Election 2011: rabble.ca has chosen 10 key ridings across Canada for progressives to watch in the run-up to the May 2 vote, and asked local writers to assess them. The profiles highlight why the riding profiled is important and issues local campaigns are focused upon.

Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar is the riding to watch on May 2nd. It's a two-party race, Conservatives vs. NDP, and every political pundit in the country is saying it's "too close to call."

Kelly Block was relatively unknown when she ran and won for the Conservatives in 2008, having previously served as mayor of the town of Waldheim, outside of the riding. Like many of the Cons candidates in 2008, she kept a low profile and stayed out of the community debates.

I was very fortunate to participate in the Keepers of the Water conference in Wollaston Lake, northern Saskatchewan, in mid-August. It was my first time to this remote community, which can only be reached by barge/boat or airplane as there are no roads that go directly there. People say the water there is clean enough to drink right out of the lake, which I saw someone doing. The lake, one of Saskatchewan's largest, certainly looked beautiful, though I hesitated to drink from it like the locals.

The greatest tragedy in BHP Billiton's $38.6-billion (U.S.) bid for the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) is that the Government of Saskatchewan previously sold PCS for just $630 million. This privatization was the worst fiscal decision in the province's history and has been aggravated by subsequent royalty giveaways to private potash companies.

PCS was created in 1975 as a provincial Crown corporation. The Saskatchewan government privatized it in 1989, selling all of its shares by 1994.

Presumably, the proceeds were deducted from the provincial deficit. Borrowing $630 million at 10 per cent interest, compounded over two decades, would have added $4.2-billion of provincial debt by now.