Yes, "grasping at straws" is the right analysis of the Sask Party's attempt to make excuses to gift SaskTel to the corporate sector. But it's also worth noting something those straws have in common.
Presumably any risk to SaskTel can be paired with an opportunity for another party looking to profit within the telecom sector.
For example, the risk that SaskTel will be sold off for scrap means that some corporate benefactor will profit at the expense of Saskatchewan's public. And so too does the presence of any risk from telecom providers looking to expand their presence in Saskatchewan imply a correlated opportunity for a telecommunications provider which is able to plan outside a single province's borders.
Needless to say, it was the Sask Party government's choice to take that opportunity away from SaskTel with a "Saskatchewan First" policy - which prevents SaskTel from even looking for ways to generate profits and mitigate risk by using its knowledge around the world. And if SaskTel is indeed weaker for that gratuitous decision, there's nobody to blame but Brad Wall.
Makes you wonder whether all the people who voted for Brad had the first clue he was going to flog off a provincial asset to the already fat corporate communications sector. It's like taking in a renter in your basement apartment and finding out that he sold your house out from under you - cheap. It's been done. "Sure, I'll look after the house for you while you go on your vacation to Europe - no prob!"
ReplyDeleteIt's over 25 years since Nova Scotia gifted Nova Scotia Power to investors. Assets of two billion flogged off for $800 million. Don't even ask what the CEO's pay is now compared to the Crown Corp of 1991. Often it's upper management that want to sell public assets for that remuneration reason alone and the BS justifications intoned from "underpaid" execs drone on until it's just background noise. Hell, university presidents crack off at least half a million a year - we have one that earns $375K sitting on his rear end at Dalhousie, well at home really, while a new one does the job - contracts, y'know. Can't break 'em. Let's put up tuition until the little bastards squeak!
Greece is going through the unpleasant experience of flogging off national assets to meet loan payments - offers are on the low side, shall we say. It's a cakewalk for the moneyed - "I always wanted a Pantheon for the estate!"
There's nothing more nasty than this sort of betrayal from conservative pols. They paste their nincompoop ideology on government, and give away public things that do not belong to them yet for which everyone paid. Just completely unethical.
Good luck there. I bet you don't even have independent newspapers to point out the obvious.
This indicates that Brad Wall either knows, or doesn't know, that it's over.
ReplyDelete