By Mario deSantis, February 8, 1999

Last Sunday, as I read the article "Hiding behind gag orders too common"(1), I became surprised to find out that the authors of this article expressed their outrage to the ongoing practice by our public institutions to muzzle dissenters and stifle people who may speak their minds. I have expressed such sentiments for years and my simple reasoning was following the line "...I can understand that if you have your own private business then you may take somewhat questionable actions to defend it, your business is your own and eventually you may pay for whatever you have done; but for public institutions to take reprehensible or unethical actions must never be tolerated...." The repression of our basic freedom of expression by our own authorities encourages the covering up of blatant mishandling of our public administration, and sure enough, adjacent to the above mentioned article appears the other article "Thomson's gaffe outs real story"(2) where we find out that the final report of the Channel Lake(3) inquiry was not prepared by the related legislative committee but by Brian . Topp, Honourable Roy Romanow's senior political strategist.

There appears to be a chronic lack of integrity shown by our political and bureaucratic leadership and we have provided in our past articles instances of such despicable behaviour(4). This lack of integrity is accentuated by our ever autocratic public and pseudo public administration and it has been expressed as "...What's happening in Saskatchewan is becoming all too commonplace. It smacks of tin-pot dictatorships, not something from a supposedly enlightened democracy..."(5)

Endnotes

1. Hiding behind gag orders too common, SP Opinions, The StarPhoenix, Page C4-Weekend Forum, February 6, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

2. Thomson's gaffe outs real story, The StarPhoenix, Page C4-Weekend Forum, February 6, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

3. 1998 Fall Report Volume 2, Provincial Auditor Saskatchewan, Chapter 21, page 285. SaskPower, a Crown Corporation, sold the subsidiary Channel Lake Petroleum Corporation for $5.2 million less than autorized.

4. Refer to relevant articles by Mario deSantis published in North Central Internet News http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/

5. Hiding behind gag orders too common, SP Opinions, previous last sentence of the article, The StarPhoenix, Page C4-Weekend Forum, February 6, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan