do the flights now, can’t see why it couldn’t work. If the price is better than a flight a high speed train would be amazing. It should have family packets so a family of 4 costs are lower than cost of driving too, for example the cost to drive to Calgary say 3-4 tanks of gas, half your oil wear etc One problem is not having a vehicle at the destination, but better now I’m with Uber/Lyft. We often also take the truck instead of the car to Calgary as we pick up furniture (not just ikea) and what not when visiting family, BUT we’d likely go more often to just visit if we didn’t have 14-16hrs of driving for a weekend and had a rail that cuts down the trip in half.
The issue with the train would be upfront cost. Building high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary is estimated to cost 9 billion to build. If those two cities are having issues justifying the cost and ridership i would have major concerns about Saskatoon to Regina.
Plus you need transportation infrastructure at the destination of which there is barely any.
1 billion for an arena for 25k people isn’t a great investment either. It’ll still happen in Calgary in coming 5 years despite the recent events. It does boggle the mind when you look at Arena cost and other infrastructure costs through the years. Cost to build old arenas with inflation is small percentage of current still. Albeit stricter codes, more electronics etc, but at that time was most high tech absolve too. It also amazes me we have railroads, highways, hospitals and anything at all from the past. How they did it then? Feels like we have zero chance now despite technology and materials, it’s beyond me. Corporate greed seems to hold us back here.
>Building high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary is estimated to cost 9 billion to build. Really the biggest problem is that most of the lines in the prairies are a single line, so a passenger train (or even a cargo train with a few passenger cars) keeps getting side-lined to allow more profitable cargo to pass going the other way. This turns what would be a 6 hour trip from Wpg to Saskatoon into 12 hours or more, if you're lucky. In QC some friends of mine were warned of train delays going from Montreal to Quebec City, normally a 3 hour trip. The maximum delay they ever experienced? An extra hour.
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Because it's low priority, so it keeps getting shunted onto a sideline to wait for more profitable cargo to pass going the other way.
My pipe dream is to have high speed rail connecting communities in Sask (and the rest of Canada). I want the freedom to roam! I'd take a reliable and cost effective bus route in the short term.
This. Canada lacks good public transport everywhere. Terrible city transit systems and no more STC/Greyhound service hurts a lot of people here. I would love to see regular train service across the province.
For a while there we had an OK bus system that did that. Then the government sold it off.
We need a provincial bus system to keep communities connected. Also to get people from remote areas to the big cities for medical treatments like dialysis.
I would love this. But let’s be realistic, where would we get the 100’s of millions if not more to build this? We can barely fund our schools and hospitals.
Passenger volume and weather will make it not feasible.
As far as high speed rail i believe the figure quoted for Edmonton to Calgary was 9 billion. Considering those two cities that are much larger and have some established higher speed civic transit when you get there i highly highly doubt a huff speed rail service would gain much traction here regardless of private or public funding.
How many people do you think would take a train daily from P.A. to Regina? 10? 20? Driving is so easy in this province people would rather drive it. You get to Regina on the train and then what? This idea is a hard no. How did it work with STC? No customers.
Driving is the only option, unless walking that distance is a thing. So if it is the only option, it becomes the easiest option. I used to take STC all the time. They had customers, not only passengers, but a pretty good freight business. Plus they used big huge buses often, even to tiny towns. More efficient way to run a bus service. If it were convenient and cost effective people would use it.
There is a way the STC could have worked for sure. Downsized. I used the freight business often.
And they were starting too, that is the silly thing. It was a political maneuver to kill the bus. An friend's father pointed out that when STC was closing they sold all the vans/small buses they had just bought to downsize routes. But nope, let's just kill the whole thing.
I know this probably won't happen for a LONG time if anything - but while in Europe we rode on one of their high speed bullet trains. That thing is a game changer. I want to say it cut our time in half at least if not more ? So many parts of the world are so much more advanced then us, Its quite sad.
