Hours after rushing their privatization bill into law, a Sask. Party minister admitted that claims he had made the day before about SaskTel not preparing for a sell-off were, “not correct.”
“Just last year, the Sask. Party ran on a promise to uphold the Crown Protection act. They have broken that commitment,” said NDP SaskTel Critic Warren McCall. “The Sask. Party has already gone against their word with the sell-off of STC. Their offensive scheme is fooling no one but now even the are having a hard time keeping their stories straight.”
On Wednesday evening, during a committee meeting on SaskTel, McCall asked the Sask. Party Minister, “Has there been any work conducted on the part of SaskTel and the able minds in the leadership team there on how a deal would be structured to provide opportunities for a minority shareholder to purchase up to 49 per cent of the corporation, but at the same time, working to shield it from federal tax implications?”
The Minister’s answer was an unequivocal, “no.” McCall pressed further and sought to clarify but the Minister simply repeated, “No. No.”
Less than 24 hours later, but only after the Sask. Party had rushed to have their bill receive Royal Assent and become law, the Minister wrote to McCall saying, “That answer was not correct; there has been some preliminary work done by SaskTel on this front.”
“The Sask. Party rushed to pass their bill to scrap important protections for our Crowns, ignored concerns and laughed off questions. It’s not acceptable that they waited until only after the bill became law to ‘correct a statement,’” said McCall. “The Sask. Party are clearly planning on selling off our Crowns so they need to come clean about any other “confusion” they’ve caused and tell the people of Saskatchewan the truth.”