Monday Morning Memo: Does the Sask Party Own A Private Plane?

Party donors flying politicians around on government business is generally not recommended by the National Joint Council 🧐.

That’s the rumour, anyway.

Put simply, Legislative Acts governing political donations and conflict of interest obligations for Saskatchewan MLAs are crap. They are weaker that any set of similar laws in any other province in Canada.

Our Elections Act allows for unlimited donations to political parties and candidates from any person, organization or business in Canada. Refreshingly, Elections Saskatchewan has upped its reporting game by launching a contributions search tool on its website, meaning no more going blind reading hundreds of pages of badly scanned, handwritten fiscal returns.

Our Conflict of Interest Act is a joke. No politician and their spouse could ever own as many properties, rental homes, businesses and investments as the Sask Party Cabinet and not be in regular conflicts of interest, even in day-to-day government operations.

The Conflict of Interest Act has notably raised its gnarly head one time in recent Saskatchewan history.

In December 2011, Brad Wall was receiving a salary of $37,000 from the Sask Party, to “top-up” what he was earning as a MLA and premier. The story ran on the front page of the December 7, 2011 Leader Post. Wall was defiant.

“Most provincial and I think federal parties do it. I think it’s a way to recognize that there is work that you do as a party leader that isn’t a part of what the taxpayer should have to pay for.” - Brad Wall, Regina Leader Post, December 7, 2011

Keep in mind that just a month before, Wall and the Sask Party had defeated the NDP by taking 84 percent of the Legislature with 64 percent of the popular vote, or with 49 seats to the NDP’s nine. Maybe he felt invincible at the time. In a way he was.

The issue re-emerged in March of 2017. By then Wall was the only Premier in Canada to still be taking a party salary. His draconian 2017-18 budget, which in part cut funding to Saskatchewan libraries, was weeks away from publication. He was days away from announcing a 3.5 percent reduction in public service salaries.

Seemingly out of the blue, but not really, Wall announced he would quit pocketing Sask Party donor cash.

Because that’s what this is about, right? Elected officials, also known as our government, being influenced by political donations instead of sound government policy. It’s about making decisions based solely on what’s right for all Saskatchewan people, not just the ones who can afford to write you fat cheques to keep you in power.

Or who can afford to put you on a private jet, because you’re just way too special for peasant air.

In late January 2017, premier Christy Clark announced she was no longer going to take the $50,000 top-up afforded her by the BC Liberals, leaving Wall the last premier on a political party’s payroll. Even so, he again insisted he was not going to stop taking the Sask Party’s money.

Two months later, in March 2017 he relented.

“It became more of an issue nationwide, and even something I was reflecting on and so I think the timing is right heading into the session to confirm the decision.” - Brad Wall, Regina Leader Post, March 7, 2017

Not because he had an epiphany about the morality and ethics, but because it had become a political hot potato and the “timing” was right. The fact Wall said any of that out loud in public, nevermind to media, is unf**kingbelievable, but ok.

Now to be clear, Saskatchewan’s conflict of interest commissioner - a useless, toothless role that makes “recommendations” to politicians but has no power to enforce anything - had given Wall a thumbs up to keep taking the money. The Saskatchewan NDP had confirmed that Lorne Calvert or Roy Romanow did not take party money while they were premier.

Wall resigned as leader and premier a few months later, so it really didn’t matter. By then he had personally pocketed almost half a million dollars in Sask Party donor money. You can decide how much of that cash impacted the policies and decisions he made to help get this province to where it is today.

If the Sask Party really wanted to get $40,000 into Wall’s pocket another way, it wouldn’t be that hard. Political parties in Saskatchewan are required to report the bare minimum of detail on their revenue and expenses. Shocking, I know.

The Sask Party must have millions of dollars tucked away, as it runs multi-million dollar surpluses every year. For example in 2020 alone it raised $5-mil in donations and spent $2.7-mil. The party declares almost as much annual income on their investments as the NDP pays on its loans.