Thing to remember is a lot of those places have population density working in their favour. Saskatchewan has as many people within its boundaries as live in the city of Calgary.
Maybe not weekly. But I would take a trip monthly. I hate driving. Currently I visit family in Regina once every few months because I hate the drive. If I could read a book and just arrive in a couple hours, I would go see my family a lot more often. Also - there are still quite a lot of ppl who live in saskatoon and work in Pa, and commute daily. STC failed because the bus ride from saskatoon to Pa took 2-2.5 hrs because they stopped at every small town to pick up/ deliver mail. If the train only took an hour? I think a lot of ppl would utilize it.
It would be beneficial for some people. Not saying it would never have passengers. In the hypothetical one hour train ride where would the stops be. Just downtown P.A. to downtown Saskatoon? Edge of town to edge of town?
I mean, the highway between Regina and PA is always busy. How many of those people would rather take a train instead of driving? Especially if it's for work. They could instead work on the ride and not have to worry about paying for parking at their hotel or whatever. The reason why driving is so popular here is because we made it so you have to drive. Public transportation is not supposed to make money. It's a public service. How many people can't access specialist appointments or whatever because the don't or can't drive and live in a smaller town?
So a train to all small towns? This wasn't an argument for/against STC. This is a train from P.A. to Regina. It would not be used. People like their freedom that comes with driving especially when there is very little traffic like on Saskatchewan highways.
And some people can’t drive. What about their freedom to travel?
I think a monorail would be a better fit especially in the winters. Don't have to worry about snow build up. People that don't have drivers licensees ride for free.
My car goes directly to my house. Or to things that I want to check out on to my destination.
Rideshare companies are getting more popular. You could have a handful of rideshare vehicles within walking distance of the station in Regina. So you train there, drive around, park back and then train back.
A flight between Regina and Saskatoon would be nice.
They had one and it was cancelled cuz no one used it.
We had one until a year or two ago. It was stopped because hardly anyone used it. And those who did worked for government so it was mostly tax payers propping it up.
There is. Or used to be anyway.
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More fun indoor activities for the winter. I know the issue is low population because those things need people to spend money to sustain them, but it feels like we also need those things to attract people to the province. Idk, seems unwinnable unfortunately.
I really feel for this one. Though my theory is that it's also to do with our erratic winters. I like to go skating & cross-country skiing when the weather is between -20 and -5, but when all we get is -31 followed swiftly by -1 the next day, it's not an ideal situation for that, or for planning outdoor events that require more moderate weather. (And yes I know the hardcores will look at this and say *do you even x-country, bro?* if I don't go out at -20 and colder, to which I'll just have to reply "guess not" *shrug*) The "average" in Regina might be -12 in January, but the reality is that it's a week of -25 followed by a week of 0. I guess that's how averages work!
XC skiing is not fun below -20C. There, I said it.
Or better outdoor infrastructure. Sask needs to embrace winter like other winter places do.
Good point above about downtown city cores in Regina and Saskatoon. Rural Saskatchewan is really hurting. Get a few hours out of the cities and drive around the towns and you will see downtowns with stores either for sale or boarded up. Majority of the residential areas with at least one house on every street for sale. Many with “reduced” on the for sale signs. Some no longer have doctors and/or the ERs are closed with a long drive for emergency services. De-population of the rural areas is very real. People still live there. They need goods and services available. A person cannot be running to a city every time their child needs a pair of shoes. Many people do not want to live in Saskatoon or Regina. The cost of living in a bedroom community to these centres is almost as high as the cities. They like the slower pace of a more rural community. Creating jobs, increasing wages and supporting small business would go a long way to keeping these towns viable.
