At the end of the year, I was asked to take part in a radio panel of three journalists to discuss the most significant Saskatchewan news stories of the year.
There was a representative from the CBC, one from the daily Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and me from the weekly press.
We were asked to pick our top three stories. My biases showed.
My first pick was the fight to keep rural Saskatchewan viable. There were a lot of illustrations: the fight by West Central Road and Rail to turn the branch line which runs through the West Central area into a short line, all the articles about deteriorating roads, the publicity late in the year about destruction of the wooden elevators, the farm income drop, and release of the long-awaited Estey report on grain handling and transportation.
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My second pick was the continuing saga of health reform, which gained momentum during the year as reform hit the cities with the closing of the Plains Hospital in Regina and the nursing shortage.
My third pick was a toss-up between Channel Lake, a big political story, and the continuing prosecution of the Latimer case. I chose the latter in the end, because I think it has more far-reaching effects, from a social, justice and political viewpoint.
I must be more au courant than I thought, because the other panelists picked exactly the same stories in exactly the same order.
We gave the same predictions about the outcome of the 1999 election: barring some major mistakes, the NDP will win a third term and the government’s strength will continue to rest mainly in the urban areas of the province.
Our predictions about the top stories of ’99 were similar too: the election, health care and the continuing saga of rural Saskatchewan. I agreed with all three, and added one that I will be watching: the growth of the megastores in cities and what they are doing to businesses in rural Saskatchewan.
A recent article on the spread of Wal-Mart stores noted that as the number of the cut-rate stores grows, other retail businesses will be affected, “with smaller communities most severely affected.”
Where I live, two hours away from Saskatoon, our merchants are being hurt by the discount megastores. Roads are too good and people have time and money to travel, even for necessities like bread and milk. It’s part of the continuing story of change in rural Saskatchewan.
