Country Towns Editorial

Well, ready or not here we go....
The recent announcement by the federal government to ban incandescent light bulbs by the year 2012 has a lot of people talking. In general people are a little dumbfounded by the measure. Why? Well, while many people agree that energy conservation starts at home, there are just too many unanswered questions about the switch to CFLs (compact fluorescent lights).

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We keep hearing about the Saskatchewan and Manitoba small towns dying, with fingers pointed at the exodus of our young people to booming places like BC and Alberta. Though lucrative jobs do play a part in luring residents out of province, there are a lot more factors that play into it.

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Let it rot... that seems to be the Prairie mantra. Doesn't matter what it is. A house, an old truck or tractor, a heritage site. Just let it rot.

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Though it has much more steam in the US, the animal reform movement has been picking up the pace in Canada.

The City of Richmond, BC voted in May, 2007 to eliminate the use of caged hen's eggs in all city run facilities. Only free range eggs for their consumers. they also went a step further and recommended that residents and businesses do the same. Their reason for doing so was to act on their opposition to what they saw as appalling treatment of the caged hens. In addition to this moved the council approved a plan to write to the provincial government to state to them "council opposes battery cage egg production, based on the inherent cruelty of confining egg-laying hens in battery cages."

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As the age of digital technology bombards us with bountiful tools and toys, a few old standbys become speed bumps on the road to the future.
Farmer Vision is now one of those old standbys we'll soon see the end of.

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Disgusted with the dial-up service with SaskTel?, decided there had to be other alternatives for our rural communities for high speed Internet access. We all have access to satellite Internet, but it is expensive. So I did some research. How depressing. Depressing because I found out there are dozens of alternative ways for small rural and remote communities to get high speed Internet. And the cost of which made me furious.

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It seems there are a few towns in Saskatchewan that are benefiting from the rise in population within the province. Most of those towns are Resort Villages. Though tourism does not create permanent residents directly, it does fuel growth in a small town indirectly. Someone has to provide for these tourists.

Some small towns, particularly in our beautiful north, are focusing on their tourism capabilities, but what about the small towns in Central and Southern Saskatchewan? What can they do to attract newcomers?

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