New column day

Here, on the lack of any connection between the Saskatchewan Party's choice of industries and projects and the state of Saskatchewan's economy.

For further reading...
- I've dealt with most of the content in the column in previous posts, including the P3 secretariat flop here, and the gap between promise and reality in the nuclear industry in this post.
- The reorganization of Enterprise Saskatchewan was announced here - and received far less criticism than it deserved as a concession that the Sask Party's overarching economic plan was poorly thought out from day one.
- Finally, the list of target projects under the so-called Project Touchdown is reproduced by Joe Kuchta here.

For the record, here's how I score the list of 14 projects intended to serve as a "visible culmination" of the Saskatchewan Party's economic plan: full points for development at the Global Transportation Hub, a major hotel development in Regina (even if it's not clearly the same one discussed under the project), completing the expansion of Bioexx (though it's not clear what role if any the province had to play in a move that was already underway); half points for head office decisions when the only one that seems to have been completed was Mosaic's, as well as for some research investment at the Saskatoon Life Sciences Centre (though no more than seemed typical over the past decade-plus); and either a lack of available evidence or direct evidence of failure on each of the other points.

Among the lowlights are the relocation of New Foods Classics to St. Catharines (when it was targeted to consolidate operations in Saskatoon); a focus on a single housing development which hasn't updated any news of its own since 2008; failed pitches to two energy companies which haven't budged from their current locations in Calgary; and an attempt to push Cameco toward laser enrichment which looks to have gone nowhere.