If there is a newfound entrepreneurial spirit in our "new Saskatchewan", it arrived in rural Saskatchewan long before it arrived elsewhere.
In fact, much of the political fight the past four-, five- or even six decades has been over this issue.
For years now, the NDP have talked about the province being founded by the co-operative spirit that included the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the credit unions, the local co-op stores and - to a large extent - the rise of publicly owned Crown corporations advanced by a social democratic government. This is true, but it surely isn't the entire Saskatchewan story. At best, it is half the story and, arguably, the half that's less applicable in today's rural Saskatchewan.
Long before anyone talked about it or even noticed it was happening, an entrepreneurial change was already overtaking rural Saskatchewan. Like all change, it wasn't easy - especially because it was change forced upon rural people under economic circumstances. But rural life has always been about adapting and changing.
The rural way of life of our grandparents - the small quarter- and half-section farms that made way for a country school every few miles and a town or village with a grain elevator every nine miles was the first victim of that change.
Farmers that survived were the ones that grew when farm expenses began to out-distance the increases in wheat prices. And those that adjusted wheat to canola and pulse crops or from threshing machines to combines were the ones that survived. Inland terminals replaced grain elevators and many of the communities where the elevator was their economic centrepiece simply became less viable.
All this can be chalked up to rural Saskatchewan's willingness to embrace a more entrepreneurial approach - the thing that's received so much talk since the arrival of Premier Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party government in 2007.
Yet, go to any smaller centre and you will see elements of that old co-operative spirit that carry on to this day.
Yes, the old one-member, one-vote Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is gone - or at least, replaced by the new Viterra that's now virtually indistinguishable from any other large private company. And yes, Co-op stores and Credit Unions are far more entrepreneurial in the way they do business in this more competitive world. But they still exist, evolving into a different form. And the government-owned Crown utilities and companies that service rural people are arguably more supportive than every.
It may be a testimonial for what many have suspected for decades in this province: That for all the feuding over whether the co-operative way or the free-enterprise way is better, both have and continue to serve a necessary purpose, co-existing together.
And there is perhaps no better testimonial of this than the Saskatchewan Transportation Company - the publicly owned bus utility mandated to be unprofitable, yet still supported by rural Saskatchewan and the province as a whole.
Recently, a provincial cabinet order-in-council called for a $9.2-million subsidy for the bus company in 2012 plus an additional $2.3 million in capital grants for fleet renewal, building and technological updates.
Of course, one can always quibble over whether we should be sinking this much money into a bus company that hasn't made a profit in 35 years. Certainly, technological investments like free WiFi Internet would seem questionable - even if they produced slight increases in ridership.
But there has been surprisingly little debate in our supposedly more-entrepreneurial new Saskatchewan over subsidizing STC.
People obviously still value a service that can ship a combine part as quickly as possible, get an elderly grandmother to her a doctor's appointment in Regina or Saskatoon or a student back to university.
Even entrepreneurial rural people see the need for an unprofitable public service.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 15 years.
