All hands went up when Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit asked convention delegates if they had allowed their children to drive before they were of legal age.
Just to be sure, he asked who hadn’t. No one raised a hand.
Right or wrong, that’s the reality in rural Saskatchewan, highlighted last week by a remark from premier Brad Wall during his convention speech.
Wall said he had taken his 14-year-old daughter driving on a grid road south of their Swift Current home.
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“Should I say that?” he asked after a brief pause. “She was driving for a while. She did just fine.”
Delegates chuckled, but the quip led to an exchange in the legislature and a debate in the media.
Callers to radio stations and e-mails posted on websites reflected different points of view.
NDP justice critic Frank Quennell said children of that age are not allowed to drive and the premier should apologize for breaking the law.
He asked justice minister Don Morgan to “investigate the premier’s confessed unlawful activities.”
Morgan acknowledged that young people must be at least 15 to obtain a learner’s licence and drive on Saskatchewan roads, but he said he couldn’t comment on specifics without hearing from the premier.
He said he found it “a bit shabby and a bit tawdry that we’re dealing with it in the house today.”
Wall left for New York immediately after his speech to SARM but told reporters in a March 14 conference call that he was sorry he had made the remark and for the attention it had drawn to his family.
He said he would continue teaching his daughter to drive, but on private land rather than public roads.
Since the issue became public, farmers from the Swift Current area have offered Wall the use of their land for driving lessons.
Many SARM delegates scoffed at the controversy caused by Wall’s comments, noting all farm kids learn to drive at an early age.
James Amell, then eight years old, of Coronach, Sask., was hailed a hero in 2005 when he drove a Dodge Ram truck about eight kilometres to get help when his father was pinned by a combine header.
Wall’s health minister, Don McMorris, is a former driving instructor. He said rural children often had a lot of driving experience before they got behind the wheel with him.
“I drove on a grid road, and I’m sorry,” he told reporters.