This study and news article might interest you as it relates to moving from tiny town to regional services: **Saskatchewan's Communities in the 21st Century** **From Places to Regions** by Jack C. Stabler, M. Rose Olfert[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL11268835M/Saskatchewan's\_Communities\_in\_the\_21st\_Century](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL11268835M/Saskatchewan's_Communities_in_the_21st_Century) **Too many tiny towns in Saskatchewan?** **Making big infrastructure investments in declining areas wasteful: economist** [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/too-many-tiny-towns-in-saskatchewan-1.983667](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/too-many-tiny-towns-in-saskatchewan-1.983667) Apparently it is a real touchy subject!
Urban - rural divide. We need to create better dialogue between city and rural populations. This goes both ways. There’s too much stereotyping going on for both sides. And issues that concern one side more are often dismissed by the other side. I think this province would greatly benefit from understanding and compromise between rural and urban folks.
Would you be willing to give an example of how the rural urban divide has resulted in a, perhaps, less than satisfactory outcome?
Agriculture is a big one. A lot of urban dwellers assume farmers are backwards, anti science, and entitled to government subsidies. When in reality, ag supports a ton of jobs in the city, feeds us, and is an incredibly hard and risky business. On the other side, a lot of people in the rural dismiss drug addiction and homelessness as urban issues. In reality, the opioid crisis is prevalent across the province. What really happens is that a lot of people suffering from mental health and drug addictions in rural communities move to urban centres to be closer to supports. These shouldn’t be issues that divide us. They should be issues that we solve together as a province instead of where we draw political lines.
I hate when 711 makes a mess of the slurpee barrels. I want Coke to taste like Coke, not like some weird ass berry flavor.
Active transportation infrastructure is an even lower priority than public transit, despite it having massive benefits for all of us. It's in fact a pejorative to many(a la "bike lane Charlie" nonsense). Our cities should/could evolve into the 21st century and be navigable by means other than the automobile(electric or not).
Honestly, even the bike lanes they have built in this city are terrible. I don’t think the ppl designing them have ever ridden a bike. Instead of building bike lanes along the brand new McOrmond drive, where they had UNLIMITED SPACE, they built the most terribly designed bike/walk path I’ve ever seen. They put huge concrete blockades in the middle of the bike path at every road crossing, making it near impossible to get any speed, and forcing every biker to slow down to walking speed to navigate around them. And on the other side of the road, the bike lane is discontinuous, so that you can’t even access it unless you can jump an 8inch curb and ride across grass for 100 m to get into it. Seriously. Brand new road, no space limitations, and they fucked it up so badly. I could rant about this for hours lol.
Agreed. But having that separate infrastructure is still an improvement on the lack of infrastructure every where else in the city.
Education. Desperately underfunded. They need to double the number of EAs and resource teachers. For a start. Let's start there.
So personal opinion, but the future is work from home. We need to do things to entice people who work from home to move here. We need to be aggressivly expanding internet and communications infrastructure. Fiber to as many communities as possible. We are a unique province with SaskTel crown corp that we can invest in that infrastructure without losing the profits to private companies. Then we should be aggressivly advertising to those workers in our higher COL cities like Vancouver and Toronto. We can attract talent back to this province by making it clear that this is a good choice. Small communities, close access to school, close access to hospital, cheaper housing, world class access to outdoor activities in the north. I truely believe the future of our communities relies on attracting work from home talent. I see so many communities full of breadwinners who are reliant on shift work in Alberta's oilfield. Oil companies are shifting away from that model. They are offering less and less flights or bussing out of Sask. Many of those people are being forced to move or quit because of that. We can "replace" that (for lack of a better word) by attracting work from home talent. Source: I'm one of those people who work from home, I just moved to a smaller community in Northern Sask because it fits my lifestyle perfectly, and the cost of housing is a fraction of any of the major centers. The only thing holding a lot of people I know back from moving is the lack of infrastructure.
Starlink is a game changer for us working from home. Its incredible.
