When Sask Party MLA Greg Ottenbreit refers to SGEU billboards as “personal attacks,” he’s trying to avoid an important public discussion and dismissing a very legitimate question: where did the money go?
A personal attack involves making an abusive remark about a person. There is nothing abusive about asking an MLA how public money was spent. Our MLAs are elected by the people of Saskatchewan, and we deserve honest answers.
The fact is when the Sask Party took office, they inherited a $1.53 billion rainy day fund. Not only did this government spend all of that money, they borrowed billions more, putting this province further into debt. It’s about time we have a public discussion about where the money went.
Of course, the Sask Party government doesn’t want to have this discussion. That’s because they wasted billions on pet projects – like the Regina bypass, which grew in cost from $400 million to $2 billion, an underperforming $1.5-billion carbon capture and storage plant, a failed $40-million LEAN experiment, botched SaskPower smart meters, which cost us $52 million, and the GTH land scam, which cost us millions more when government bought land at inflated prices. They even increased spending on their own political staff by 74 per cent.
Meanwhile, public services are being cut and Saskatchewan people are being forced to pay more. Ottenbreit told Yorkton This Week that he “chuckled” when he saw the billboard asking where the money went. Accountability is no laughing matter. Saskatchewan people deserve better than flippant, dismissive remarks to valid questions.
Sid Wonitowy, Yorkton, SK.
