Saskatchewan鈥檚 Crown corporations made $541 million in 2018-19, according to the Crown Investment Corp. (CIC) annual report.
Let us consider that from a number of perspectives.
The first perspective is that owning healthy Crowns is not always something Saskatchewan government always wanted.
One of those healthy Crowns is SaskEnergy, which celebrated is 30th year in existence by declaring earlier this month $166 million in net income 鈥� enough to provide government with a $60-million dividend and small rebates for those wanting to install expensive energy-efficient furnaces. (More on those dividends in a moment.)
But think back 30 years ago to when SaskEnergy was nothing but a subsidiary of SaskPower.
In the spring of 1989, Saskatchewan was in a pitched battle between those who were for and those who were against privatization 鈥� a battle that makes the worst of today鈥檚 political rhetoric seem passionless.
鈥淚 expect as much noise and bell-ringing and hollering as you鈥檝e ever seen,鈥� then-Progressive Conservative premier Grant Devine said 30 years ago as he unveiled his agenda to sell off SaskEnergy. 鈥淭his is (the NDP鈥檚) Alamo. This is their Waterloo. This is the end of the line for them. This is it.鈥�
Of course, the rhetoric from the then-NDP opposition was no less severe.
鈥淎pril 21, 1989 (the day the SaskEnergy privatization bill was introduced) will be remembered as a day of bitter betrayal,鈥� then-NDP leader Roy Romanow said.
Well, we all know how things turned out. And today it would be hard for even the most hardline conservative to argue that they haven鈥檛 turned out for the better. Having Crown corporations supplying our most basic needs like heat, electricity and telephone/internet services has allowed Saskatchewan to develop a successful, modern economy.
But this takes us back to the success of today鈥檚 Crowns 鈥� or more specifically, how the Sask. Party is utilizing that success.
Upon announcing the final CIC 2019-19 results, it was learned that $256 million of that $541-million accumulated profit of CIC Crowns would be going to the government as 鈥渄ividends鈥� to help offset their existing deficits.
That, by the way, would include. $6 million came from the last $30 million of sold assets for the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.
Of course, there are those who will now argue the only point of having public ownership of healthy Crown utilities is for them to help with government finances.
However, that was a wrong-headed argument when NDP governments used to make it and likely even worse coming from the Sask. Party now.
For starters, it has been the Sask. Party government鈥檚 argument for months now that a carbon tax on gasoline to supposedly deal with future environmental problems is simply wrong.
Premier Scott Moe and company may be right that the carbon tax 鈥� at least as proposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau鈥檚 Liberal government 鈥� is ineffective.
But is imposing a federal carbon tax on Saskatchewan people any more unfair than its provincial government hitting them with severe yearly electrical utility rate hikes when you are taking that money and moving it to general revenue fund coffers?
Why are we not instead using those Crown profits to provide rebates to consumers who are hurting as much from utility costs as pump prices?
Or better yet, why let the utilities like SaskEnergy and SaskPower keep their surpluses so they can better deal with their own pressing infrastructure needs?
Doesn鈥檛 that make infinitely more sense than the Crowns borrowing money for capital infrastructure at high interest rates?
And wasn鈥檛 moving to summary financial statements supposed to stop the nonsense of playing shell games with your hard-earned dollars?
It鈥檚 great to still have profitable Crowns, but how we are now using those profits leaves much to be desired.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
