Wall overplays hand on casinos
It’s usually a cop-out to wish a pox on the houses of all politicians.
However, both the NDP and the Saskatchewan Party deserve the sentiment over the recent casino flap, although given the silly political games that Premier Brad Wall has played, his pox likely deserves to be a little more painful.
The issue is not, as Wall has suggested, needing NDP Leader Cam Broten’s permission for the government to break a ridiculous, politically driven election promise and defy an arguably even sillier, politically driven law that never should have been passed.
With a 49-9 advantage in the 58-seat legislature, Wall can change any law he chooses, including the illconceived Crown Corporations Protection Act passed by the NDP soon after the 2003 election to entrap the Saskatchewan Party on the privatization issue.
In fact, nothing in the law actually prevents the government selling its Regina and Moose Jaw casinos to the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority now, providing that the sale doesn’t officially go through until 90 days after the next election. The deal could be signed today and SIGA could take the next two years to transition into taking over the two casinos, adding to the six it currently operates.
If one thing becomes clear in this whole sorry and partisan affair, it is FSIN Chief Perry Bellegarde’s assessment that there is no panic to get this deal done.
Even Wall admits that it can likely wait until all the appropriate legislative amendments are passed by spring 2015. Or at least, that’s what the premier says when he is not playing the partisan game of painting Broten as the villain for scuttling this deal because the NDP leader “does not have the courage of his convictions” and is “sucking and blowing at the same time.”
Broten is doing what any Opposition leader should do, by refusing to unconditionally approve something he hasn’t even seen. It’s the Opposition’s job to scrutinize government actions, and there’s much to scrutinize here.
Is it a good idea to sell the two casinos to SIGA? Maybe, but for how much? Is $100 million to $200 million really a fair price when the casinos made $53 million last year? Will the provincial auditor get to look at the books?
Will having more VLTs and even online gaming — as Bellegarde proposed when he approached Wall on Jan. 23 to get a memorandum of understanding — be good for this province? Will it hurt local bars or, worse yet, add to Saskatchewan’s increasing gambling addiction problems?
Didn’t Wall oppose VLT expansion for those reasons? And didn’t his former gaming minister Ken Cheveldayoff say, as recently as July 2011, that the Sask. Party would not sell a money-maker like the Regina casino?
These are matters that should be debated openly in the legislature.
It’s not Broten’s job to let Wall off the hook for a political promise the premier made. It’s the job of every Opposition member to ask the tough questions. Sadly, that’s what Wall and other Sask. Party MLAs failed to do from the Opposition benches when they unanimously went along with the NDP government to pass a Crown Corporation Protection Act in 2003, hoping to save face on the privatization issue.
Knowing that it would be difficult to become premier without supporting the anti-privatization bill, Wall abdicated his responsibility. And after those Sask. Party political ads last year that accused Broten of favouring “special deals” for First Nations, Wall does not have the right to criticize anyone else’s political convictions when he is, essentially, giving First Nations a special deal on the casinos.
That said, if Broten truly believes in sharing revenues with First Nations as he campaigned on in 2011, wouldn’t he agree that selling the casinos is a good thing? This very much seems a case of karma running over the NDP’s dogma. The clever trap the former NDP government set for the Sask. Party has ensnared it and its leader, who should be every bit as in favour of supporting the aspirations of First Nations as he is in protecting the Crowns.
Then again, given that it was an NDP government that oversaw the raids on the White Bear Casino two decades ago and established Casino Regina as a Crown agency to ensure that it got the biggest piece of the gambling pie, should we believe that the NDP has ever viewed First Nations’ gambling interests as a priority? Don’t actions speak louder than words?
Really, it’s a pox on both houses even if Wall deserves the pain a little more.