Weyburn motorists might have seen the yellow-vested protesters lining the Government Road bridge near Highway 39, and wondered what they’re all about. In many ways, they are a “sign of the times”, and have just come to Weyburn after being present in many locations across the country.
The “Yellow Vests” began in Paris, France, about seven weeks ago as people there demonstrated against the taxes imposed by the French government. While the Yellow Vests here are not battling police in riot gear, they did pick up on a common theme in protesting the level of taxation here, and have added other issues, such as immigration, the United Nations, the lack of pipelines and so on.
The protests held here on Saturday were held at the same time as groups gathered at the Legislature in Regina, and in various locations across the country, including a large pro-oil rally in Rocky Mountain House, Alta.
Governments who are now in power, notably the federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau, may well dismiss these as copycat protesters, but really they should sit up and take notice of them and the issues they are raising. If the issues that are being raised here tap into a general feeling in the population, the Yellow Vest movement could well grow quickly into a much larger group, and in an election year, that can easily translate into votes.
The Trudeau Liberals have clearly been ignoring Western Canada, as there has been no help of any kind to address the pressing need to get pipelines built to move the crude oil produced here to markets other than the United States. They have offered a lame loan scheme, but this is not in any way what the oil industry needs right now.
When they do address the needs of the oil industry, the comments are pointedly only concerning Alberta, even though Saskatchewan in in the same boat, and is the second-largest producer of crude oil in Canada.
The issue of the impending carbon tax and its unfair and punitive application to this province is going to be a huge issue that the Liberals need to rethink and be more reasonable about. Saskatchewan has in fact addressed the concerns of emissions into the environment, and the Liberals have even adopted this province’s plans to deal with the largest emitters of pollution, but they still unfairly insist they need to apply the carbon tax, even when their own lawyers admit it won’t reduce emissions in any way. If the government won’t listen to the concerns of the people, the people will answer them at election time. — Greg Nikkel
