By Mario deSantis, February 11, 2000

We have already presented how our government uses research studies to support their hidden agendas, misinform the public and breakdown our participation to public polices(1). Until yesterday, when I wrote the article "Honourable Janice MacKinnon: debating the economic underdevelopment of Saskatchewan(2)", I never had the interest to deal with MacKinnon, possibly because her ministry has done nothing for the economic development of the province. But the latest articles of the National Post(3) have put MacKinnon on the spot light and therefore I researched the governmental news release web site to see what she had been doing lately.

I came across the news release "12,400 NEW JOBS CREATED IN SASKATCHEWAN(4)" and as I read it I became disconcerted about the way MacKinnon manipulated statistical numbers. This release reminded me of the 1999 governmental budget when Premier Roy Romanow and Eric Cline, Minister of Finance, played the number game for the allocation of funds(5). Anyhow, this news release reports that for the year 1999 Saskatchewan created 12,400 new jobs; however, Adam Killick of the National Post, has reported that for "...Last year, Saskatchewan created 2,900 jobs, about half the number created in neighbouring Manitoba and considerably fewer than in P.E.I., which has about one-tenth of Saskatchewan's population...". The release gloats on the fact that the unemployment rate for January 2000 was 5.6 percent and one of the lowest rate across Canada.

MacKinnon doesn't understand that the low unemployment rate for Saskatchewan is meaningless today(6) since our young people, professionals and workers have been leaving the province for the past decades. The news release also reports that the province created 31,600 jobs between 1992 and 1999, and that Saskatchewan surpassed its job creation target by 1,600; you just tell me, reader, what's the meaning of this statement. We have a government which cannot do its job on hand, now figure out how they can predict their job creation targets for the period 1992 to 1999: it really takes the out of reality perception of an academic book worm such as Honourable MacKinnon.

The crap of this news release continues by saying that Saskatchewan experienced the employment growth rate of 2.7 percent, the highest rate in all western province. Again, with so many thousands of desperate farmers(7) who can't pay their bills, wouldn't you think that some of them or their spouses would find jobs just to stay alive? There is no more common sense in interpreting statistical numbers, and our politicians and bean counters just keep telling us one lie over another.

It is a difficult time for trusting our politicians, bureaucrats, or anybody else, especially when you consider the recent federal Human Resources scandal affecting the un-accountability of up to $1 billion worth of job creation programs. One lesson for us all is that we cannot trust statistics, we cannot trust Honourable MacKinnon, and we can only trust ourselves, and in this state of social confusion and deception it is even hard in doing that.

Endnotes

1. The misuse of Statistics as a scientific tool, by Mario deSantis, January 18, 2000

2. Honourable Janice MacKinnon: debating the economic underdevelopment of Saskatchewan, by Mario deSantis, February 9, 2000

3. Mississippi of the North?, by Adam Killick, National Post, February 05, 2000, Don Mills, Ontario http://www.nationalpost.com

4. 12,400 NEW JOBS CREATED IN SASKATCHEWAN, Economic and Co-operative Development - 43, February 4, 2000 Government of Saskatchewan http://www.gov.sk.ca/newsrel/2000/02/04-43.html

5. A short commentary on the budget: A Number Game, by Mario deSantis, April 1, 1999

6. Saskatchewan unemployment rate will be important in the future as our demographics keep changing. Aboriginals poised to irrevocably alter political landscape, by Adam Killick, National Post, February 07, 2000, Don Mills, Ontario http://www.nationalpost.com

7. The farm crisis and the globalization of our economy, by Mario deSantis, February 2, 2000