Far off the mark

Most of the commentary on the Sask Party's mid-year declaration of failure has focused on the fact that the Sask Party has managed to rack up a billion-dollar deficit two years after taking over the strongest Saskatchewan economy ever. But if such a thing is possible, there's another part of today's announcement which looks even more disturbing:

The province has also downgraded its projections on the state of the provincial economy.

In the budget, it was projecting real growth in the economy this year would be 2.1 per cent.

Now, it's saying the Saskatchewan gross domestic product will decline by 2.9 per cent.

Keep in mind that the initial projection was made at a time when even the likes of the federal Cons had been forced to acknowledge that there was an international recession afoot. At that time, the Wall government stood alone in somehow pretending that its province would be immune from the effects of the global downturn. And the result is that by the end of the year, the Sask Party's projections now figure to be a full 5% off the mark in determining the size of Saskatchewan's GDP.

That means that the Wall government's incompetence goes beyond merely mismanaging Saskatchewan's books, and extends to having no clue what's actually going on in the province around it. And while either would be reason for a change ASAP, the combination of both makes it all the more clear why Wall can't be left in control any longer then can be avoided.