Morgan, Sask. Party can’t elude GTH monster
It’s not clear whether Global Transportation Hub (GTH) Minister Don Morgan is a big fan of Jurassic Park, but he should know life finds a way.
Right now, Morgan should think of the GTH as that big T-Rex in the Saskatchewan Party’s rear-view mirror. Objects are closer than they appear.
Maybe it won’t be right away. Maybe the Jeep Morgan is driving with a terrified Premier Scott Moe screaming in the front and with Bill Boyd’s butt still hanging out the rear will, temporarily, escape those banana-sized teeth. But the monster does eventually catch up to you.
Like the iconic 1993 Steven Spielberg movie (and all others in the franchise since), Morgan seemed to start out in a tranquil place.
In both the first question period of the new session of the legislature and the ensuing scrum, Morgan was appropriately contrite when it came to the $500,000 taxpayers’ subsidy for a bus service that takes private company workers to the GTH site.
“It’s not something the public purse should be paying for,” said Morgan, in an about-face of what he said in a legislative committee meeting last week when he defended the policy as something that was necessary — especially for “new Canadians” working at Loblaws who might not have vehicles.
“We’re using taxpayers’ dollars to subsidize a private enterprise, and we have to find a way to extricate ourselves from that,” he said Thursday.
Sadly, Morgan and his government haven’t really subscribed to what he described as a “consistent policy” on the GTH, which has long been heavily subsidized ($40 million in debt) and has already received all too many special considerations when it comes to land purchases that Morgan’s government does not want to seriously examine.
Alas, it’s about here where the tropical storm hits Isla Nublar.
When asked both by NDP critic Cathy Sproule in the assembly and by reporters in later scrums, Morgan launched into a long soliloquy about how the RCMP has just completed the most thorough investigation imaginable that concluded with a decision not to lay criminal charges. Yes, the police did fine work. That’s not — or at least that should not — be the issue.
Consider for a moment what the Saskatchewan justice minister is saying: That criminality should be the standard of his government when assessing the GTH. Good heavens. Is it any wonder the T-Rex eats the lawyer first?
That the provincial auditor whom Morgan and his government have hidden behind has publicly stated that the scope of her investigation prevented her from doing a forensic audit that would have truly gotten to the bottom of the matter is not something to be ignored. That Morgan’s own colleagues consistently blocked witnesses — government staff — from appearing before legislative committees is not acceptable.
That the RCMP thought it necessary to interview the premier of the province on this matter, or that the former economy minister was under investigation, is significant.
That former conflict of interest commissioner Gerry Gerrand stated publicly that there are serious restrictions in the province’s Conflict of Interest Act and Morgan and his government should launch an inquiry through the Public Inquiries Act cannot just be ignored. “They (the Sask. Party government) are the only party that can call for a public inquiry and they should do it,” Gerrand said Sept. 2, 2017.
But what is most critical is that taxpayers still have so many unanswered questions — seemingly of no consequence to Morgan and his government. The government is not even encouraging Opposition and the media to take tours of the half-empty GTH, and appears more interested in simply dumping it.
It was a sad performance by Morgan, whose role right now seems to be ensuring the GTH gets no more negative attention than it already has. But it won’t work.
Like Spudco, where the former NDP government did everything within its power to keep the scandal from multiplying, the GTH scandal has taken on a life of its own.
Life finds a way. The Sask. Party won’t outrun the beast.