The reviews are in

Murray Mandryk:

The problem for the Wall right now is two-fold: First, his government is now completely reliant on the private sector for such forecasts after purging departments like energy of civil servants who supposedly did not share the Saskatchewan Party's vision. The loss of such professional objectivity in the civil service was the same mistake that the Devine government made, one that would later prove to be costly.

Second, that Sask. Party "vision" for the province has been an exceedingly rose-coloured one that offers only so much room for the supposedly negative forecasts. The March budget did rightfully project that the province would take an approximate $1.7-billion hit on oil revenue and Crown land sales from the $2.4-billion it took in 2008-09. One gets the distinct impression that it didn't want to be talking about a further $1.3-billion hit on potash revenue because a $3-billion revenue decline somehow just didn't properly reflect the government spin that Saskatchewan is a booming island in the middle of this recession.

This, too, was all too similar to the Devine approach.

So if Wall wants to avoid any more such Devine comparisons in the future, here's one alternative: Just stop budgeting like Devine did.