Time to move on casino sale, despite politics

Premier Brad Wall suggests that he wants the government to sell both Casino Regina and Casino Moose Jaw to the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA) but only if NDP Leader Cam Broten will support a change to the provincial law protecting Crown corporations.

Not surprisingly, Broten refuses, saying he will never support the sale of government-owned companies like the two casinos. Wall wins by making Broten and the once-relevant NDP appear rigidly ideological and out of touch, not to mention insensitive to aboriginal aspirations.

Game, set and match for Wall. But if it makes sense to sell the government’s two casinos to SIGA it should have nothing to do with the NDP’s support. With 49 of 58 seats in the Legislature, Wall is perfectly able to do the right thing.

However, to underestimate the story behind this is to ignore Saskatchewan political sociology and history, not to mention the beginnings of Wall’s successful entry into public life.

As North America’s first socialist government in 1944, the NDP argued that government should own businesses because, unlike greed-motivated capitalists, government wanted only to ensure that all citizens shared in the profits of state-owned enterprises.

In the intervening years, many studies on productivity, return on invested capital and the problem of state-owned business financing themselves have put an end in most of Canada to the “government knows best in business” philosophy.

Yet Saskatchewan still clings to more state-owned enterprises, quaintly called Crown Corporations, than anywhere else in the nation.

Most of the original NDP inspirations, from boot manufacturing and wooden box factories, failed. Others, like government forays into state-owned oil, potash and uranium companies, showed superior results by moving to a broader, shareholder-based ownership.

But for some people it matters that Saskatchewan’s government owns businesses, from telephone and power companies, to general and auto insurance, natural gas, bus and courier services, liquor wholesaling and distribution, most liquor retailing by volume, and two casinos, among other enterprises.

To suggest removing from government ownership any of these businesses has ended political careers, like that of Elwin Hermanson, the Saskatchewan Party’s first leader.

In the 2003 election, leading by 20 points over a fatigued NDP, Hermanson answered a hypothetical question that if offered billions of dollars for SaskPower, he’d have to “look at it.”

This energized a flagging NDP campaign, which ran ads and billboards saying Hermanson would “sell off ” our beloved “Crowns,” throwing thousands of people onto the unemployment line and wrecking the economy.

This hyperbole-fuelled and dishonest campaign propelled the NDP to a remarkable come-frombehind win and Hermanson was finished.

Within a year, the NDP — basking in triumphalism — tabled a cynical, unnecessary and poorly drafted bill called The Crown Corporations Public Ownership Act which listed 12 governmentowned companies and required any government in future to appoint a special committee, hold public hearings and even have an election before any of these companies could be “privatized.”

So poorly is the act drafted that it does not even define “privatize.”

The 2004 act was set as a trap for the SaskParty’s new young leader, Brad Wall, who promptly let the air out of the NDP’s anti-privatization balloon by simply agreeing to their law.

Since then, Wall has won two elections, trounced the NDP to nine seats in the Legislature and become Canada’s most popular premier.

But he remembers his past, giving his word and not falling on the privatization sword; hence, he won’t sell the casinos unless the NDP comes on board.

Even though a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding between SIGA and the government will merely see “good faith discussions” on the casinos being sold for fair market value, remaining non-smoking and the gaming-tax-regulatory relationship being updated, the NDP says it will never go back on the Crowns ownership law and believes that talking about negotiating is not transparent.

We get it: Broten and the NDP look bad. But for the Premier, leadership in politics should be more than this.

There are good reasons, for aboriginal social development and employment, that SIGA should expand to eight casinos from six. It’s not like SIGA doesn’t run a tight ship, after a rocky start 15 years ago.

There may be a compelling case for the government to get a good deal in selling a depreciating asset and collect taxes and a better revenue stream.

Doing the right thing should not depend on either politics or the NDP. The Premier can use his judgment and public confidence, and simply change a law that was never meant as anything more than a stunt.