"PC Leader Tony Wakeham said he doesn’t believe there’s a connection between the oil industry and the wildfires that ravaged towns."

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away" Philip J Dick

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Two things about this article:
1. Refreshing to see our neighbouring province announce a fire management strategy to reduce wildfires.
2. Also refreshing to see journalism that deeply analyzes & informs what is happening to our forests.Wish we had more of this journalism in Saskatchewan. 3/3

“The impacts are already felt in B.C., where lumber mills have closed after fire decimated their product source. ‘Whole regions now have nothing but young trees. There’s nothing to harvest’”. 2/

“June & July 2023 saw lumber production in Canada dip 20% below the previous 5-year average for the same months….modelling shows if forests are left to burn as they have, the impacts of climate change — including wildfires — could cost the country thousands of jobs & billions in revenue. 1/

“Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t have an actual project to put forward. Keystone XL has been dead for years & it’s not clear that any investor would want to take a gamble on reviving it.” 3/3

“If you’re going to the White House, you might as well bring a shiny gift. U.S. President Donald Trump likes the idea of the Keystone XL pipeline. Why not dangle it in front of him?” 2/

Smith dares Carney to pay for an impossible pipeline. Rather than be the bad guy saying no, Carney says, “Hold my beer, I’ll raise you another impossible pipeline. Can you actually find an investor to build it?” 1/

US agriculture is in trouble: due to a high $US, lack of research investment, trade wars, & ICE (& perhaps climate change?):
“For the first time in history, the US became a net agricultural importer in 2019 - a jaw-dropping reversal for what was once the world's breadbasket.”
- BBC World of Business

Saskatchewan Health Authority has finally posted information about its fall COVID / flu immunization clinics:

"A member of the union representing Saskatchewan nurses says issues with overcrowding at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital are not due to seasonal surges that are typical for emergency rooms, but are in fact 'routine.'”

“Some of these organizations are riding this tailwind into Saskatchewan.…six years since launching its model, the Alberta government has yet to show the impacts of its model on overdose deaths, transmission of blood-borne infections or any other health outcome.” 2/2

“The contracting of ROSC Solutions Group to guide Saskatchewan's transition to a 'recovery-oriented system of care' fits a broader pattern…[of] the proliferation of organizations affiliated with the Alberta government & aligned with its abstinence-based mandate.” 1/

Statscan will release in December of this year life expectancy estimates by province for the 3 years ending in 2024. That may also shed more light on what has been happening to death rates in Saskatchewan. 13/13

If anyone reading this knows more about these data or has explanations of what is going on, please comment or DM me. 12/

The good news is that with these new corrected counts, the trend in deaths has not continued to rising steadily since the onset of COVID, as previously shown, but levelled off two years ago (still at a higher rate than before COVID, however. 11/

...does not have the resources to keep up with verifying death counts. This is odd when we have still been in the midst of significant COVID waves, a major flu wave last year, & a drug poisoning wave. 10/

It also is odd it takes over 2 years to make these corrections. The count for 2023 Q1, for example, over 2 years ago, was adjusted down by 7.9%. This suggests that Saskatchewan vital statistics (where the counts would originate, including for Statscan) does not place a high priority on or...9/

It's odd deaths would *all* be revised *down* so much. Deaths are counted by place of residence, not place of death. It seems unlikely 100s people/Q would, come to SK to die, then later be removed from our count to be counted elsewhere. One would think reverse would be true, esp. in winter. 8/

I queried SK Govt about the reason for the significant revisions. They replied with a description of methods used to check & verify death data - all well & good, & necessary - but did not explain the significant size of the revisions or why they were delayed up to 2 1/4 years. 7/

Revisions are not unusual but the delay in revisions, fact that all are down, & size of revisions is unusual. Last major revisions were made 2023 Q3. Most of those were *up*, rather than down, in one case up 579 deaths in one quarter. But the revision were in both directions, up & down. 6/

The changes in death counts are significant: 5 quarters are revised down by more than 200 deaths. The percentage revisions down range from 2.2% up to 8.5%. All revisions are downwards. 5/

Previous (blue) line shows deaths trending up since COVID, with seasonal fluctuations. Green line shows flat trend in deaths pre-COVID, red line upward trend post-COVID up to 2025 Q1. New revised data (yellow line) shows trend in deaths levelled out starting in 2023 Q1 (no trend line shown). 4/

The blue line shows the previous quarterly deaths as of the 2025 Q1 report. The yellow line shows the new death trend as of last week (2025 Q2), with corrections made to the counts for 9 quarters back to 2023 Q1. 3/

Here is the graph I have been updating & posting quarterly as the hardest evidence we have about what is actually happening with deaths in Saskatchewan. 2/