Moe’s Brandt defences only make it worse

The problem the Saskatchewan Party government faces in allowing the Brandt building in Wascana Centre isn’t just one of politics or conservative ideology or even a world of social and partisan media … although all are contributing, mightily.

We are now at the point where we are seeing our politicians resorting to the all-too-common, very human trait of stubbornly clinging to the face-saving notion that they are right when all evidence suggests they are dead wrong. You know the type. You know that guy.

We’ve seen “that guy” before. Former premier Brad Wall (and a few cabinet colleagues) have been “that guy” over the Global Transportation Hub (GTH); they have desperately tried to justify the unjustifiable of spending four to five times the value for land under expropriation.

Sadly, politics only tends to magnify such an unbecoming trait, as is evident in what we are hearing from Premier Scott Moe and Ken Cheveldayoff, minister responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission, justifying a four-storey, 77,000-square-foot office complex in a pristine park that benefits very few other than big-time party donors.

And the more vigorously the Sask. Party tries to justify the Brandt building in Wascana the worse it will get. By now, it’s just one more thing that shatters the Sask. Party’s 2007 mantra that “it wouldn’t pick winners and losers” into tiny shards of hypocrisy.

Moe, Cheveldayoff and company are caught up in those tiring, face-saving arguments that make little sense but are vital in politics, where decision-making must be seen as not only justifiable but even downright noble … even when the facts of the matter surely indicate otherwise.

The initial justification was that this was a philanthropic endeavour by Brandt and the Semple family to provide the Canadian National Institute for the Blind with a much-needed new home. However, it rapidly became apparent that the CNIB (whose 4,000-square-foot headquarters will be on the second floor of a commercial development where the ground floor appears to be reserved for retail) was never anything more than an aside justification for this massive commercial development where it ought not be.

In fact, we now know the architect committee opposed the Brandt development on the legitimate grounds that it was in violation of decades-old Wascana Centre guidelines. That the Sask. Party government secretly extended CNIB’S $1-a-year lease for the land to Brandt’s entire commercial development borders on comical farce.

Regina city council would be completely justified next week in demanding the Brandt project be put on hold and is probably not so far off the mark in Coun. Bob Hawkins’s call for a public inquiry.

Yet Moe, Cheveldayoff and the Sask. Party government persist, leaning heavily on social media, letter writers or partisans who have slightly more freedom selling the notion that any opposition to such a lovely structure must be driven by envy of rich developers. Moe came rather close to expressing this exact sentiment in his last public pronouncement on the matter.

“We should, in many ways, be thankful that we have a private industry that is looking to invest in our city and our province in this way,” Moe said 12 days ago.

“We should be thankful that they continue to work with the Provincial Capital Commission and the people of Regina and, even broader than that, a company that has been in business in this city and across the nation for (more than) 50 years now, looking forward to investing in this city.”

Thankful? We should be thankful that close party donors received special considerations to build a massive, profitable commercial development in defiance of long-standing, decades-old rules wisely devised to keep such intrusion out of this park?

This isn’t about a lovely building replacing the old CNIB eyesore or how grateful we should be for urban developers. Nor is it about other red herrings like the restaurant at the Wascana marina or the CBC building.

It’s about breaking the rules to give your friends special treatment. And Moe’s/cheveldayoff ’s stubborn, nonsensical justifications only make it worse.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post and Saskatoon Starphoenix.