‘Wellness’ doesn’t fit park’s objectives

Coun. Barbara Young contends she is unable to share what went on during the Provincial Capital Commission’s (PCC) deliberations on Brandt Industries’ four-storey office in Wascana Park.

We pay her salary. The taxpayers of Regina have a right to know. She is clearly doing a less than stellar job of representing the city’s interests on the PCC.

This arrogance is exceeded only by Minister Cheveldayoff ’s Feb. 14 leap of logic the Brandt Industries building will be a “wellness” facility and therefore consistent with Wascana Park’s objectives. This is intriguing. Wascana Park always had four primary objectives: recreation, environmental preservation, arts and culture, and government. Wellness does not appear on this list. The list was recently expanded by the Saskatchewan Party government to include some convenient catch-alls, but still says nothing about wellness.

Brandt Industries is described on its website as a company that “designs and manufactures agricultural, construction, forestry, and road rail equipment.” It also provides “custom-engineered products” to the mining, oil and gas, and steel industries. The presence of CNIB cannot mask the primary purpose of the building: to provide a new home for Brandt in the park.

I invite Mr. Cheveldayoff to explain how Brandt’s corporate objectives relate to “wellness”, or to any of the four core purposes for the park? He can’t, because they don’t. This is a case of a corporate donor to the Saskatchewan Party being rewarded with a prime piece of real estate. Regina voters will remember.

Roy Schneider, Regina