“Handing this lucrative contract to an American company when a Saskatchewan-based business was already doing the work raises a lot of eyebrows,” said Official Opposition Leader Carla Beck.
“It looks even more strange when we look in the lobbyist registry and see that Kevin Doherty was hired by this American company to lobby the Premier in the year leading up to the announcement. The Premier has a lot of explaining to do.”
In November 2022, former Sask. Party Finance Minister Kevin Doherty was hired by CRM Tire Processing of Newport Beach California to lobby the Premier and his inner circle. Months later, the US company got a lucrative contract for tire recycling in Saskatchewan.
The new contract came at the expense of Shercom, the Saskatchewan business that used to handle tire recycling in the province. Shercom lost their contract, is now going bust, and its CEO, Marlin Stangeland, says it was “stabbed in the back”.
Saskatchewan's business community was highly critical of the government’s deal with the California-based company. Chamber of Commerce CEO Jason Aebig did not mince words in an open letter to government members:
“Our concern is the apparent unwarranted regulation of a once ‘free market’ that is now siphoning jobs and market opportunities away from our city and reassigning them to business interests outside our borders.”
News of Doherty's involvement in CRM comes as the Premier and his Health Minister face questions over multi-million-dollar sole-source contracts with a private surgery company to perform knee and hip procedures and mammograms in Calgary. The surgical company donated over $14,000 to the Sask. Party and hired Doherty to lobby on their behalf.
-30-