Sask. premier distances himself from political blog
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | 10:45 AM CT
CBC News
A website that suggests addicts in Saskatoon should share dirty needles as a "quicker solution" to their problems is being condemned by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.
Wall said Tuesday he will also remove an endorsement from Kate McMillan, author of the Small Dead Animals blog, from his own party's website.
That pledge came after questions were raised in the legislature Tuesday by New Democrat Cam Broten, the MLA for Saskatoon Massey Place, who called the blogger a "right-wing extremist" and a friend of the Saskatchewan Party.
Broten said people are entitled to their opinions "no matter how cold, angry, offensive, hurtful or hateful they may be," but the blogger crossed the line in a recent post concerning Saskatoon's Station 20 West project.
In the blog post, McMillan defended the government's decision to scrap the project in Saskatoon's inner city.
She wrote that people there would have better luck attracting businesses to the inner city area if they put down the spray cans, crossed their legs and put the caps back on their needles.
"Failing that, share it with your friends. It's a quicker solution to your problem anyway," the post said.
In an interview, McMillan explained she is not a fan of safe-injection sites.
"To me it's just as obscene that our governments would be subsidizing this behaviour as it is for me to say, 'What the hell, share your needles, you're killing yourselves anyway,'" she said.
Selective outrage, Opposition suggests
Talking to reporters after question period Tuesday, Wall said he wants to make it clear that intolerance is not helpful to the future of Saskatchewan.
The Opposition tied its concerns over the website to the recent controversy about David Ahenakew being reinstated to the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations senate.
Ahenakew is set to go on trial in the fall over anti-Semitic comments he made at a Saskatoon conference in 2002. Broten wondered why Wall wasn't showing "rightful indignation" about the blog comments the same way he did over the Ahenakew reappointment.
Wall continued to call on chiefs who belong to the FSIN to reverse their decision to reinstate Ahenakew.
"If any political party had a member who said that First Nations people were a 'disease' — because that's what the exact term was with respect to Jews ... when would it be acceptable for them to be allowed back into the party?" Wall said.
Wall also said comments in the Small Dead Animals blog are unacceptable and not ones he wants to be associated with.
Proof that he doesn't share those ideas is in his recent budget, which increases money for food banks and addictions treatment in the inner cities, Wall said.
