With at least some of the talk about PCS takeovers raising the possibility that other bidders from China or elsewhere may outbid BHP Billiton, let's take a moment to point out what both takes which have received corporate media placement seem to get wrong.
On the one hand, there's absolutely no reason to accept Derek DeCloet's assumption that China's "form of capitalism" has any bearing on what the provincial and federal governments should be prepared to approve. For all the efforts by the federal Cons and others to pretend that all private investment is positive while all state-owned investment is suspicious, the reality is that substantially the same factors raising concerns about a Chinese bid would be readily apparent no matter which of the rumoured bidders enters the game.
Which is to say that I agree with the Star-Phoenix' take that all bidders should effectively be treated equally. But that doesn't mean simply rubber-stamping any bid and hoping for the best when it comes to the province's ability to manage its own resources, as its column seems to suggest.
Instead, any new owner needs to be subject to a careful assessment to ensure that it won't harm Saskatchewan's ability to set royalty terms - in the long term as well as the short term - that fit the priorities of Saskatchewan's citizens as the owners of the province's potash. And to the extent there's a significant risk of any bidder grinding down royalty rates and depriving the province of the value of its resources, the end result should be a finding that a takeover isn't in the province's interest.
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