Maybe it is a little easier for rural residents to remember what Saskatchewan’s Crown Corporations are really about.
After all, if your power or heat goes out on the farm or in a small town, you likely feel a bit more isolated than you do in the cities.
Somewhat similarly, there are all kinds of communication and entertainment option in cities. Private cell phone suppliers are more than happy to serve urban customers where the service costs per potential customers are lower. And cable companies or satellite providers also recognize the benefit of working in urban environments.
But when you’re a publicly owned communication utility like SaskTel that has to work both in direct competition to those private companies and still fulfill your mandate to reach most everyone in Saskatchewan, you might be a little more appreciated in the rural areas.
So what’s been the big Crown corporation issue in the cities? Well, one of them is clearly whether or not we should be building more government-owned liquor stores or moving towards more private retailing. Sure, this is an issue in the country, as well, where there are also government-owned liquor stores.
Given most rural liquor outlets are private franchises in hardware of local grocery stores, the issue is less of a big deal.
Conversely, city residents often see it as a much bigger deal that we are subsidizing a publicly owned bus company/
According to Saskatchewan Transportation Company’s 2014 annual report, STC still lost an additional $418,000 on its operations after receiving a $10.3-million grant from the government.
But while urban people may grumble about this perennial loser that lost another 5.3-per cent in ridership in 2014, they may have missed the fact that this decline was largely due to the cancelation of routes by private bus companies in Manitoba and Alberta — provinces where rural residents are being left with no services.
Clearly, the debate over the Crown corporations takes a somewhat different tone in such rural areas.
For example, consider the political debate these past few decades that has largely revolved around on how much dividend the Crowns are paying the government and how much money they lost on bad investments.
Prior to their 2007 election win, the Saskatchewan Party feasted on the former NDP government’s bad investment decisions and losses, which admittedly, seemed all too common:
Channel Lake ($15 million); Guyana Electrical Company ($2 million); NST Chicago ($16 million); Persona Inc. ($9.4 million); Retx.com (24.7 million); Clickabid. com (6.7 million); Soft Tracks Enterprises Ltd. ($5.6 million; Navigata Communications ($72 million); Craig Wireless ($10 million); Coachman Insurance ($17.2 million); AgDealer ($8.9 million); Austar Communications; and, of course; Spudco ($36 million).
So to the surprise of absolutely no one, it is now the NDP Opposition that has taken square aim at the Sask. Party government losses and failures at every available opportunity.
The $47-million mess with SaskPower’s Sensus smart meters that occasionally caught fire on the sides of city houses has received more political attention than just about any issue in the multi-billion electrical utility.
As was the case with the NDP government Crown corporation failings, such issues do deserve scrutiny. It is, after all, our money.
But what we shouldn’t lose sight of is the role of the Crowns and the value of the service they provide.
According to the Crown Investments Corp. (CIC) 2014 report table late last month — the Crowns provided a $173.6-million dividend to all Saskatchewan taxpayers.
This is down from other years as was the 2014 net CIC earnings that slipped to $411 million — well below the $566 million in 2013. Crown debt is also on the rise, which is the source of more political squabbling.
But let us hope that in all this squabbling, we don’t forget what the Crowns are really about.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
