2.4 Viewpoints

Some of the questions that arise from the economic indicators examined in this section are similar to the questions arising from the demographic trends.

• The first is whether or not the province should be content with the status quo. GDP per capita is relatively high compared with other provinces and growing strongly. The additional economic growth that both requires and would be caused by a growth in the population is not seen as necessarily desirable by all.
  
  All of the concerns that arise with population growth also arise with regard to economic growth. It is highly unlikely that this level of economic prosperity can be sustained if there is a general shortage of labour in the province. And the economic prosperity is not evenly shared by rural and urban areas or by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents.
• Some in the business community have pointed to the large public sector in the province as a problem, believing that the public sector “crowds out” the private sector. That debate is focussed on the crown corporations because only a few suggest that government proper or the health and education sectors should be reduced in size. This is intertwined with the fact that the vast majority of employees in the public sector are union members and relatively few private sector employees are.
• The other issue that has been the focus of debate in Saskatchewan for decades is the province's economic reliance on the export of raw materials in general and agricultural products in particular. The province has always been a “hewer of wood and drawer of water” with the lack of a significant “value added” sector. Notwithstanding the fact that the export of commodities is a good business to be in these days, the long term sustainability of this approach continues to be in doubt.