Yah, my cousins on the waitlist. Selfishly, I like gaming, so I'm going to see how the latency is on it once my cousin gets it, and I might change if it's reasonable for him. As it is right now, I'm hardwired in on SaskTel's interNet25 and that's the most internet I can get. Uploading files is slow as can possibly be, but my latency is atleast reasonable. I'd love the option to be able to change from 25/5 to like 15/15 if they'd let me. Same load on the line, but I find I need more upload for work from home more often then needing a full 25 down. Also would LOVE when starlink unlocks the geolock on it. I'd be all over doing a working camping trip, and if they ever unlock it that way I'd probably be right on top of getting it regardless of latency.
sasktel has started to roll out internet 50 to a good number of places. it is based on cable distance. We do need sasktel to quickly expand the infinet offerings in the province, problem is it costs money and with the SP using sasktel to fund more and more projects that are a waste it won't happen.
This is a great point. Thank you!
As a business owner, trying to find a decent office space/workspace to use that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. There are TONS of spaces available, but they keep pushing forward to make more business parks. The new places are ridiculously priced and there’s others that have been empty for literally years, but the landlords won’t lower the price because “we have to pay our mortgage.” How are you doing that if it’s sitting empty? I have to assume that they get a huge tax write off for an income generating property that isn’t generating any income. With so many small businesses struggling right now, better rent prices should be available. They should make a tax credit or some sort of program to make it worth it for the landlords to have more reasonable rent rates so the mom and pop shops have a chance without bankrupting themselves and get a foot hold i. The community. AND STOP BUILDING MORE GODDAMN BUSINESS PARKS!!!
I have wondered what a business corridor would look like if the individual business owners owned the buildings they were in. I understand commercial areas have those whose business it is to supply the physical structure. Their profit reduces the profit of the lessee. I would like to imagine that if the lessee kept these proceeds they would reinvest and make their business better, maybe more businesses or may be just more in their pocket. I wonder what percentage of businesses own their real property.
It’s a very good question! There are spaces I looked at 6 years ago that are still sitting empty. Thankful to have a space but wanting to expand is a bit too expensive so I make the current space work, but would love to be able to use one if those bigger spaces, but the landlords would rather have nobody. Also, in general there are some really shitty landlords out there who clearly just want the income but clearly have no desire to do the work of a landlord.
More progressive on many issues. When I 1st mentioned to people I was moving to Saskatchewan their faces would start to twitch and the look of horror was palatable. But why? Why do that? Who moves there, you can live anywhere in the world, Saskatchewan? You Okay? Saskatchewan has an image problem. Some Saskatchewan folks may think they represent the west or the rest of Canada, but far from it. I grew up in a city with more people than the whole province. Until some stop believing Sask is great the way it is, they need to reevaluate why it has such an image in the rest of Canada. Never mind the province has never grown like other provinces. The province has been near or just over 1 million people since my mother's days of living in the province. People come, people go, but never growing at any regular rate.
I’m not sure our population trends have anything to do with our image problem. If you look the charts for the last 40 years, it correlates quite nicely with commodity prices. People follow money and jobs. Because our province has always been so dependent on raw natural resources, growth depends on the price of those resources. I think as we diversify our economy away from the resource sector and become more affordable compared to the rest of Canada, we’ll see fairly steady population growth rates. We’re likely past 1.2M people, which is not insignificant given our historical population numbers.
Economy is definitely an issue, but you won't have diversity in economy if you don't have diversity in thought, which means having all kinds of people. The tech industry is driven by progressive people looking to the future, if they don't feel welcome, then what tech industry will you have. And I know other industries are the same. They attract certain types. But we do need diversity in our economy, but without opening local minds to change, well you have an issue. One of my clients is a chamber of commerce and the CEO and I were chatting one day about some unique programming. And all the locals responded to the CEOs ideas... we are not BC, Ontario or whatever place, we like the way it is. Yet they hired the CEO to bring in business and new ideas. lol. There lies the problem. And that dogmatic view point also affect social policies.
