In 2012, Crown corporations SaskTel, SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SGI, SaskGaming and ISC earned $524.9 million in profits and returned $325.5 million in dividends to government coffers.
From 1987 to 2011 the same group of Crowns (minus SaskGaming) earned $6.771 billion with $4.852 billion going to general revenue.
Under Wall’s proposed legislation that would allow him to sell up to 49 per cent of any Crown, it means 49 per cent of those dividends would now go into the hands of the private investors. This shortfall would then have to be made up by you and me. Selling off 49 per cent of any Crown and still calling it a public utility is a lot like saying one is “a little bit pregnant.”
The Crowns have continually added to government coffers to benefit all people in Saskatchewan. Yet when Wall is asked to ‘come clean’ on his privatization plans all he does is deny, deny, deny.
The Saskatchewan Party has continually bungled the provincial budget by cutting taxes for the rich to appease its friends and robbing the Crowns of their dividends, thus forcing them to increase their rates to consumers; and now it wants to give away the profit-making Crowns to its friends. By selling off 49 per cent of any Crown it means giving away 49 per cent of the profits that are yours and mine and belong to all of us. It is that plain and simple.
Joyce Neufeld
Waldeck, Sask.
