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One gets the Saskatchewan Party’s all-or-nothing support of the oil sector — no matter what the concerns of environmentalists or even farm and ranch landowners.

Oil has become Premier Brad Wall’s addiction. His political fortunes are tied to it and he has tied his province’s economic fortunes to it, too.

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What we now know from the post-election 2016-17 budget is there is no Plan B. Without a major recovery in oil, we have growing debt and will soon have to face major service cuts and/or tax increases as part of the “transformational change” to be outlined in the 2017-18 budget.

So excuse Wall somewhat if he gets a little zealous in his defence of of oil, as he clearly did this week in his Calgary speech. It is evident by now his Saskatchewan Party government plans to live or die with oil.

Perhaps less excusable has been the Wall government’s handling of surface rights dispute legislation where landowners justifiably complained the old law (and its proposed replacement) favour oil companies over the rights of farmers and ranchers. But to the credit of Economy Minister Bill Boyd and the government, it did take concerns of local landowners seriously and has worked hard at bettering the legislation.