Sask. government must come clean on Regina bypass land deals

Governments are particularly bad at a couple of things:

1. Learning from past mistakes, and;

2. Being open and accountable.

For example, one might think the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) $103,000-an-acre land purchase would have taught the Saskatchewan Party government all it ever needed to learn on public accountability of tax dollars when individuals stand to make massive profits on speculation.

Of course, one big reason why governments neither learn from mistakes nor choose to be accountable is they see it as an admission of even bigger mistakes.

And so we progress from the GTH scandal to the increasingly nonsensical answers on the ballooning Regina bypass costs.

In Monday morning’s question period, NDP MLA Cathy Sproule raised what seems to be the legitimate issue of public disclosure of land costs for expropriation for the $1.88-billion bypass. But as is often the case in government, what starts out as reasonable can become unreasonable rather quickly.

The NDP MLA noted in the assembly that getting details on ownership and land transactions on the $82.7 million (according to provincial auditor Judy Ferguson’s June 2016 report) in bypass land purchases has been a little like pulling teeth.

Sproule released a lengthy letter from the registrar of titles in the Ministry of Justice explaining why making it easy for the public to know whose land the government is buying — land most often under expropriation — is not something Information Services Corp. (ISC) and the land registry has much interest in doing.

“Our policy is deliberately cautious in order to ensure that we meet public expectations with respect to information that in other contexts would be considered private,” wrote Karen Banks, registrar of titles, in her Aug. 11 reply to Sproule. The letter goes on to suggest the NDP or anyone else “can still access the information using the standard search methods.”

Given that you “can still access” the information in the standard manner, are you truly meeting “public expectations” on information “that would be considered private”? It was a nonsensical response to what’s actually a reasonable inquiry that would ensure both seller and buyer (which would be us taxpayers) are getting fair value for land under expropriation.

“The biggest tool a government has is to take someone’s land,” Sproule said later in an interview.

Sproule explained the Opposition had started the process of gathering information on specific bypass land ownership last spring. The NDP received a response to a request for the seller of each property that included information in 199 properties, telling us the size of each parcel, the total land cost (both property and “damage cost”) and appraised value. The government withheld names and legal land descriptions.

The NDP MLA requested the Sask. Party government provide the necessary details, rightly noting that costs ($10 per every parcel inquiry) and time (again, the government didn’t provide the legal land descriptions the Opposition requested) made doing individual searches of each property ridiculously prohibitive. Moreover, Sproule said she was actually told by a client service representative at ISC this summer — prior to the letter — that it could provide a map with names. Here’s why it’s needed: We know from this information there were 22 parcels of bypass land appraised at $85,000 where the government paid as little as $630.12 and has much as $3,182,810.92. There are 49 parcels appraised at $5,000 where we paid as much as $782.748.68 and as little as $56.84. Untoward? Maybe not, but who knows?

That we heard Monday government backbenchers — the same guys who have blocked pertinent witnesses coming forward on the GTH — hollering at Sproule “do your own homework” simply underscores that learning from past mistakes and being open and accessible is becoming an increasingly foreign concept.

Even without the history of land flipping at the GTH, one might think the Sask. Party would want to be as forthright as possible.

That it doesn’t seem eager to detail these land-deal transactions should be worrisome for us all.