With 500 Moe Bucks burning a hole in our collective pocket, maybe it's time for a new pair of pants
Here's how I plan on spending this sweet dough — enough for a perogy mountain
This Opinion piece is by Craig Silliphant, a writer, editor, critic, broadcaster and creative director based in Saskatoon.
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The Saskatchewan Party announced it's giving us each $500. We've landed on the free parking square in Monopoly, if your family plays with that controversial rule.
Is it a PR smokescreen bribe for voters after a summer of scandals? Or a generous gift culled from our mighty resources to help families with rising costs?
These Moe Bucks won't help our devastated health care or ailing education systems, but FIVE HUNNY, BABY! Cue Oprah shouting, "You get $500! You get $500! You get $500!"
The Barenaked Ladies wrote a song called If I had a Million Dollars. If a Saskie had $500 burning a hole in their jeans, what could they spend it on?
I mean, besides new jeans. Moe money, mo' problems.
The first place I go is hedonistic instant gratification. I'll take $500 worth of perogies, please. A doughy, glistening, mountain of perogies, as tall as Blackstrap or Table, with rivers of sour cream and butter running down the sides and bulldozers shoveling them into my perogy hole.
I am the Perogy King from beyond the Garlic Curtain! You wish you were a visionary like me! You shouldn't have spent your Moe Bucks on snow tires, fools!
Maybe it would be smarter to use the cash infusion to invest in my own future. I'll buy some potash. It's a hot commodity, right? People want potash like they wanted Cabbage Patch Kids in 1983. I can keep it in a storage locker by the airport and sell it door-to-door. "Potash man! Git yer potash! Good for what ails ye!"
Am I thinking too small here?
Some have suggested we pool our money for bigger spending power. It costs about $450 million to give us each $500. So together we have almost half a billion dollars. That could affect real change.
You've seen the giant Easter egg in Vegreville, Alberta, right?
We could put our funds together and create our own tourism monstrosity. A giant statue of Gordie Howe in his birthplace of Floral, Saskatchewan!
Heck, we could build a 100-foot tall Gordie Howe robot warrior called The Gordtron. With elbows that inflict colossal blows, it leaps staggering Prairie distances and wields an invincible flaming hockey stick.
We'll make quick work of that egg, I tell ya. Knock those Albertans down a peg. Now that's real change.
Or maybe our pooled resources can do something about winter. You've heard the old jokes about putting domes over things but — hear me out — what about a massive space mirror weather machine?
It would allow us to control our own weather, sure, but we could also use it to blackmail other provinces.
"Kneel at the Perogy King's feet or suffer a -40 C snow storm, Toronto! Who's the centre of the universe now?"
I'm not sure why a sudden influx of money turns me into a Bond villain. Absolute Moe Bucks corrupt absolutely, I guess. And hey, maybe I spent some of my $500 on weed to come up with these ideas.
More practically, I have two words for you: Bullet train. Across the province.
As you whiz from P.A. to Regina, you can point out the window when you pass Floral and say, "Look Margaret, it's Gordtron, champion of the wheat people!"
In total seriousness, we could really make an impact together if we pooled our money together. Just fire up your favourite Sarah McLachlan charity song and blast off.
Take Prairie Harm Reduction, which provides vital services: advocacy, helping people with housing or employment, family and youth services, education, a safe consumption site and much more.
Harm reduction has been proven to save money in health care. Most importantly, it saves lives. The safe consumption site requires $1.3 million to operate at full capacity, 365 days a year.
If just 2,600 of us gave our $500 to PHR, it would fund the site for a year.
The education system could use a hand too. I believe the children are the future, and we should teach them well and let them lead the way. Or at least get them lunchroom supervision. You'd be surprised how fast a room full of curtain climbers devolves into a Lord of the Flies scenario.
We could also bolster health care. It sure would be classy to talk to our doctors in a nice, well-lit room, instead of a creepy, dark closet in the parking garage. I don't want to be a Mr. Fancypants, but imagine not having to drive to out of province every time you need something superfluous like, say, life-saving surgery.
Of course, some people will need this money for their own families. But if you don't, there are plenty of others that could use it.
Besides, now that the weed is wearing off, Perogy Mountain seems like a bit much.
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