The NDP’s Cathy Sproule claims the Saskatchewan Party is refusing to schedule meetings about private email servers and business operations relating to the GTH land deal.
The Saskatoon Nutana MLA spoke out on the Global Transportation Hub deal Wednesday, about a year after the provincial auditor released a special report on the land sale near Regina.
“It has been one year since the auditor’s report on the sketchy land deals, and that report raised more questions than it answered,” Sproule said in a news release.
The land deal at the base of Sproule’s criticisms saw the Global Transportation Hub — a Crown corporation — buy 204 acres of land west of Regina, in an area in the path of a planned highway bypass around the city.
The GTH bought the land for $103,000 per acre, which the NDP has said was three times the appraised value and far higher than what other land owners in the region received under threat of expropriation.
The GTH then sold 58 acres of the same land to the Ministry of Highways for $50,000 per acre.
The auditor’s report found the government did nothing wrong in the land purchase, but noted the province needs to have a clear policy on how land is purchased and should communicate that policy to the public.
Sproule called Wednesday for the Saskatchewan Party to be more transparent and accountable.
She claimed the government has yet to hold a meeting to determine if the provincial auditor was given access to a Saskatchewan Party private email server. She said the minister of economy has yet to schedule a meeting to answer questions about GTH business operations, and she said the government has refused to confirm if it has investigated allegations of questionable immigration practices related to a business connected to GTH.
“The Sask. Party loves to talk about being open and transparent, but to this day, we haven’t seen them back that up with any action,” Sproule said. “Time and time again, they have promised to open the books, and to meet with us to answer questions but, time and time again, they refuse to actually do anything.”
The province responded to Sproule’s comments later in the day, noting government officials cooperated with the auditor and accepted the 10 recommendations she put forward in her report.
“The government and GTH cooperated fully with this review, providing unprecedented access to documents and e-mails in regard to the land transactions,” a government spokesperson said.
A Standing Committee on the Economy meeting is expected to be scheduled later this summer, after the GTH’s 2016-17 annual report is tabled. The economy minister has committed to attend the meeting to discuss the report, according to the spokesperson.
The report is expected to be tabled in mid-July.
In November, the RCMP announced investigators were looking into the GTH deal.
--- with files from The Canadian Press