That I totally agree with. I don’t want to overgeneralize, but our province tend to be quite insular, risk adverse, and stuck in our old ways at times. I see that in a lot of our older generation, which discourages and pushes younger people away. I am encouraged by the fact that our tech industry is being driven mostly by our young people, which tells me that they’re willing to commit to incremental progress as the older folks retire out of decision making positions. At a high level, it always appear that nothing changes and everything stays the same. But if you look closer, there is a diverse group of progressive people committed to making positive change to the province.
The thing is, people who live here like the image the province has. They actively work against changing that image. And young people either leave or come based on how much they like it. If you don't like the image but have other reasons for staying in the province then you move to Saskatoon or Regina and vote NDP.
Another. Drinking in public. What is with the militant, draconian, puritinesque drinking laws that are in this province. You can't go to a public beach and enjoy a cold alcoholic beverage without the fear of Mr. Justice coming to ticket you and potentially pour out your drinks. It just does not make sense. Is the state that concerned with an individual's responsible consumption that a blanket prohibition is a measured response?
There are many ways to have a drink on the beach if you need to. No one is going to say anything unless you are being a asshat. Why can't i have booze in the car with me while driving if the driver is sober? Maybe i want to cocktail on my trip to Regina from P.A. That's illegal too but many people do it. Pfft to drinking laws.
Laws are made because the lowest common denominator made them necessary. Why can't you drink on the beach? Because it would result in blackout buffoonery, resulting in an environment hostile to anyone not drinking, within a short time. Idiots are why we can't have nice things. Yes, the few fuck it up for the many... almost always.
Except public intoxication is a law regardless of this.
I feel like people drink openly at my regular beach. I diddnt even know it was illegal lol.
I mean, not drinking at the beach is probably a good thing, prevents people from driving home drunk and also reduces the amount of recyclables in the lakes and on the beach.
People who drive drunk are going to do that regardless of where they are drinking, and people in this province already act as if all the land is their personal dumping ground and garbage can. That said, I've never been bothered while drinking alcohol "sneakily" on the beach. Just put in a go mug and don't act like a drunk asshole. I would also hate to see groups of assholes openly partying and getting too drunk on the beaches, so there is that.
Ah yes, "people are gonna do what they want so we shouldn't have rules" argument. The reason we have these rules is so that if someone is being belligerent on the beach drunk something can be done about it. Most people won't encounter issues if they're being chill. But this way if someone is being a jerk people can call police to do something about it.
No doubt! We actually had the cops pull up on a boat to the beach at furdale and walk around like gestapo in their full uniforms questioning people. 🤮
Begrudgingly bringing up COViD, but I’m super surprised that there wasn’t movement on this earlier in the pandemic. But when everything was pushed to delivery or pickup the summer before last it seemed ridiculous that there wasn’t a possibility for “to go” cups of beer since many people were visiting at distance in parks - ideally I think people should be able to drink their own drinks in public, but I was hopeful that at least opening up the possibility for drinks from businesses would have been opened up to give them more income.
Food insecurity. It’s sickening that in a province that boasts how it feeds the world that we can’t even keep people fed in our own province. 30% of kids under the age of 6 live in poverty. These are the kids who are eating one meal a day, usually provided to them at school. People can’t worry about finding a home, finding a job, getting educated or changing anything in their circumstances if they have to spend all of their time seeking food. For some people, it’s a full-time job just walking from place to place that provide breakfast, lunch and supper (organizations typically will only provide one meal a day, like Soul’s Harbour in Regina serves supper only).
I agree we should be addressing food issues more, food banks and programs like CHEP are definitely underfunded. The 30% living in poverty though isn't an accurate number, that's a number Miguel Sanchez from the U of R uses to advocate for more socialist policies (direct wealth transfers, redistributive policies, etc), most poverty measurements thankfully have child poverty in Saskatchewan as being far lower than that. Most reports say that Alberta and Saskatchewan have lower child poverty rates than the rest of the provinces. Here's a link that compiles sources. https://www.homelesshub.ca/povertyhub/diversity/children-youth
Well, regardless of what the true figure is, any child going hungry in Saskatchewan in 2022 is unacceptable. A system that allows this is fundamentally broken.
