Nine. Freaking. Days. (With no public input.)

Today's news about the Sask Party's plan to allow for virtually no discussion about Saskatchewan's energy future doesn't come as much surprise. But it's worth comparing the Wall government's rush to push toward nuclear power with the amount of time it's taken for virtually everything else it's done - and especially the time frames involved for the Sask Party's preferred option.

This spring, the Sask Party claimed to need at least the summer to figure out how to word a bill on the proceeds of recollections of crime - even though the law could have been cut and pasted from one already passed in Manitoba.

But when it comes to evaluating the full range of energy options which will drive Saskatchewan's economy for the next 60 years, they claim the province should settle for Nine. Freaking. Days. With no public input.

Last fall, the Sask Party gave its Uranium Development Partnership five months to produce a creative writing assignment on Why Saskatchewan's Taxpayers Should Make Me Rich. And in its report, the UDP assumed away the bulk of Saskatchewan's best energy options - yet still had no choice but to admit that even under the most optimistic of cost projections, some power sources would still be more cost-effective than nuclear.

Now, the Wall government wants to gloss over everything the UDP missed, ignored and omitted in Nine. Freaking. Days. With no public input.

The time frame for the construction of a nuclear reactor is approximately 10 years - though of course one wouldn't want to bank on its being completed on time. The time frame for the operation of a nuclear plant is approximately 50 years - a number which too tends to be extended as provinces accept increased risk once a facility is actually built in order to wring a few more years out of its life span. And the time frame for the waste produced by a nuclear plant is in the hundreds of thousands of years.

And the Wall government wants to evaluate and summarily rule out all other options in Nine. Freaking. Days. With no public input.

Even the NDP's proposal for a consultation process lasting through next spring itself seems to fall short of completely making up for the head start which the Sask Party has given to the nuclear industry: for actual fairness, one would want to see other sources of power given the same type of funding which the Sask Party funnelled to the nuclear industry to make its case. That said, the NDP's timeline would at least seem to be a reasonable compromise to make sure that proponents of other types of power have some meaningful chance to make their case to Saskatchewan's public.

But Wall is apparently scared to death that any real conversation on power sources will lead to the conclusion that nuclear isn't the way to go. Which would seem to be the only plausible explanation for his decision to cut off discussion at Nine. Freaking. Days. With no public input.