The reviews are in

Bruce Johnstone points out that while the Wall government's handling of Saskatchewan's Crown corporations may be utterly indefensible, it's far from unprecedented - and in fact looks to be torn from the playbook of the Devine government:

(T)he Sask Party government has interfered with the Crowns perhaps more than any government since the Devine era (when political cronies were regularly installed as heads of Crowns and Crowns were forced to borrow to pay dividends to their cash-strapped shareholder).

To be fair, the Sask Party has been more subtle than the Devine-era Tories and have couched their interference under the guise of high-sounding initiatives, like the Saskatchewan First policy.

But make no mistake, the Sask Party government has imposed its political will on the Crowns just as surely as Grant Devine did in his day.
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Under the former NDP government, Crowns paid dividends only after a portion of their profits was set aside for reinvestment and debt repayment. And dividends were based on the corporation's debt-to-equity ratio or similar financial measure.

That dividend policy is apparently gone out the window. Also out of the window is the rule (part of the now-repealed Balanced Budget Act), that proceeds from the sale of assets not be used to pay for government operating expenses.

Many of the checks and balances that prevented political abuse of Crown corporations have been systematically removed. In their place are heavy-handed policy initiatives, like the Saskatchewan First policy, that require all Crowns (except for SGI Canada) to divest themselves of their out-of-province investments, good, bad or indifferent.
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When you combine the tight leash of the Saskatchewan First policy with confiscatory dividend practices, the Crowns are looking less like state-owned businesses than cash cows to be milked dry.

Edit: fixed label.