Rhino’s Ramblings: Heading back west

By Medicine Hat News on September 23, 2017.

With school nicely underway there was a time just a few years back when my daughter would run home and tell me about new friends she had just met.

Invariably many of them were new immigrants and refugees but there were also plenty of returnees from Alberta — those born in Saskatchewan but in order to find a decent job and a future they had headed west and then when things got tough in Alberta and better to the east they had run back home to Saskatchewan.

For a few years Moose Jaw was in sort of a boom. There was real talk about a housing and a labour shortage. But in what seemed like a blink of an eye, people turned right around and headed back west.

My neighbour down the street is selling his house once his son gets settled in a U.S. college on a baseball scholarship; says he’s off to Kelowna and never coming back. The local refinery offered him a buyout and with that he is headed out west. The good job he once had here is now forever gone and so soon will he be, too.

I did some checking and three of my daughter’s friends are not at high school this year. They have headed back west and from what one of their dads said, “never humm humm coming back.” They are returning “back home” to Medicine Hat, a place they left a few short years ago, vowing never to go back.

Re-opening jobs in oilfield services along with fewer hours or even layoffs here in Saskatchewan has sent them back west in search of a brighter future.

The summer in Saskatchewan has been a political and economic tumultuous one as we have seen the highest unemployment numbers since the drought of 1988 plus to top it off the unthinkable happened and Premier Brad Wall announced he was retiring.

For NDP partisans the departure of the premier has filled them with total glee as the strongest single asset the SaskParty has is headed out the door. In their minds it’s all about austerity, cuts and a growing sense of scandal surrounding land dealings involving a new highway bypass and Wall’s political cronies filling their pockets.

On the other side, though, I think some of the reason for Premier Brad Wall’s departure is the hit the SaskParty has taken. But also, if he is going to go, right now is the best time so his successor can have two and a half good years to rebuild. Personally I believe Wall is leaving at his own time and schedule. Any talk of his being forced out on the run is truly overstating the facts.

Now how does this affect the Hat? Despite leaving the province for the Hat due to the economic slowdown in Saskatchewan, many of these people moving are right wing in their political philosophies. They will be around to vote in upcoming Alberta elections and with the right now united provincially in Alberta, it’s going to have a major impact if they come out and vote.

I am not aware if such statistics exist, but I would love to not only see what class enrolments are but also where any new students are from. If I were to ponder a good guess I am going to say Saskatchewan. I think there will have been large numbers of people moving back west and many from here are settling in Medicine Hat.

This summer I know people from Moose Jaw who went to Medicine Hat to work in construction. It is something they have not done for years.

Climbing property and school taxes have hit hard in a property re-assessment year for many and yes, it’s a factor in people looking at moving. Cities here have had to pick up what many say is more than their fair share of the slack as the SaskParty has catered to and protected their rural base better. It has got to get more than a few thinking it’s time to get out to better surroundings.

So as your kids are settling into a new school year and they tell you about their new friends, ask them if they’re from Saskatchewan.

And please, if you meet some returnees coming “back home” from Saskatchewan try not to laugh too hard when you say “how about those Riders?” Because deep down we all know everyone has a hidden green and white shirt or two.

A former Hatter now living in Moose Jaw, Robert Thomas writes a column in the Saskatchewan city and his musings may occasionally appear in the News.