The problem with old governments is they don’t take criticism as seriously as they should.
This may seem an odd observation from someone who has also observed in this space that governments – even those facing no serious threat of losing power – can be exceedingly sensitive to criticism.
But the two notions aren’t as contradictory as they seem.
Governments that do well in elections find it easy to attribute their success to their policy and governance abilities. What’s easily lost on them is that their true success might be nothing more than being just slightly more palatable than the alternative that challenges them that at the polls every four years.
The longer any government goes without facing any meaningful threat to its existence, the more it seems able to convince itself that it’s infallible.
Consider the above in the context of today’s Saskatchewan Party government and its messiest issue – the Global Transportation Hub (GTH).
Concern about the GTH land deal that saw business types who, coincidentally, had solid connections to either former economy minister Bill Boyd or the Sask. Party, make multiple millions of dollars on land flips has been of public concern for two years now.
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Initially, then-premier Brad Wall called such concerns false. Boyd even launched a personal lawsuit against the CBC for its initial report – a suit recently settled out-of-court without the CBC having to pay anything and without much of what would be viewed as an apology.
After the GTH controversy erupted in 2016, the government did take the matter to the provincial auditor, who did publicly state she could no find wrong-doing.
Nevertheless, the matter is now in the hands of the RCMP and public prosecutors in Manitoba, so something has gone very wrong with the inland port just northwest of Regina.
Perhaps this is why the government remains so sensitive to anything vaguely resembling criticism of the GTH.
Moreover, issues at the GTH now go beyond that original controversial deal in which government paid $103,000 an acre for 204 acres of land under expropriation valued at a quarter to one-fifth of that price.
There have been big problems selling lots, with government Crowns and other government entities taking up most of the sold spaces. A prime example is Brightenview – the group behind the non-existent Dundurn Mall – failing to come through on its GTH development.
We recently learned the Highways Ministry spent $3 million for GTH land for a “borrow pit” – soil to be used for construction of the Regina bypass – that didn’t get used by the bypass.
And the latest development sees 45 acres of land SaskPower bought at the GTH for $25 million – money the GTH used to pay for the 204 acres – is still undeveloped four years later.
Actually, SaskPower has now spent $29 million on that land when you add in another $4 million in consulting fees and interest. Yet the best the Crown electrical utility can say is that it’s now unlikely to develop this land and may sell it do cut its losses.
“At that point, if we decided to go with the north land, we will probably exit the GTH land and put it up for sale,” SaskPower president Mike Marsh recently told a legislative committee.
Todd MacKay of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has another way of describing it.
“Taxpayer dollar bills are getting lit on fire,” MacKay said. “How come you can buy $25 million worth of land so quickly and it takes you … years to figure out what to do with it?”
It’s a legitimate question, one that the Sask. Party government isn’t answering.
Old governments wrongly feel they are not obligated to be answer such criticism.
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