For an election that didn't look like it would provide much for rural Saskatchewan, there have been a surprising amount of goodies.
You may recall from previous visits to this space of your newspaper that it was anticipated rural Saskatchewan might be the red-haired child of this campaign. The Saskatchewan Party government, after all, had most of the rural seats sown up. It had even already announced the replacement of the Saskatchewan Hospital at North Battleford before the campaign.
And because the NDP was again conceding most of the rural seats to the Sask. Party, there didn't seem to be much reason to think their campaign platform would place much emphasis on rural issues. (In addition, there is also the issue of the unlikelihood of the NDP forming government anyway, meaning that whatever they promise has significantly less relevance.)
Finally, perhaps rural Saskatchewan had become maybe just a little spoiled after the 2007 election. It did, after all, elect the vast majority of government members that promised and delivered on things like lower education property taxes on farmland - an issue gnawing away at rural voters for years.
The notion that rural Saskatchewan would do as well in 2011 seemed highly unlikely.
Well, notwithstanding that this year's vote isn't quite like 2007, it turns out that the 2011 vote might be better than many expected. Consider what we are hearing from the politicians campaigning for your votes.
Sask. Party leader Brad Wall recently announced this on the health care: $120,000 forgivable loans for new doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses willing to relocated to under-served rural areas for five years; 20 additional seats for nurse practitioner training; a 20-doctor rural locum pool to relieve rural physicians in need of a break; pilot projects for emergency services training in southwest, and; the launch of the STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society) medical helicopter program.
All of these proposed programs - some of them, already started like the emergency services training and STARS - stand to directly benefit rural Saskatchewan.
And not to be outdone (or in the case of this election, out-promised) the NDP early in the campaign outlined it's own aggressive agenda. Included in the NDP plan are a series of 100 primary care clinics to be opened within 10 years - 30 of which would be opened in the first term of an NDP government. Given the vast number and nature of these clinics as a couple-times-a-week drop in centres, one can safely assume a lot of them would be in rural Saskatchewan.
Leader Dwain Lingenfelter also outlined his own aggressive $24-million plan to encourage graduating University of Saskatchewan medical students to stay in the province. And significant upgrades to nurse practitioner training so that rural hospitals might remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week is a significant part of the NDP's health plan.
Of course, this is just an example of the programs seem specifically beneficial to rural Saskatchewan. Rural folks would also benefit from other broader-based initiatives that the political parties are proposing.
For example, if you are the rural parent with a university-age student, you have the choice between the Sask. Party program ($500 grants for all graduating high school-age kids to attend university) and the NDP plan (a tuition freeze for all current and future university students).
The NDP are advocating 10,000 daycare spaces - some of which would wind up in rural communities. The Sask. Party's biggest promise is significant help with residential and independent living disabled. (Again, including those in rural areas.)
Surprisingly, it's an election with a whole grab bag of goodies for rural Saskatchewan.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 15 years.
