What's the difference between the Olympic Games and Saskatchewan's new economic development strategy The Saskatchewan government gives out the medals before the competition begins.

Investing taxpayer money in the private sector is known as "picking winners." This is a misnomer because many of the ventures fail in the end; witness the loss of money, jobs, and provincial credibility because of fiascos like Channel Lake, Spudco, Guyana, and others. Using the Olympic analogy, maybe all that taxpayer gold weighed these "winners" down when they hit the swimming pool.

The Saskatchewan government refuses to learn the lesson of these failures. "Partnership for Prosperity," the government's discussion paper on our economic future, calls for "focussing government and Crown Investment to leverage sector growth and diversification with such measures as targeted tax cuts." In other words, continue to invest public money in private sector ventures. And what are "targeted tax cuts" anyway As one cynic put it, a targeted tax cut is "a tax cut that someone else gets but you don't."

So does this kind of government intervention improve our economy On the contrary, it is one reason why there isn't more private sector investment in Saskatchewan. Why invest if the government is going to grab your gold and give it to your politically-connected competitor If there is a "Partnership for Prosperity," and the province's partnership is with someone else, then kiss your prosperity good bye.

So what is an appropriate strategy for economic growth We might take some clues from a recent study of senior investment officers in the U.S. and Canada - people responsible for investing hundreds of billions of dollars. These money managers put business subsidies at the bottom of the list of things that contribute to a good investment climate. On the top of the list were low taxes and good infrastructure. In contrast, the Saskatchewan government has business subsidies as the cornerstone of its economic strategy, drags its feet on reducing what are some of the highest taxes in Canada, and tears up our infrastructure - our roads - and turns them to gravel. What's wrong with this picture

If Saskatchewan wants to leap ahead in economic development, we need to change strategies and adopt a more aggressive approach to tax relief. For example, it has been suggested that the government could encourage job growth and help thousands of businesses to compete by eliminating the small business tax. This would make Saskatchewan the only "small business tax-free zone" in Canada. The tax cut would cost about $75 million initially, but that is only half of what the government spent this year on subsidies for a handful of private companies like Big Sky Pork, World Wide Pork Company, Centennial Foods, Craig Wireless International, Retx.com Inc, and the Saskatchewan Valley Potato Corp.

Saskatchewan has enormous economic challenges and enormous potential. But our future is not well served by key elements of the "Partnership for Prosperity" strategy. To become a gold medal province, we need to set our goals higher, we need to provide a better investment climate through stronger tax cuts, and we need to encourage private investment and competition, not kill it with unwelcome political interference. Let the marketplace pick its own winners, and Saskatchewan will win as well.