On oversights

One would hope that most governments would have the sense to consider the consequences of budget cuts before they're made official.

By that standard, Brad Wall's Sask Party administration is not most governments:

Environment Minister Nancy Heppner said that in the wake of the March 24 provincial budget — which axed $500,000 used to help combat Dutch elm disease — the government realized buffer zones in rural areas around communities such as Regina would no longer be monitored. Heppner said the ministry has since found about $100,000 within its existing budget to continue the rural surveillance.

"I'm willing to admit that it was an oversight on our part," Heppner told reporters Monday.

If there's any good news in the announcement, it's that it signals that the Sask Party itself doesn't much pretend to have done its homework in figuring out what to slash. Which means that there's reason for hope that they'll similarly be forced to acknowledge some "oversight" when it comes to, say, SCN.

But obviously the province would be far better off with a government that actually considers the effect of its actions in the first place. And hopefully the province's 2007 oversight on that front will be corrected before long.