Monday 24 October 2011

Vote to Protect the things that make Saskatchewan great.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

All right, now that the Sask Party won another higher commanding lead over the NDP in this Nov. 7 election, will you guys finally end these untruthful commercials? Surely a message has been sent by the vast majority of voters of Sask. that enough is enough.

Larry Hubich said...

Sask Party Voter,

Thank you for participating in this blog, and thank you for your comment.

There is nothing untruthful about this commercial. It does not say that any government (or any party) is doing anything.

It simply says that we wouldn't let someone take things from a child and we shouldn't let a government take things from the citizens and sell off our assets.

If the party you support is not doing such things then you have nothing to complain or worry about.

Thank you again for your comment.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Hubich,

While this commercial doesn't specifically name any political party, it uses the strategic words "The Government" which pertains to the current government in power in Saskatchewan which is the Sask Party.
Otherwise this commercial wouldn't be played during an Election, right?
I don't believe the SaskParty will sell off assets like this commercial states which makes this ad untruthful. That's why a majority of us voted for them.
All I'm saying is I along with a majority of other Sask. voters hope we sent a message on Nov 7, 2011 that we are permanently done with any provincial political government related commercials from any public sector union for a long time until the next 2015 provincial election.
Enjoy your day.

Anonymous said...

Dear Sask Party Voter,

I am sick of the revisionist history, denial of statistical facts and displays of very short memories going on here. Saskatchewan has a history of neo-liberal governments running on slogans (e.g. the New Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Advantage...Ross Thatcher, Grant Devine, Brad Wall) mismanaging the finances leaving the "socialists" and "spend-D-P" to come in and clean up the mess with an unbeaten record of balanced budgets and debt reduction.

This latest incarnation of a big-business government has increased spending by 29% since they have been in office while still managing to cut services; a lot of well-heeled SP donors have gotten very rich these past 4 years. Paying down the debt? Ha!! They paid $3 billion ($2 billion of which was from the former government's rainy day fund), and loaded the Crowns up with $4 billion of new debt...in any other jurisdiction in Canada that would be considered $1 billion more in the hole, but math has not been shown to be a SaskParty strong point. 4 years in power and 3 years of deficits, I've heard in the current year we ran over-budget already in July, barely half way through 2011.

Economic growth? Let's see, adjusted for inflation, we've averaged a measly 1.1% per annum, not very good, and speaking of inflation, it's been outstripping wage growth by almost 2% a year, so who exactly is benefiting from the so-called boom? Not the average Saskatchewan citizen. Jobs? We have lost jobs in 2011, the only reason unemployment numbers are down are we have shed citizens quicker than jobs.

It is a very easy thing to rule in times where revenues are high, it is a different matter if things get tough due to resource price fluctuations beyond our control. I pray we don't have to find out the hard way....yet again.

Larry Hubich said...

Dear Sask Party Voter,

Thank you for your follow up comment. Your suggestion that this commercial refers to the "current Sask. Party government" is simply not true. We ran an ad during the 2007 campaign that talked about government and the NDP was in power. I suggest you follow this link to view the 2007 ad.

http://www.youtube.com/SaskFedLabour#p/u/8/BfwQpaFg7cI

If you don't believe the current government will sell off assets then I hope you are correct.

To correct your misunderstanding of what the SFL is, we are not a "public sector union" we are an umbrella organization for 37 different unions in the province of Saskatchewan. Some public, some private.

As an organization we have just as much of a responsibility and a right to advocate on behalf of our membership as the Chamber of Commerce has to represent their membership.

Do you object to the commercials by the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce that ran during the election campaign which revolved around their theme: "On Track"?

Thank you again for your follow-up comment.

Anonymous said...

Mr Hubich,

I've come to follow up, it's been a while, so my bad. This is my last post to you then one last response to Jason from MJ.

Thanks for that link. All right, you have convinced me that this commercial was for any gov't. The other ones from other union organizations months or years before the election are my biggest issue and directly name the Brad wall gov't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H5RnN4s4Vs

I'm puzzled about one thing though. That commercial was posted on Sept 16/2007 before when the 2007 election was actually started on Oct. 10/2007 until Nov 7/2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_general_election,_2007

Yes, I'm aware the SFL is the top organization in Sask which represents several different unions. Thanks for the reminder.

The SFL advocating just like the Chamber of Commerce is okay during an actual election campaign period. Just not for 3+ years of other commercials starting in 2008 from other unions.

No, I don't object to the Sask Chamber of "ontrack" commercials during an election. They shouldn't be playing anything after that as long as other union groups stop theirs permanently until next official 2015 election.
They only started their campaign almost 6 months ago in response to debunking myth commercials that were running starting in 2008 up to the 2011 election from other union groups such as sgeu, etc. They including alot of Sask People were getting tired of these misinformative negative ads.

http://www.saskchamber.com/files/File/Research/2011/Debunking%20the%20Parks%20Privatization%20Myth/Debunking%20the%20Parks%20Privatization%20Myth.pdf

It's time to have a long break from any commercials until 2015 election.

