Douglas started STC to make money

Elizabeth Zary and Olga Weber stated “The Late Tommy Douglas started the inter-city bus transportation to provide a much needed service, not to make money.” (SP, Oct. 23). Both parts are incorrect.

STC was created in 1946 when Douglas nationalized bus routes which were already in place. As far as Douglas was concerned, the objective of the Crown corporation (any Crown corporation) was to make money. As he stated in 1944 when asked how he was going to pay for all his promises: “The CCF proposes to get money for its social service program by the government engaging in revenue producing businesses.”

And if a bus route turned out to be unprofitable, he shut it down. Ross Thatcher’s description at the famous Debate as Mossbank on May 20, 1957, unrefuted by Douglas, provides all we need to know:

“The Saskatchewan Transportation Company was set up after the CCF took over. It took upon itself a monopoly of those bus routes which were not inter-provincial in nature. A number of private operators had their lines arbitrarily expropriated. For example, we have one man in this audience tonight who had his bus business confiscated by the government. He is Mr. H. B. Legge of Moose Jaw who had operated a bus line from Moose Jaw to Riverhurst for seven years. Overnight he was put out of business to make way for the government company. Now the ironic feature of the Legge case is the fact that the government, after operating the line for a short period of time and finding it unprofitable, abandoned it.”

Fred Smith, Saskatoon