Mandryk: Sask. re-opening shouldn't be viewed in a partisan way

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Monday isopening day in Saskatchewan.

Let’s hope that history will kindly refer to this day as the one in which we all got together and took our first small, cautious steps toward returning to social and economic normalcy in the wake of the Great Pandemic of 2020, rather that the day in which we opened up old wounds that tore us apart.

There is that danger, because there’s always been a lot that’s divided us in Saskatchewan. Left versus right. North versus south. Rural versus urban. Independent entrepreneurship versus government-supported co-operativism.

Notwithstanding our own mythology about this being a place where neighbours help neighbours to make the best of our long, cold winters, there’s always been deep, wide chasms between those that disagree.

And after seven weeks of shutdown, there may be a sense that the COVID-19 crisis is deepening some of these divisions more than it’s bringing us together.