So the idea that the Sask Party could buy itself a plane is a no-brainer. You can buy a forty year old jet for less than half a million dollars. I don’t know why you’d want to, but you can. The price on a used-jet creeps up from there, getting closer to $1-mil at thirty-years old etc.

In 2016, the Saskatchewan NDP enjoyed a rare win when they exposed Bill Boyd’s $400,000 bill, paid by you, to fly back and forth on the provincial government’s private jets, a service dubbed Executive Air, from Regina to near his farm in Eston. As is the Sask Party government way, at first they insisted it was totally fine, then a year later, scrapped Executive Air altogether.

At the time, the rule was a MLA who lived over 350 kilometres outside Regina was allowed to use the plane to go back and forth, within reason. The Sask Party howled mercilessly about Buckley Belanger using the plane to go home, which is at least a six hour drive one-way to Regina.

Interestingly in hindsight, they killed Executive Air the same month, March 2017, in which Wall did the same with his donor-funded salary top-up. March 2017 was the month the Sask Party tried to burn this place to the ground with funding cuts.

One might deduce that the Sask Party is well aware that luxury, wealth-driven items, indulgences of often questionable nature, especially when they’re paid for by a political donor and/or inappropriately by the taxpayer, are a problem for them.

“It has become a tipping point, where we can no longer afford, it isn’t a good way to spend taxpayer money to continue operating this service…we’re anticipating that the overall cost of charter flights will be less than what we’re paying right now.” - Christine Tell, Regina Leader-Post, March 17, 2017

Note, to be fair, that Tell does mention “charter flights”. She just doesn’t specify to where, exactly.

The same article states the government had pegged the cost of its Executive Air fleet at $700,000 to a million dollars per year, but I’m not clear whether that was for maintenance and hangar storage etc., or if that number included the actual flying. I suspect the former.

We know that nobody loves to travel on the taxpayer dime quite like Scott Moe. As I’ve written in previous posts, his travel expenses before becoming premier were some of the highest in Brad Wall’s Cabinet. Now he’s under scrutiny for him and his little buddy Jeremy spending millions - yes, millions - to tag team trips to places like Dubai.

The rumour that Moe is using a private jet has been around for a while. Part of me didn’t care, because on the scale of Shit Scott Moe Pulls, which is exhausting, this one didn’t weigh that high.

Until I saw the media on Friday.

You’ve likely seen the photos, but reporters were waiting for Moe right inside the Saskatoon airport’s terminal, meaning they’d asked for Moe’s flight number and ETA. They got one.

Each news station had a different camera angle, but most contained a shot of Moe strolling through Arrivals doors… looking like he’d just deplaned from a solo week in Cancun. He was carrying a laptop bag.

That’s all.

Moe’s travel expense reports show he always travels with at least four staffers, sometimes six. Arguably they could all have flown to Regina, but Moe flew in to Saskatoon because it’s closer to Shellbrook. He was at the Rider game in Regina literally the next day, but sure.

But without luggage?

I’ve since confirmed that Moe was met at the Saskatoon airport by a Saskatoon staffer. Multiple sources said Moe did not have luggage. I’m not going to entertain the idea that he was in New York and Washington DC for five days without it.

Did Scott Moe’s office book him a last-minute flight on a commercial airline, maybe even in economy, like freaky poor people who don’t donate to the Sask Party (ew!), to hide the fact he really travels on a private jet?

Let’s eliminate the idea right here that there’s nothing wrong with Scott Moe or any Cabinet Minister being flown on private jets backed by political donations to conduct government business.

Look around - does this feel like a province that’s being governed with all residents best interests at the forefront? Or does it feel like a province that’s being governed primarily to coddle a very specific type of wealth - the type that also happens to donate extraordinary amounts of money to the Sask Party?

Let’s be clear - this is conjecture. I have been told the Sask Party owns a private jet by multiple sources who claim to have seen or been on it, but I have not seen it. Maybe Scott Moe did fly home on a commercial airline, in economy, because those flights aren’t long enough for him to justify business class (though they might have changed that rule too I suppose) from Washington DC.

