Category Archives: Politics

Music Monday – “Don’t be picking fights/With no Mennonites/Don’t be raising Cain/When they’re planting grain/Working through the night”

I mentioned Saskatchewan Premier, Brad Wall’s musician son, Colter Wall, in a post about eighteen months ago. He was a rising star then but he’s blown up completely in the interim – having one of his songs on the soundtrack to an Oscar nominated movie, named as one of Rolling Stone’s “10 New Country Artists to […]

10 Reasons The #SaveSKLibraries Campaign Was Successful #skpoli

So, during the fight against the library cuts over the past month, one of the things I wanted to do was try to compile some of the best approaches and strategies that I’d learned in an Advocacy class while doing my Masters of Library Science, various tips from many of the very experienced library leaders across the country […]

Saturday Snap – Me at @saskbookawards 2017 (and Some Random Thoughts On The Awards, Life, and How I Got There)

So, I once again attended the Sask Book Awards tonight. Here are a few random thoughts… Was flying solo tonight as Shea decided to take advantage of the great weather and her parents (her mom works shift work) being off to take the kids and go to Weyburn for the weekend. Yes, I wore an olive […]

Throwback Thursday – SILS Launch Preparations (Feb 2010) #skpoli #SavedSKLibraries #saveSKLibraries

Like I said yesterday, I’ll probably stop tagging every post with #skpoli #saveSKLibraries fairly soon.  But in the meantime, I have ideas for at least a couple more posts in the hopper though. For instance, I came across this picture and thought it was a nice “full circle” picture – a shot from February 2010 […]

A Timeline of Major Events in the #SaveSKLibraries Campaign #skpoli #SAVEDSKLibraries

Hopefully Saskatchewan’s public libraries will never have to go through what we just went through over the past month ever again. But I thought I’d try to document some of the various events and happenings during the multi-pronged resistance to the massive library cuts in the 2017 Saskatchewan budget (which ultimately led to the cuts being reversed […]

Music Monday – “Libraries gave us power” #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries #SAVEDSKLibraries

So, almost unbelievably, after a month of incredible pushback from all levels – grassroots activists and elected MLAs, rural and urban citizens, library staff and supporters, and numerous others across the province and beyond – the Sask Party announced that they were restoring *all* funding to Saskatchewan public libraries that was cut in the March […]

10 Things Elwin Hermanson Could Learn At A Library #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries

Former Reform MP and first leader of the Sask Party, Elwin Hermanson, came out of the woodwork (there’s a Hermanson/hermit pun in there somewhere) recently to weigh in on the backlash to the Sask Party’s cuts to public libraries… It’s hard to know where to start with such a clueless and misinformed post.  But I’ll try… […]

#tbt – “Library Cuts Aren’t About Right vs. Left, They’re About Right vs. Wrong” #skpoli #saveSKLibraries @premierbradwall @saskmla

Good news for library supporters across Saskatchewan today as Premier Brad Wall has asked Education Minister Don Morgan to review the cuts to libraries that were announced in the budget a month ago! Nothing is guaranteed from this review of course and libraries could end up with anything from a full restoration of funding, partial […]

Screwing With A Century-Old System: A Brief History of Libraries in Saskatchewan #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries

As usual, Tammy Robert has done some excellent journalism in writing about the history of libraries in the province, the parallels to arguments to earlier times when libraries were falsely attacked for being outdated or bad investments, and how the current government has long voiced support for libraries which makes their recent cuts especially nonsensical. […]

#skpoli #SaveSKLibraries – Music Monday – “Educated in a small town/Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town/Used to daydream in that small town/Another boring romantic that’s me”

There’s a hierarchy in rural Saskatchewan… First, you lose the hospital. The grain elevators close and are replaced by an inland terminal in a bigger town down the line. You used to have a handful of churches and soon you’re down to two or one or maybe even none. The local school closes and the kids […]