In my last post, we reviewed the Canadian Criminal Code charges that are typically associated with crimes involving government, public or elected officials.
If you haven’t had a chance to read it, you should do so before diving in to this post, or any more in this series subsequently.
Jeremy Harrison, Corruption and Criminality
The purpose of the previous post was For Your Information — to understand the lens through which law enforcement investigates government officials.
For me, the takeaway was that while corruption must be a firing offence for any public official, it is not necessarily illegal.
In order to gain a conviction related to Fraud and/or Breach of Public Trust charges, the prosecution must be able to prove, without reasonable doubt, the accused’s intent. That’s not easy to do for Crown prosecutors on a good day. I can’t imagine what it would be like, now that Scott Moe’s office has turned obscuring literally everything the government does into an art form.
Today, in order to shine a light on issues that impact the public, that residents and voters have every right to know about, it needs to go to the police or witnesses need to come forward. In Saskatchewan, under the Sask Party, speaking out, or whistleblowing, has become a terrifying proposition that can result in significant personal loss. I certainly don’t judge anyone who walks away instead.
It shouldn’t have to come to this. There were once all kinds of Legislative and democratic mechanisms in Saskatchewan in place to mitigate and regulate the actions of public officials. Safeguards that protected both voters and elected officials.
We shouldn’t have to scour the Criminal Code looking for relief from the gross exploitation and abuse Scott Moe and his government are heaping on Saskatchewan people.
Thankfully, there is still courage out there.
With all that in mind, from here we’re going to proceed with some more background, this time on the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). The SRC has been the responsibility of Minister Jeremy Harrison since 2015.
Once a hallowed institution devoted to physical science, the SRC today has been reduced to nothing more than a funnel through which public dollars flow to private companies, with virtually non-existent public transparency or Opposition scrutiny.
Four the last four or five years, under the direction of CEO Mike Crabtree, the SRC has been promoting itself as a commercial enterprise, claiming to have hundreds of millions of dollars in private sector contracts and thousands of clients.
It is all patently false
That narrative has been contrived, in part to deflect from the fact that over a half a billion dollars, in recent years, has flown through the SRC directly into Saskatchewan’s oil patch.
Deflecting from the fact that there has been an alarming level of turnover in the organization since Mike Crabtree was promoted to CEO.
From the conflicts of interest that plague the SRC’s so-called executives today, yet there they are, taking home millions of dollars annually in publicly-funded salaries.
From the fact that Jeremy Harrison has personally manipulated the SRC’s board of directors to the point that it’s a joke. As you’ll see in the next post, the evidence on that one is overwhelming. It clearly highlights two facts: 1) Harrison has outright lied, on the record and 2) he is the definitive workplace bully, who terrorizes anyone and everyone who doesn’t capitulate immediately to his power.
Randy Weekes isn’t alone. Not even close.
Today, not a soul sits on the SRC board of directors anymore who has a background in science or engineering, but the chair likes to tell people he’s little Jake’s longtime buddy.
In fact, the current chair of the Saskatchewan Research Council’s board of directors, leading both the rare earth and nuclear files for the province, is not a nuclear physicist or a mining engineer.
It’s Jeremy’s friend, the mayor of St. Walburg, Saskatchewan.
Jeremy Harrison should have resigned or been fired a long time ago. The fact that lying, dysfunctional, greedy little narcissist still has a job is unbelievable and speaks volumes about Scott Moe’s failed leadership.
This is such bullshit.
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