Something’s not adding up, though.

Let’s put it this way: if the Sask Party has a private plane, why would they keep it a secret? Especially if it’s being used to conduct government business.

First of all, Moe’s travel expenses, claimed both through the Legislature and his constituency office, reflect loads of travel, but no receipts. Out-of-province travel reports do not include any receipts or any other evidence of what the Cabinet Minister or premier spent or where. You can believe the report, or not.

This is the MLA Travel and Living Expenses directive. It’s been amended by the Sask Party eleven times, and I can’t find the old versions in time to get this out, but that 350 kilometre rule appears to be gone. I did find this, however:

You can look at the link but clause (4)(a) is about traveling on road by “private vehicle”. I’m pretty sure flying on a private jet costs more than fifty cents a kilometre or whatever the rate is these days. The Saskatchewan government refers heavily to the National Joint Council (NJC) as the source of its rates for MLA travel, which is hilarious because those rates are negotiated by the Sask Party’s dreaded unions.

The NJC says this about air travel:

“The standard for air travel is economy class. The lowest available airfares appropriate to particular itineraries shall be sought and bookings shall be made as far in advance as possible.”

Unsurprisingly, the NJC doesn’t say much about public servants using private jets, or what the per kilometre rate is for those. The directive from Saskatchewan for its MLAs shown above seems to suggest that the MLA is allowed to bill the taxpayer for the comparable road mileage, which is much less than a seat on a private plane.

So if Sask Party MLAs (I guarantee this little perk hasn’t been offered to Opposition MLAs) are paying minimal amounts to fly on a private plane, who subsidizes the rest of the cost?

More importantly, why would anyone foot the bill for a politician to enjoy the luxury of private air travel?

I promise you, it’s an investment that expects a return.

And Saskatchewan, you’re living the reality of that return on Sask Party donors investments, right now.

Your health care system is the direct result of policy built by a party that is owned by a handful of private companies and their wealthy owners. Your K-12 education funding too.

How are both those items treating you for your investment these days? You realize you are the biggest investor, via the taxes you pay, in the Sask Party government, right?

What do you have to show for it?

I could ramble on even more about private aviation and masking tail numbers and the umpteen ways rich people can fly wherever they want, without anyone knowing about it. Fair enough. They’re not government.

You want to get rich? Cool. Fill your boots, but get the f**k out of the Legislature (see: Don Morgan, Gord Wyant et al). Otherwise you’re not successful, you’ve just enjoyed the spoils of a system you run to your own benefit, not that of the people who elected you.

You want to act like you’re rich, even though in reality you’re just a overexposed, bankrupt politician from Nowhere, Saskatchewan? Same applies.

I don’t care who you vote for, this shit matters. Alot. The carnage you’re seeing everywhere in Saskatchewan is the direct result of Sask Party entitlement and complete inability, or even desire, to govern anymore from a place that’s morally or ethically sound. That behaviour is driven by their 100 percent personal and party beholdedness to a small core of wealthy political donors.

The homelessness and overdoses, to mental health care deficiencies, to provincial public systems on the brink of collapse or of being torn down and replaced by the same companies owned by the political donors flying Scooter’s ass around on a private plane: all are the direct result of this longtime Sask Party government’s political donations.

Draw a straight line, people, from the Sask Party donor rolls to government contracts to the life you’re living today. It’s all connected. When is it going to be enough for us to demand the Sask Party, as long as it holds government, at least does its job? Because this is bonkers.

Have a great week. Coming up, we’re going to be talking Huawei, which is going to be SaskTel’s new excuse for not serving up the internet in rural Saskatchewan. We’re also going to be talking the Humboldt Broncos’, the City of Humboldt and that god awful accident corner that today looks like a literal garbage dump.

Saskatchewan is so much better than this. Why aren’t we acting like it?

On that note, have a great week. Remember, this weather is why we tolerate Saskatchewan winters, right? Enjoy ☀️.