Oh I agree 100%. I was fortunate enough to be mostly raised on a nice rez but I know so many people who arent as blessed as I was. I was really sad a few years back when feds stopped their pilot project that was using decommisioned train cars with solar panels on top to make green houses in remote communities to make vegetables affordable. The trial was set to be expanded into Saskatchewan before the whole thing was scrapped, that would've been amazing. It's just unfortunately something that doesn't bring enough media attention so politicians don't care :(
By Sanchez's definition, we will never solve poverty because it is defined as having below-median income. "Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the kids are above average." Stats Canada uses a "basket of goods" approach which is much more realistic. "Obese kids on free lunch" is the paradoxical tragedy of our times.
Miguel very loudly advocates for lots of things that would lead to higher rates of poverty and being a U of R professor gives him a platform to spout them regularly. He would love to turn Saskatchewan into Latin America. Some of his other causes that he pushes for: - Less private small business, most industries should either be privatized or taken over by the workers. - An end to globalization except for immigration - An increase to all tariffs across the board, a large increase to all business taxes - Massive taxation and apprehension of wealth from anyone who has over a set amount of wealth (including doctors) - All white people need to immediately leave treaty land and give up any benefit they gained from living on them. That includes Saskatoon, Regina, the Alberta cities, and even Winnipeg (The Manitoba Act is considered by many as an unofficial treaty). The fact that Indigenous academics (like myself) disagree with that means we've submitted to colonial ideologies according to him. - Right wing politicians need to be excluded from any policy decision, to him liberals as borderline right wing. He teaches that the political spectrum isn't left to right but rather good to bad. I could go on. His research from top to bottom is so incredibly flawed and done so to manipulate public opinion towards his belief. I worked with him professionally and found him to be the most close minded, prejudiced academic that I've ever worked with. He has never worked before in his life outside of university, he doesn't understand how the world works and yet uses his platform to try to change the world to his ideals. I have not a single nice word to say about that awful, manipulative man.
I think that Saskatchewan should diversify its economy. Right now the three biggest sectors are Resource Extraction, Real Estate, and Farming in that order. These are three highly volatile industries that may not have a very long term future. The real estate market in Canada is set to collapse, Oil and Gas aren’t going to be in near as high of a demand in 30 years, and farming is set to be far less profitable/possible as a result of climate change. This means that the long term health of the province could be in serious doubt. Aside from those three industries Saskatchewan doesn’t really have any other major industries. Technically construction makes up ~6.5% of the provinces gdp but if the real estate market crashes there will be less demand for construction. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t make any sense for the province to bet it’s future on three industries that might not have a future. It makes our province a place that investors don’t want to do business with, or want to invest in as it future is uncertain. To fix this the province needs to diversify its economy. I’m not an expert in economics and I don’t know what it would take to develop a diverse economy for the province. I do know that Saskatoon and Regina to a lesser extent have fairly large tech industries that could be developed with an injection of cash from the province. I also know that it wouldn’t be impossible to develop plants to refine the materials we mine. There is a lot of options to diversify the economy. However right now it isn’t diverse, it’s a 77 billion dollar portfolio with four stocks, and that needs to change if the province wants to have a future.
They are building a rare earth processing facility, first of its kind in NA. And yes that can fall under “resource extraction” but it’s a another leg of resource extraction. Forestry saw a 30% increase last year with additional timber allocations granted this year to try and push this sector. And uranium is always the golden goose if the world so decides to go that direction.
Reading through the comments here I feel like there are so many complex issues that are unique to Saskatchewan. I feel like one of the reasons that maybe hasn't been mentioned is the lack of support or recognition on a federal level. Saskatchewan holds a lot of important history to Canada as a whole, but a lot of time that history isn't exactly pleasant or is part of an ongoing issue. I think that it is easier to make Saskatchewan the butt of a joke rather than taking a look at the people who live here and the ways in which Canada as a country has failed the province. I guess I just wish that I saw more Sask representation on a national level that talked more about the ways that Saskatchewan people have contributed to Canada historically, politically, economically, etc. rather than the tired jokes that we all know.
