Harrison’s transparency, accountability on Boyd, GTH too late

Saskatchewan Party leadership hopeful Jeremy Harrison attempted Thursday a mea culpa on both the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) and his mentor Bill Boyd’s other recent issue involving a personal business trip to China last March.

There was mea, but it could have used a lot more culpa.

What resulted was a greasy announcement on what’s an already rather slippery slope for the Saskatchewan Party government.

At this point, throwing Boyd under the bus won’t offer cabinet colleagues like Harrison much traction.

Leadership voters in the Sask. Party won’t take kindly to Harrison’s startling turnaround that Boyd — the guy the Sask. Party caucus and Canada has protected as valiantly as they could and the guy that revered leader Brad Wall called the very DNA of the Sask. Party — surely did engage in some sort of wrongdoing that would have had him fired from cabinet under a Jeremy Harrison premiership.

But the rest of us in Saskatchewan who heard Harrison say a thousand times that there has been “no wrongdoing” in the GTH will have little time for his ongoing thesis that executive council played no role in blocking witnesses who were requested to testify before legislative committees examining the GTH, or that Harrison’s own deputy minister Lawrie Pushor should get a pass for putting together this very bad GTH land deal, or that reporters keep going down rabbit holes and should instead leave this in the past and focus on the future.

The first Sask. Party policy leadership event was pretty much a disaster. Stay tuned for more.

In fairness to Harrison, credit him for at least coming forward with something on transparency, accountability and conduct of MLAs to better avoid conflict ... even if such ideas should have been in place years ago.

It was good to hear someone running for a position of authority demand a longer cooling off period of two years for those leaving cabinet before conducting private business related to their portfolio, more accountability in regards to whom ministers meet with on government trips, greater scope for the conflict of interest commissioner to examine potential MLAs’ conflicts and more severe penalties for those violating conflict rules.

One can only repeat Harrison’s strong assessment that he, as premier, would have fired Boyd for his handling of the GTH and he certainly would have viewed Boyd’s action as wrongdoing under the rules Harrison said he intends to put in play.

Finally, the notion that governments have no expertise, and thus have no business taking part in land development, is one that should appeal to the hearts of capitalists and non-capitalists alike.

This is all good. But the government is in the process of spending millions of dollars for the Regina east bypass — deals in which the Why Tower Road? lobby group claims the government is buying land from developers at 20 times what it could have paid by purchasing it from the original owners.

Do a few slightly tougher conflict of interest rules now truly address the cosiness between developers, speculators and politicians?

If Harrison truly saw the light on his road to Damascus, why isn’t he demanding Premier Wall call for a forensic audit into the GTH in which provincial auditor Judy Ferguson and conflict of interest commissioner Ron Barclay can look into the full scope of Boyd’s business relations?

Heck, Harrison didn’t even suggest Barclay’s private report to Boyd be made public.

Harrison said he may have more to say, but so far he hasn’t said much ... especially in light of the past year and a half when he has done nothing but defend Boyd.

After two years of claiming there was no wrongdoing, smugly avoiding reporters’ questions and calling NDP questions about Boyd’s business relations in potential conflict “drive-by smears,” Harrison has unveiled a plan for integrity and ethics for MLAs.

Well, MLAs demonstrate integrity and ethics by what they actually do — not by what they propose to do one day.