Opinions, facts and non-facts about an indoor playing field are billowing through the media like wind-driven dust. The proposal to build a domed stadium in Regina is receiving the kind of publicity calculated to pound the resistant fibre out of frugal minds. Do we need one? That is the important question which is not being plainly asked nor honestly answered.
I learned the difference between needing and wanting a very long time ago, when devil winds clawed over the land and black blizzards imprisoned little boys in their homes. My friends and I wanted to go outside and play, but we could not endure the winds which poked soil and sand into our eyes. Then we discovered goggles. The local drugstore had two types for sale. At 25 cents, the best goggles were fur-trimmed and roughly rectangular. Boys who wore them could imagine themselves into being the dashing fighter pilots of the 1914-18 war. At 10 cents, the cheaper goggles were ugly creations with small round lenses. I was the only boy in the village condemned to wear the 10 cent variety. I looked like a heart-broken racoon.
When I complained about it, my father told me that cheap goggles would protect my eyes just as well as expensive ones. When I continued to wail, he said severely, "Think yourself lucky. There are boys on the farms who have no goggles at all and they are being sent outside to carry thrice-used water to parched gardens." Then he elaborated on his frugal philosophy by telling me no purchase of any kind should be made without a clear understanding of why it was needed. If needed, it should be the cheapest item which would meet the determined need. Then, this was too big an idea for a small boy to absorb, but I understand it now.
Do we know why we need a domed stadium in Regina? Is it because of an overwhelming devotion to our football heroes? Is it because of community loyalties? Do we think Regina should have something to compensate for all the research goodies that have been collected by Saskatoon? Is it because we want to show other provinces that we are just as good as they are? Even better? I don't know, but I do know football can continue to be played without a domed stadium.
Within our own province, the tax money which may eventually be used to build the pleasure dome could do a greater good if it were spent on chronic problems that still bedevil us - plugging gaps in rural health care, child care and facilities and services for the aged, and in limiting the time which is taken from young lives in travel to and from distant schools. The list goes on and on.
Throughout Canada, there is a pressing need for a sensible transportation policy and a costly overhaul of the whole system in order to place more heavy loads back on the rails and to pay for innovations in air travel to replace the fuel-guzzling jet aircraft.
Further afield, money spent on our many pleasure palaces could go a long way toward combating disease, homelessness and hunger in poorer countries. How many water wells are needed in countries where children drink contaminated water every day? How much must be done to provide food for people who are starving to death? As members of the human family, what should our priorities be?
The worth of each one of us, as an individual, is revealed by our individual priorities.
As my father told me long ago, need should always come before want.
