Readers offer their opinion on the availability of COVID-19 tests in Saskatchewan, secretive online entities and issues facing rural Saskatchewan.
Questions to pharmacists, doctors, the Saskatchewan Health Authority all lead to the same answer — they’re available to a very select few, with underlying issues or age as the key determinants. So are the rest of us, who may be tending to those at risk, just supposed to guess about the status of our sniffles?
Wilma Groenen, Saskatoon
Third-party advocacy groups must come clean
As a long-time Regina political watcher, I’ve seen many third-party groups come and go during civic elections. I was even part of one. RealRenewal was a sadly unsuccessful bid to stop public school trustees from closing 13 schools in advance of a predicted population boom.
We never hid how we fundraised our paltry $100 donations to candidates against closures, and duly submitted financial statements to the province’s publicly accessible corporate registry.
We published our nonprofit registration number and contact info on our website. We didn’t hide behind social media accounts, but put ourselves out there at public meetings and in the media.
We weren’t special. All the other groups I know of did the same, not because they had to, but because it was the right and normal way to participate in election issues. Clearly the guardrails we didn’t need in the past are needed now.
If they are allowed to hide in the dark, others will do the same. It’s time for the province to stand up and launch a review of legislation that governs municipal and RM elections. And if any their apparatchiks are involved, even remotely, the hidden meddling has to stop right now. Democracy dies in darkness.
Trish Elliott, Regina
(The letter above was originally published in the Regina Leader-Post.)
Wake-up call for rural Saskatchewan
He has stopped funding grants for rural museums to hire students. Under Saskatchewan Party governance, family farms have been forced to submit to corporate takeovers.
Employment opportunities are systematically relocated to the cities. Now does that support our whole province? For years, Moe has been gutting education and health care (with the exception of funding a new hospital in Shellbrook, despite sorely needed upgrades for a nearby bigger city hospital).
So why does rural Saskatchewan keep him secure in his job?
Bryson LaBoissiere, Eastend
(The letter above was originally published in the Regina Leader-Post.)
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