A University of Saskatchewan professor emeritus says Saskatchewan should be doing much better than it appears to be on many fronts.
I get the sense many of us think our public system of programs and services in Saskatchewan is held together with binder twine and duct tape. Over the holidays, I raised this with friends, family and colleagues and was told that was all we could afford.
I accept that no jurisdiction can have everything, but looking at Saskatchewan objectively, there is no reason we can’t do a lot more. Individually and collectively, we have ample resources.
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Through good fortune and good planning Saskatchewan has developed a vibrant, growing and prosperous economy.
We have among the highest proportion of our working age population actively employed and most earn at or above the national wage rate. Our incomes also go further as this is one of the lower-cost provinces.
In aggregate, our efforts in 2022 generated more than $98,000 of output per man, woman and child, 33 per cent higher than for Canada as a whole. Compared with Ontario, we have $28,000 more per person to invest, spend or save. Only Alberta has a higher per capita output.
Individually, most of us are also well situated. Obviously not everyone shares equally, but in aggregate, individuals and families have saved about a half a million dollars per person, about 75 per cent of that in pensions and other income earning investments.
Both the total wealth per person is higher than for Canada and a greater portion or our wealth earns income, rather than is needed to pay for housing.
Furthermore, our governments have both lots of tax room and more capacity to borrow. Saskatchewan has among the lowest tax rates, while the government is near fiscal balance, has the second-lowest provincial government net-debt-to-GDP ratio and has the second highest credit rating.
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In spite of all this capacity, Saskatchewan falls behind many other less well-endowed provinces in terms of investments and services that contribute to our quality of life.
Notably, we have 10 per cent fewer physicians and hospital beds per capita than Canada, contributing to longer wait times for surgeries and poorer outcomes for infant mortality and survival from cancer. We also underfund education.
As recently as 2018, Saskatchewan spent more per kindergarten to Grade 12 student than any other province; now we invest just above the national average. Student-teacher ratios are rising and wages for teachers in Saskatchewan are slipping compared to other provinces in the West.
Meanwhile, we invest about 15 per cent less relative to our GDP in post-secondary systems than other provinces. We also are seeing cracks in our social supports.
Saskatchewan in 2015 had the third lowest rate of poverty of any province, substantially below the national average; in 2020, Saskatchewan posted the fourth worst rate of poverty. Our notably modest minimum wage is one obvious cause.
Looking around our communities, one can see similar under-investment in our quality of life. Urban centres have been hollowed out; we spend less than half the Canadian average on culture; and there is little investment in public art and amenities.
Firms take their lead from the public sector and corresponding underfund their operations and facilities.
In short, we act as if we are simply subsisting. This is reflected in the Statistics Canada quality of life survey, which shows Saskatchewan has the lowest average life satisfaction rates of any province.
I appreciate that in past generations we had to overcome many hardships (including depression, droughts, war and commodity cycles), which required we be cautious with our resources. But it is now more than a generation since the economy stabilized and we broke free from our have-not status.
Saskatchewan’s industry and economy produces ample resources to make our communities and society world-beating. So the next time someone says we can’t have something nice, challenge them to distinguish between what we can afford and what we want to afford.
Peter WB Phillips is a distinguished university professor emeritus with the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan.
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