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Friends in High Places

It’s a Good Time to be a Sask Party Hack

Shortly after taking office in November 2007, Brad Wall warned the people of Saskatchewan that we were facing ‘stark financial times.’  Apparently Wall failed to understand that being left an extra $1.5 Billion by the previous NDP administration was the exact opposite of ‘stark financial times.’  He also missed the irony of claiming poverty while at the same time providing massive pay increases to his political staff.
 
Almost immediately upon being sworn in, Brad Wall began the lengthy process of rewarding his partisan friends with your tax dollars.


His first appointment included:

• Reg Downs as Wall's Chief of Staff at a salary of $13,693 a month.  Downs has since been downgraded to an advisor role and Joe Donlevy, initially appointed as a special advisor, appointed as Chief of Staff.  This resulted in Donlevy’s salary being bumped from $12,500 a month to over $13,000 a month and no change in pay for  Reg Down- even when you get a demotion in the Brad Wall government, it still pays to be a Sask Party hack.

• Ian Hairy as a special advisor to Wall at $12,500 a month.  Hairy worked with Brad Wall as a Ministerial Assistant in the Grant Devine Government and most recently worked for the Steven Harper government.

• Terri Harris as Deputy Chief of Staff, responsible for hiring and procurement, at $10,900 per month.  Harris is the daughter of former Conservative MP Carol Skelton.

• Ian Hanna as the Premier's Communications Adviser at $9,600 per month.

• Kathy Young as Executive Director of Communications at $9,900 per month.

• Terri Gudmundson as Executive Director of House Business at $9,600 per month.

• James Saunders, a former Sask Party Caucus employee, as senior policy adviser at $8,155 per month.  

In September of 2008, Saunders received a $10,000 per year raise, taking his annual salary to over $100,000 a year.  


But Wall wasn’t content at spending your tax dollars to reward his friend in Executive Council.  He still had a whole bunch of ministerial offices to fill with his friends and he felt no shame in paying them handsomely with your tax dollars.


Chief of Staff salaries went from on average $70,000 a year under the NDP, to between $85,000 to $120,000 under the Sask Party.  Not only did Brad Wall increase the salary grid substantially for his friends, but he made sure they didn’t start at the bottom.  Only three of the Sask Party’s 17 chiefs of staff make less than $100,000 but they all make over $90,000.  Of the 14 chiefs of staff making $100,000 or more, eight make the maximum salary of $120,000.   

It’s a good time to be a Sask Party hack, a bad time to be a taxpayer!

Friends with Benefits


Brad Wall didn’t want to limit himself to rewarding friends with positions in the legislative building, so he used the Crowns, ministries and even quasi-judicial boards to find high-paying gigs for some of his friends.  Here are just a few of them:

Ken Love:

In the first week of March, the government fired the chairperson and the two vice-chairs of the Labour Relations Board (LRB). The firings were unexpected and occurred in the middle of an LRB hearing.  The chairperson was replaced by lawyer Ken Love, a known supporter and funder of the Sask. Party.
 
Ken Love and his law firm have donated thousands of dollars to the Saskatchewan Party and Love served as Chair of the Sask Party’s probe into Sask Party MLA Christine Tell, who was disciplined at her job as a police officer for improperly accessing police files. 

Mr. Love was also a member of the Sask Party transition team – the very team that was tasked by the Brad Wall government to examine the membership of boards and commissions- such as the LRB- and to recommend “philosophically suitable” replacements

The Sask Party not only by-passed standard hiring practices in appointing their friend Ken Love, they also decided to reward him handsomely for his loyaltyon and they did it on the taxpayer’s dime.
 
The previous LRB Chair, with over 10 years experience on the LRB, was paid just over $121,000 a year, but apparently that wasn’t quite enough for Brad Wall’s friend and political ally.  Ken Love, with no experience on the LRB, was given a $60,000 salary bump, bringing his totally salary to $180,000 per year. 


It seems Mr. Love’s years of service and political contributions paid off in the form of a bug pay day!

Gren Smith-Windsor:

Shortly after taking office the Sask Party dismissed John Wright, Saskatchewan’s Deputy Minister of Health, who was one of Saskatchewan’s longest serving civil servants.  The Sask Party replaced Mr. Wright, with Gren Smith-Windsor, a man with a long-time connections to Brad Wall and the former Devine Government and a record that left more questions than answers.

Both Brad Wall and Smith-Windsor worked for the former Grant Devine government, with Smith Windsor serving as Clerk of Executive Council in Devine's Progressive Conservative government. 

After the appointment, questions were raised about Mr. Smith-Windsor’s experience and record, particularly questions around why he was fired as head of the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region in 2005.  P.A. health workers say they feel Smith-Windsor ‘wasn’t working in the best interest of people of [Prince Albert].”

But the Sask Party always looks after their friends- in just a few short years Gren Smith-Windsor went from being fired in a health region, to being appointed as acting Deputy Minister of Health and then Associate Deputy Minister of Health with a hefty salary of over $100,000.

Health Minister Don McMorris said he didn’t know why Smith-Windsor was fired, he didn’t even bother to ask, and admits that the decision to hire Smith-Windsor was made by Brad Wall’s transition team, not him.