Anonymous said...

Part 1...
Dear Jason from MJ, This is my last post 1 of 3 to you.

So all Sask gov't parties had campaign slogans when they were in office. I remember Roy Romanow's The Saskatchewan Way and Lorne Calvert's The Future is Wide Open. So what if Grant Devine and Brad Wall have their own campaign slogans.

How odd you forget to mention that previous NDP/CCF gov'ts whether it was under Tommy Douglas/Alan Blakeney/Woodrow Lloyd etc. all ran deficits as well during their time periods. You shouldn't be excluding them. Deficits/Debts existed shortly after Saskatchewan became a province under any party. Problem is that the deficit and debt began to balloon and spiral out of control in the 70's/80's to the point of bankruptcy. Roy Romanow unfortunately inherited the growing mess. He had to deal with that and make several unpopular decisions such as spending cuts and tax increases to get the deficit under control before 2001 when he left office. Unfortunately Calvert had some small deficits too.

http://www.meridianbooster.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2426190&archive=true

Look under Provicial Finances here (down in middle of website)...You'll see $278 million in 2001-2002 and 210 million in 2003-2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan

Brad Wall mismanaging finances? While they did admit making a booboo with potash forecasts in 2009 prov. bugdet, I couldn't find anything about Brad Wall mismanaging finances no matter how hard I tried with Google Search.

If Brad Wall is actually screwing up finances, it's amazing how Sask recently acquired
a triple aaa level credit rating. We wouldn't be getting that if he was screwing up finances now, would we?

http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=a7f64faa-9409-481a-be18-2b136eaafc31

And if you look back at the last wikipedia link I supplied to you and look under Provincal Finances again under the years Brad Wall is in......where are the deficits?

I also checked the gov't of Sask financial reports.....where are the screwed up finances?! Debt's being payed down too. the Reserve Rainy Day fund whether under Calvert or Brad Wall doesn't look so dried up to me.

http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=76c48296-e098-43d3-aca2-8cefec5a6a06
http://www.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?mediaId=1488&PN=Shared


http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2011/03/27/17769831.html
http://taxpayer.com/saskatchewan/debt-free-saskatchewan-0

Anonymous said...

Part 2 of 3 to Jason from MJ

In regards to the growing Crown Debt...alot of it is contributed to the catching up and growing infrastructure upgrades/repairs and expansion going on with Sasktel/SaskEnergy/SaskPower. I see that crown debt under the NDP fluctuated and grew a little too during 2000-2005. Look down the middle under Crown Debt.

http://www.finance.gov.sk.ca/budget/budget01/ChartsandGraphs.pdf

This past June/July had lot's of flooding in many areas of Sask. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a huge cost towards clean up/repair/rebuilding. I couldn't find anything about running over budget in July. Where did you hear about this? Newspaper? in the news? Can you provide me a link? For now....it appears you heard and are spreading an unverified rumor.

Also in the Saskatoon Verb newspaper (nov 11-17/2011 edition) in regards to "Wall Owes Victory to Stable Campaign" article on page 4....
"The professor also notes that Wall delivered balance budgets and has not cut services. "
He has not been offside with public opinion on most of the issues the government has chosen to focus on,"McIntosh states. "It's been a pretty cautious government; he hasn't shifted wildly in one direction or the other."

So you say we have shedded jobs and shedded citizens? WTF are you talking about?
The biggest benchmark we have going for us to prove Saskatchewan is doing well is population growth. And buddy.....we are breaking population records! It's so good to see people more moving here.

http://www.stats.gov.sk.ca/

Anonymous said...

Part 3 of 3 to Jason from MJ

Exactly what were you saying about wages again?

http://www.prairiepost.com/news/sw-sask-news/politics/3716-good-news-thursday-sask-weekly-earnings-second-highest-in-canada.html

While we recently saw what happened in Alberta during the big worldwide economy downfall in 2008/2009, Sask wasn't directly as affected. Instead, Sask only benefitted from Alberta's brief economic decline. People moved back here for work. How ironic!

Sask has changed in the last 5 years. We aren't going back to what it was.
I have provided numerous links to you to disprove what you have said. Enough is enough.

Trent said...

Sask Party Voter,
Good rebuttal. You will find that when you use real facts to destroy the neo-socialist propaganda that the socialists run and hide; it's their only way of dealing with the truth.
I have to respect Mr. Hubich for allowing opposing views to be posted on his blog as most socialist blogs are strongly censored to prevent open debate. Larry's blog is wide open.