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Kamsack and Canora area residents hold End of the Line town hall meeting in objection to the provinc

No one is untouched by the attack on “our values as Saskatchewan people” that is the recent Saskatchewan government budget, said Linda Osachoff, moderator of the End of the Line town hall meeting held in Kamsack on April 13.

            No one is untouched by the attack on “our values as Saskatchewan people” that is the recent Saskatchewan government budget, said Linda Osachoff, moderator of the End of the Line town hall meeting held in Kamsack on April 13.

            “We are not just taxpayers; we are citizens,” said Osachoff , who operates a bed-and-breakfast business with her husband on their farm north of Mikado and is an employee of the credit union and a former employee of the health care system.

            Osachoff stressed that the meeting was not a political forum as the implications of the budget supersedes political parties. She said that Terry Dennis, the Canora-Pelly MLA, had been invited to attend the meeting, but because he was unable to attend, notes from the meeting would be forwarded to him.

            As a government back-bencher, Dennis has limited control of the budget process, but he has a responsibility to listen to concerns of residents.

            The meeting, held in the Ukrainian Catholic Hall in Kamsack, attracted residents of both Kamsack and Canora areas, and began with a presentation by Cheryl Stadnichuk of Regina who spoke from a CUPE-issued (Canadian Union of Public Employees) slide show dealing with the recent provincial budget, which she said, was “one of the most severe budgets in the history of the province.

            The “cruel, mean budget” attacks public services, while distributes income to the wealthy, Stadnichuk said, explaining that the budget inflicts massive cuts to the public sector bodies, includes mean-spirited cuts to public services that the vulnerable rely on including STC service and libraries; has massive cuts to all government ministries except social services and highway; demands wage cuts for public sector workers and results in direct job losses.

            The budget provides tax cuts for corporations; has personal income tax cuts which benefit mostly the wealthy; shifts to consumption taxes and the PST increase hurts low income persons more, and rests on an expectation that the private sector will provide more services.

            Stadnichuk said that the government’s claim that the deficit forced the budget is erroneous because, as a percentage of GDP, the deficit is smaller than during the Devine government. She said that that the current deficit of $685 million is the sixth deficit of the Wall government and that government revenues and spending doubled during Premier Brad Wall’s time in office.

            She ridiculed the government’s choice of a “trickle-down economic theory,” which has been soundly debunked when implemented in other jurisdictions in the past, and was critical of the decision to shut down STC services which would result in 224 jobs lost and 253 communities left without public transportation, personal and business shipping, hitting the rural and northern communities hard.

            Stadnichuk was critical of the government’s decision to dismantle public libraries and included a quote from Don Morgan, minister of education, who has said that “Saskatchewan has too many libraries.”

            She mentioned the cuts to school divisions, municipalities, universities, higher care home fees and health care and said that community-based organizations have had their funding frozen, special needs in daycare has been eliminated, community pastures are being phased out and the selling off of 900 grain cars ends the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation.

            There is no need for this austerity, she said, urging people to support campaigns to save the libraries and the STC, and to pressure their elected representatives and send letters to the MLAs.

            “We have never seen so much action before,” she said in regards to citizens’ response to the budget.

            Donna Krawetz of Kamsack, a member of CUPE, discussed the budget’s impact on health care, including the cutting of key care programs such as assistance for hearing aids and chiropractic and podiatry services.

            The closure of STC has a huge impact on health care, she said, mentioning that many patients fighting cancer use STC services to get to medical appointments in the cities.

            Calling herself a “cranky old lady,” Cecelia Cazakoff of Kamsack, a retired school teacher and chair of the Kamsack Public Library board, said that although she does not consider herself an expert, she knows “when something is fair and just and when something is just plain wrong.”

            Instrumental in having a petition circulated in Kamsack with regards to objections to the STC service, Cazakoff spoke on that topic as well as to the cuts to libraries.

            Because all of Saskatchewan can be considered as rural, Cazakoff said that special considerations are needed when it comes to transportation.

            “When I saw the latest provincial budget, I can honestly say I went into shock,” she said. “I saw the dissolution of decades of social progress that had made Saskatchewan unique; a model society for others to emulate.

            “I am here because I am extremely concerned, even fearful, about the consequences of the government’s budgetary decisions…that seem to have been made in frantic haste and lack of foresight.”

            Critical of the discontinuation of STC services, or “the throwing of STC under the bus and driving over it several times,” Cazakoff said that the day before this meeting she had watched a ceremony from Parliament Hill where Malala Yousafzai, a 19-year-old social activist, spoke of harsh injustices endured by hundreds of thousands of other girls and women throughout the world and of a Muslim girl that had been removed from a refugee camp in Somalia and taken to a town where she was to be forced to marry an elderly man whom she did not know.

            “Malala said that the desperate teenager managed to get enough money from a sympathizer to take a bus back to the safety of the refugee camp,” Cazakoff said, adding that she had been impressed with the girl’s courage, was thankful that there was a bus to carry the desperate young girl to a safe haven, and was struck that “they have buses in Somalia!

            “Somalia, a third-world country, war torn; in many ways primitive and certainly not the safest place on this planet, but they have public transportation: busses.”

            It was never intended that the STC service should be financially self-sufficient, she said. It was and is an essential public service to be subsidized by the public purse.

            Research shows that public transit systems, whether urban or rural, rarely operate without government support, she said. The cost to governments for maintaining a province-wide public transportation system is offset by significant social and economic benefits for the citizens. These benefits are then reflected back to the provincial social and economic well-being as a whole.

            Public transport ensures that all members of society are able to travel, not just those with driving licences and access to a vehicle, but groups such as the young, the old, the people with modest means, those with medical conditions and disabilities and even people banned from driving for whatever reason.

            Public transportation opens to its users the possibility to meet and visit other people, to see new places and to enrich their lives with fresh experiences. It enables visitors to travel within the province.

            Public transportation enables people to care for themselves, she said. They don’t have to depend on others or to feel as if they are inconveniencing others when they need to go for appointments and health care.

            Shutting down the STC literally immobilizes the people and businesses of this province and the adverse effects of this will be felt by both rural and urban centres. Small towns will atrophy and die.

            She encouraged persons to sign copies of the petition that is being circulated in objection to the planned STC closure.

            Turing her attention to the cuts for libraries, Cazakoff outlined how inter-branch book loans are made and said that the cuts will have “a horrific impact on library services.”

            Public libraries were created so that all members of a society would have access to reading and other communication materials, she said. “Remember, at one time things such as schools and reading materials were available only to the wealthy and privileged.”

            Cazakoff highlighted items in the Kamsack Library’s annual report that prove its value to the community and said she regretted not getting into “the education thing” because that would take a whole evening to discuss.

            “Suffice to say that these budget cuts will take education back at least 30 years,” she said.

            Several members of the audience raised issues which basically echoed the concerns of the speakers and it was said that protests on the budget are to be held at the Legislative building in Regina and people indicated that they would be willing to board a bus taking them to the city so that they could participate.

            Information on how to make one’s voice heard about the provincial budget can be found on the Facebook sites Save STC and Stop the Cuts.