The 2016 Saskatchewan Provincial election took place one year ago today.
Like me, I’m sure you’re shocked to realise that “Cut rural library budgets by over 50%” wasn’t listed in the Platform the Sask Party ran on during that election.
They also didn’t release a budget prior to the election so voters could make a fully informed decision. (Would the Sask Party have had the same landslide victory if people knew the PST was going up, STC was being eliminated, municipalities were being slashed and libraries were being decimated?)
So we didn’t have a budget before the election last year and we’re living with the consequences of that. But I think I’ve found video evidence of when the decision to cut libraries was made during Budget deliberations this year! 😉
(I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to former Canadian Library Association President and CEO of Hamilton Public Library, Wendy Newman. Wendy taught my Advocacy class when I was completing my Masters of Library Science degree and I’m pretty sure “make fun of government decision makers using animated GIFs from The Jetsons” wasn’t one of her recommended strategies. But I’ve been writing a lot of heavy-duty, thoughtful posts lately that are frankly draining me. So I’m considering today as a “laugh or else you’ll cry” post, especially given today’s troubling news about how those same decision makers I’m making fun of are destroying our amazing provincial library system which I also don’t find very fucking funny.)