Residents of Estevan and Saskatchewan have been charged with one specific challenge heading into the new year.
The fact that this is not a new challenge, doesn't make it any easier.
It is a challenge that many other jurisdictions around the globe would love to have right about now and that is the challenge of handling rapid growth.
On the provincial scene, there are a few thousand additional citizens to welcome, house, feed and employ every month. Up until two years ago, it was the exact opposite.
That means additional pressures on the treasury since revenues always lag behind the expenses when it comes to public administration. The trick is to not let these revenues get too far behind. On the political front, the additional trick is to not fall into the trap of allowing those revenues to be diminished or disappear because a group of politicians feels that a natural growth regime will take care of the extra income requirements. That never happens and revenue that is lost due to political decision making, is almost impossible to restore.
Therefore relying almost entirely on recovering resource revenue means worshipping the false god of pure capitalism. Sometimes capitalism requires assistance - just ask the American politicians who allowed the banks and insurance companies to call the shots as they allowed a deregulated world of financial implements to take hold of that industry. That recovery could take up the next decade.
In Saskatchewan, the pressure will be on our Sask. Party government to provide ever accelerating infrastructural assistance to growing industry and communities. There will be the cry for more power, or to be more precise, more environmentally friendly power a double whammy challenge if there ever was one. And Estevan is supposed to be on the cusp of this challenge, so it could prove interesting on both the civic and provincial levels.
There will be the ever increasing cry for more health services. Recent hikes in ambulance fees is just one indication. Helicopters are now entering the mix for better evacuation of victims as the government realizes that more than half the population does, indeed, live outside Regina and Saskatoon. More doctors, more nurses, more laboratory technicians, more radiologists not one or two, but several dozen please. And we require them now.
We need a better system to provide capital funds for schools and payment for teachers, educational support staffs and the equipment they all use. That has to be done under a new funding format that was applauded when it was announced, but now has to roll out effectively in reality.
Highways have to be built, quickly and efficiently. No more horsing around with announcements that 17 kilometres of new pavement and two interchanges somewhere around Saskatoon or Regina should satisfy the masses.
We're talking about serious growth here and the ever growing provincial bureaucracy will have to start answering the bell. As we noted in earlier editorials, the planning stages have supposedly been completed long ago. It's time for construction to begin. We've seen some movement, but definitely not enough to accommodate the growth. We're still living in the old Saskatchewan on too many levels.
On the local scene, the pressure is on for more housing, more water lines, more pavement, cleaner streets, better and more efficient street lighting, more green space, cleaner environments and better recreational facilities. The era of making do is also over and civic administrations are well aware of that fact. But again, revenues that lag behind expenses can come back to bite the unprepared.
So let the growth continue and let the financial juggling acts begin.
We'll all be watching for the next 365 days.
