The Brad Wall government needs to consider reversing a long-standing practice that is putting too great a burden on local communities, and is taxing their resources to the breaking point.
For many years now, the government has had a policy of requiring large, quite significant levels of support for capital projects in order to enable the government to support local projects.
For example, for an acute-care hospital, vitally needed by the community, the local community must come up 35 per cent of the cost. When a new hospital can run up to $70 or $80 million, this local amount would be $28 million (going by an $80M price tag).
For a small city such as Weyburn, even with the significant oil and agricultural resources in its vicinity, this is an astoundingly high amount for a community to have to pay. To help, the Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation was established, and many donations have been coming in, including most recently an amazing contribution from Weyburn's Mainil family which was announced last Thursday. But realistically, even with what has been collected so far, it's going to take years of fundraising to come with an astronomical figure like $28 million (and this is only a rough estimate, not based on an actual costs which may be higher).
As an aside, it seems odd that recreational facilities (like Weyburn's Crescent Point Place and Sports Arena) can garner all sorts of provincial and federal funding, but when it comes to a necessary facility like a hospital, somehow this becomes the burden of the local residents, organizations and businesses.
Another example is the Weyburn Wor-Kin Shop, which is in need of a new facility for their day programs, in order to be able to handle the number of people who need their programming - almost double the number who currently use the program.
They have the support of the government for a new facility, but first they must come up with a significant level of local support, about a third of the cost. As there is no foundation to help them as yet, the Wor-Kin Shop themselves must embark on a major fundraising drive to come up with these funds.
The result is, huge amounts of local resources will go towards facilities that the government should be paying for. Local municipalities and residents only have a limited amount of resources - there has to be a breaking point. This policy has to change, so local dollars can better support local causes and projects, particularly those of non-profit organizations and groups.
