NDP Leader Ryan Meili targeted political party finance reform in the run-up to this fall’s election on Sept. 23.
Meili spoke of “The need to get big money out of Saskatchewan politics.”
The Saskatchewan Party had received $19 million from corporate donors since 2007, “Much of that money coming from outside of the province,” he said.
“With this big money comes influence, comes a government that manages to make sure that money finds its way back to those donors and contracts in laws that favour them and don't work for the people of Saskatchewan. Now, every other province has recognized that this is crooked, it's not the right way to go.”
He said the government under Premier Scott Moe had rejected a private member’s bill in 2018 that would have changed that.
Meili said, “We still have the worst election finance laws in the entire country. No Limits; no limits on where that money can come from in Canada and no limits on the corporations or unions that can donate. Scott Moe refuses to do the right thing. So instead, we'll have to and that's exactly what New Democrats will do. As premier, I'll shut the door on the old boys’ club and stop this practice of unlimited corporate donations, limit those donations to individuals live in Saskatchewan. We need to level the playing field and make sure it's the people of this province that are making decisions, not companies from out of province.”
Meili spoke of the “Buffalo Project,” which he described as “A group of mostly wealthy Albertans, who are bent on creating division. And what they have done is decided to start giving a lot of money to the Sask Party, over $5,000 in 2018, nearly 10 times as much in 2019, with over $50,000.
“Now Scott Moe has not only failed to distance himself from the Buffalo Project, he's not only failed to push away that talk of Western separatism, he's also given space to those ideas. And now we see why. With those dollars coming in, we see the influence that is on Scott Moe, we see why he won't do what any decent premier of Saskatchewan would do, which is stand up for Saskatchewan and stand up for a strong Canada. He's failing to do that. And you can see why because these dollars are coming in.”
“Over and over again, we've seen contracts go to the companies that donate to the Sask. Party,” he said.
Meili went on: “One recent example was the choice to go down the road of a private MRI company from Alberta who has given thousands of dollars to the Sask Party. There's lots of contracts in in legal services and construction and other buildings that are directly associated with donors. And in the policies that Scott Moe puts forward in the space he leaves for things like this, this talk of Western separatism, you see the connection to these Buffalo Project donations."
Meili said under the NDP there would be “No more corporate union donations at all. Individuals are the only ones who can donate in Saskatchewan.”
“That's the rules in most of the country. We also put a cap on those individual donations to level the playing field making sure that it's the people of Saskatchewan that are making the decision about who's governing them not out of province and large companies that are influencing the outcomes of our elections.”
Asked for a response, Saskatchewan Party MLA for Saskatoon Southeast, Minister of Justice and Attorney General Don Morgan said by email on Sept. 24, “We take accountability and transparency very seriously. It is in the public interest to know who is donating to whom. We believe there is better accountability and transparency when donations are in the name of the corporation rather than directors of corporations or spread between multiple people. If an individual business is donating to a party, the public will know. Every donation over $250 is reported to Elections Saskatchewan and is available to the public."
Morgan concluded by saying, “The NDP continue to flip-flop on this issue, changing their opinions to suit whatever their current need happens to be. In 2019 alone they received over $120,000 from two unions.”
