Wall Government fails to provide consistent policy on privacy breaches...

June 9, 2010

In today's world of instant Internet access, health and other personal information that is electronically stored somewhere, and cyber identity theft, people are more concerned about privacy matters than ever. And one can look no further than the spring session's debate on turning over hospital stay records to hospital foundations for financial solicitation letters to see that the issue cuts across philosophical lines - left, right and centre. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post

Wall Government's fiscal track record leaves much to be desired...

June 8, 2010

The disadvantage Premier Brad Wall's government has is that, unlike with other right-of-centre governments, there's no automatic assumption that its strength lies with fiscal management. ...the Wall government will forever be haunted by its damning lineage to Grant Devine's Progressive Conservatives of the 1980s who ran one of the most fiscally incompetent governments in Canadian history. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post

Wall Government a poor fiscal manager...

June 8, 2010

What's most troubling for the Saskatchewan Party government's reputation as a fiscal manager are blasts from a couple of sources with expertise and objectivity on financial matters. The first was from interim provincial auditor Brian Atkinson, whose report last week got a lot of ink for its "disturbing" finding that the Corrections Ministry had paid out $6.7 million in overtime over the first nine months of the 2009-10 fiscal year, when its annual overtime budget is $2.8 million. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post

Wall Government's net debt is $8.07 Billion...

June 8, 2010

More damning, however, was what Atkinson had to say about "inappropriate accounting policies" that have resulted in the government reporting "net debt and annual surplus inaccurately." Had it properly accounted for all transactions, the government would have recorded a net debt of $8.07 billion instead of $3.85 billion, and a surplus of $1.62 billion instead of $2.39 billion in 2008-09, said the audit report. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post

Wall Government's debt on the rise...

June 8, 2010

Atkinson's criticism comes at a time when both the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP are running advertisements with diametrically opposed claims about the government's debt record. If one takes the provincial auditor as the arbiter, Atkinson's report certainly comes down in the NDP's favour. In fact, it pretty much buttresses the Opposition's complaints about a massive deception in the Saskatchewan Party's flyer that landed on our doorsteps recently. ...The debt graph presented by Wall's strategists in their propaganda was at best misleading and at worst downright deceitful for trying to pass off general revenue fund debt as being the same thing as overall Saskatchewan debt, which is again on the rise. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post