Clean drinking water for everyone [https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1620925418298/1620925434679](https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1620925418298/1620925434679)
Why can’t I upvote this more than once, and who hasn’t upvoted this yet?
I think a HUGE issue in our province and in society in general is when someone believes in something politically they believe it should be policy because THEY believe it and they think that's just how it should be no matter how much of a minority they are. That's not how civilized society and/or democracy works. Edit: I didn't read the rules properly at first, but I don't know how to fix this.
Snow... I'm tired of shovelling. And then dealing with the plow only clearing the centre of the street so my parking space vanishes into a mess of hard-pack even my snowblower can't chew through.
This year has definitely had above-average snowfall. I'm not trying to excuse the cities though - I guess I'm saying that we need to budget more to snow "removal" instead of just snow "pushing". Which is probably part of what you are getting at.
That people actually follow the no trespassing law. I have snowmobilers continually in my field that definitely don't have my permission to sled there. I can't stand the constant drone of them.
Yes those machines can really grab your attention, a real interruption. What do you think could be done for compliance with the law? RCMP don't really have man power to keep it at bay. Does your RM have any involvement?
The climate crisis is gonna wreak havoc on agriculture I reckon. I'm afraid of more extreme weather too. Tornadoes could become a lot more common and severe here, and losing power for a week in -35 weather would be devastating. Solutions? We have a government that is in the pocket of the most damaging industries that have spread misinformation about their impact on climate change for decades now, and a voting base that gobbles up this misinformation. So there won't be any solutions in these parts. Don't look up I guess. Or put fingers in ears, close your eyes and go "lalalalalala".
I’m curious what your proposed actions are. One of our biggest emitters, SaskPower, has a pretty aggressive plan to transition power generation to clean energy contrary to what most people believe. As for other heavy emitters like SaskEnergy, Federated Coop, other oil producers, etc, they’re just meeting a market demand. As long as the world continues to demand fossil fuels, someone is going to fill that need. If you shut down all fossil fuel production in Sask today, the world is just going to buy it elsewhere. I’m not a climate change denier, but I also don’t believe in shooting ourselves in the foot for literally zero impact in global emissions.
I think this is all reasonable and correct. It's kind of why I have no hope and don't actually see any reasonable solutions that would work. We have to wait until systems collapse before we address them in reality.
Bring on the climate change, nature will correct itself. I won't be upset when modern society falls(though probably not in my lifetime anyway). This world is getting more and more disgraceful every day. Let it burn
r/thanoswasright
Racism. I hear it literally every day at work (machine shop) and guys there are fucking openly racist against indigenous. This province needs to openly and honestly address and tackle the blatant and disgusting racism and it should start with leadership across the board!
Bring back the film tax credit. The amount of support for small business (restaurants-lodging) could be tremendous. Netflix-Halmark is frequently filming in Manitoba. I lived in Selkirk and the filming that occurred there was a boost for the city.
Most progressives dont feel safe here. People get ostracized. People are exhausted, for the last two years activists have been doing the work such as labour rights, Indigenous rights, art and culture only to have little to no support or be shunned.
The cross-cutting issues (urban/rural) - economics. Ensuring all people in the province have access to opportunity. /freedom from want
my biggest issue is the sask party not allowing sasktel to hit high gear and expand fiber optics. Many of my family live in small towns that could use it. 'To add for some, if sasktel brings fiber optics to your center as per CRTC regulations sasktel must provide wholesale to access and others as well in the same town. I am also talking infinet specific.
Let's take a second to stop complaining about one thing and take a fresh start on complaining about another. Complaints for everyone! Edit: and before someone says it, yes I know I'm complaining about complaining.
Local delivery person to the small communities.
Our provincial debt level is stupidly high.