In John Lennon’s Christmas song, he asks, “so what have we learned?”

It’s a question worthy of the New Year, actually, as we consider what we have done in the past 12 months, and in this case, in the past decade.

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What have we learned? Are we better for having lived and worked and loved over the past year, or the past decade? Are the people around us better for having been in our lives? Have we been able to help those who we love, or shown them our care and affection?

As these are highly personal questions, each of us need to take time to reflect in our minds and hearts about how we’ve lived our lives, and what we are facing in the new year.

As a community, Weyburn has come through a lot of things in the past decade, with the unveiling of the Tommy Douglas statue a major highlight from 10 years ago, as actor Kiefer Sutherland paid a visit to our city.

The following year, Weyburn and much of the southeast region was hit by major flooding, and the impact of that event lasted a few years — but communities learned from the experience, and the Water Security Agency also took some lessons from the event, updating their policies and procedures.

One long-term project that has occupied much time and effort on the part of many volunteers over the past decade has been the fundraising efforts of the Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation, working towards a new acute-care hospital for Weyburn.

The community had to raise 20 per cent of the estimated total cost, which has been done, and they have to raise funds for the equipment for this facility, and that has been ongoing. The hospital is still not here, but the efforts have not stopped.

MLA Dustin Duncan admits that his office still gets a lot of calls about this, more than about anything else, so we’ll see if there’s anything in this spring’s budget that we will be able to celebrate.

As a province, and as an oil-producing region, there was a time of extreme boom followed by a period of an extreme downturn, which has hurt the Western Canadian economy with how long it’s been going on. The downturn is not helped by those who have demonized the oil and gas industry and are helping to suppress it and use Saskatchewan’s landlocked position against them.

There are some real challenges ahead, to be sure, but we are resilient in this province and in this city — we can make this coming year one to remember!