Saskatchewan residents woke up one morning recently to learn that yet another Crown corporation rate hike is in the offing. Last year, SaskPower, one of the provincial “family” of Crowns, jolted farmers and homeowners with substantial rate hikes.
Now, SaskTel is preparing to play the same game.
Individual farms are being subsidized to the tune of $58 per telephone, according to the head of SaskTel, Donald Ching. Facing competition for the first time in the long-distance market, SaskTel can no longer afford to subsidize local phone service. That is the president’s message.
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It is unfortunate that the message was couched in language suggesting that farmers are getting their phone service as a subsidy courtesy of the rest of the province. This only serves to widen the rural-urban split in this province and ignores the fact that cross-subsidization is a way of life here. If phone service is subsidized by SaskTel or urban users or whoever, how much do the province’s farmers, through their labor, subsidize the rest of the economy?
It is time that our politicians and public servants realize that promoting the rural-urban split, as they are inclined to do at every available opportunity, is not helpful. We are one province, one people, and we will prosper or not together; if one sector is strong, the other will be as well.
When the Crowns were set up, they were supposed to serve the public, to provide reasonable service to all corners of the province by sharing the costs among all residents. We have seen the Crown corporations – all of them – move from this philosophy to one of user-pay.
The illusion of public service in the operation of the Crowns is long gone. Today’s philosophy is one of paying the way, watching the bottom line, making a profit. In other words, one of a private-sector company.
This raises the question: If the Crowns are supposed to act like private-sector companies, why not let the private sector run the service? If there is no price advantage to the people having their own utilities, then why have them?
Given the current philosophy under which the Crowns were operating, it would be to the advantage of the people of Saskatchewan to sell them off and use the money to pay down the debt and to benefit the province as a whole by putting some of the money into health, education and the provincial road system.
