While the federal political ambush teams coyly toy with one another regarding a possible election call, the stage is already set in Saskatchewan and most cast members are in place for the Nov. 7 event.
That means there will be a lot of verbal posturing going on during this spring's legislative assembly while those not in the chambers in Regina will be doing their sniping from the sidelines.
So far in the local provincial constituency, there are just two people registered for the contest; Sask. Party incumbent Doreen Eagles who has been the representative for 11 years and New Democratic Party challenger Blair Schoenfeld who was selected to carry their banner two weeks ago.
There has been no indication from the provincial Liberal Party or the Green Party that they are interested in placing a candidate here and although there have been rumblings from the Conservative Party that they are on the path of revival, they haven't made much noise in southeast Saskatchewan, which was, at one time, one of their major strongholds.
So there you have it. This could be a two-person, two-party struggle for one of those 58 seats.
It is now up to us, as the voters, to again drive home to the candidates what we expect from them besides lively debates.
There have been several priorities, most of them itemized within our pages over the past couple of years, but we don't mind giving you a partial list once again, just so you can be armed with queries once the campaigning begins in earnest.
Item No. 1 that can be addressed effectively is some kind of deadline date for the start of construction and the completion date for a heavy truck bypass near Estevan. We've been assured it's on the way. The groundwork was started and then halted due to faults in the original plan. But that was a year ago.
Item No. 2 also deals with highways, namely Highway 39 leading up to Highway 6 south into Regina that begs to be twinned for obvious reasons. The time has come for candidates of all political stripes to commit to the project. Again, this has been years in the gestation stage. It now requires action. No more studies or contemplations but rather a firm commitment. Who will step boldly into that breach?
We have physician shortages here, and it's an ongoing problem, not a temporary one.
Sticking with the medical requirements, we note that after several years of trying, St. Joseph's Hospital is no further along in its attempts to become the Sun Country Health Region's regional hospital. One problem is the aforementioned physician/surgeon shortage; the other has been the lack of political will and clout at various levels in the chain.
And that leads us to the third item on the medical to-do list. We've been informed that no facility will reach regional status until they acquire a CT scanner for their imaging department. We have been told that Estevan's and Sun Country's request for one has been in the works for four years with no noticeable response from the Ministry of Health. Why? We have learned that $500,000 has been assigned to Melfort so they can purchase and equip one. Nada for Estevan.
We may add that our educational support systems require additional attention since this is the fastest growing area in the province, fuelled, we might remind them, by hundreds of millions of dollars from the local oil patch that has been sending money into Regina on a regular basis for decades. It would be nice to get about five per cent of that back, just once.
So there you have it, for now. We're sure you could add to this little list.
It'll be interesting to see how things roll.
