Sask Party Donations Part 1: Lawyers
$20-million in taxpayer-backed, government-supplied payments to three law firms after all three firms make record-breaking donations to the Sask Party is quite a coincidence, isn't it.
I’ll start by saying these donor posts are going to be spread out over the next few months. There’s a lot of angles and it’s a ton of work to do the research to get them right. I am not rushing them, because I am solely responsible for what I publish and I have to get it right.
“The answer to this question is not complicated: while citizens and society as a whole benefit from the consequences of the efficient fight against corruption, some powerful individuals and their narrow circles of allies do not have the slightest interest in benefiting anyone but themselves.” - Drago Kos, Chairman, OECD Working Group on Bribery, 2014
One of my best friends is one of the Sask Party’s historical single biggest donors. I mean, it was a long time ago and I promise you they’re never getting another penny, but still.
I don’t believe all political donors or donations are inherently bad for democracy.
The conclusion I’ve reached, watching this as closely as I have for the last fifteen years, is a Sask Party donor’s cash is not enough or even necessarily the point. You must give the Sask Party cash and leverage, which my friend didn’t need and wouldn’t have participated in anyway, because their company has never needed government support to succeed, nor does it have any government contracts.
Anyone can give the Sask Party money, but once the Sask Party does you a favour…you know, like handing your company millions in government contracts…it owns you and your vote.
God knows they can’t earn votes on their skills and ability to run a province, so how else are they going to get them?
There are Saskatchewan businesses out there in 2023 that wouldn’t even exist without government contracts. They’re latched on to the government nipple and have no comprehension anymore how to succeed in an environment not rigged in their favour. Their businesses will collapse when and if the Sask Party ever does.
Speaking of which, we’ll be talking about the construction industry in the next donation piece. That’s the one where shareholder rabbit holes get real deep.
I was going to do an overview of other Canadian province’s laws around political donations, but I’m not going to bother. What’s happening in Saskatchewan is so far gone past what’s appropriate, so far beyond the spirit of what any kind of election laws are supposed to uphold, that it doesn’t matter.
The corruption in Saskatchewan is in a league of its own.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is.
Corruption.
Who’s going to tell me it’s not?
“There is no commonly agreed upon definition of corruption. However, the most frequently used definitions derive from concepts related to the public office... deviations from the norms surrounding public power, such as misuse of their position to receive private benefits.” - Corruption & Political Participation, Sofia Olsson, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
At a minimum, Sask Party donations directly benefit people who are recognized and paid handsomely to run a government under the Sask Party banner. Those MLAs owe their jobs, grifts six-figure salary lifestyles and if they stick it out, their fat taxpayer-funded pensions to the Sask Party.
Now keep in mind how many Sask Party MLAs own and operate businesses of their own, and have since the day they were elected. Real estate, hotels, restaurants, vehicle dealerships, construction; you name it - Sask Party MLAs have their grubby little fingers in pretty much everything.
All they have to do is declare their interests, then carry on as usual, making personal profit while also personally controlling, unopposed, the government.
It’s corruption. The behaviour of Sask Party MLAs entirely contradicts not just the spirit but the actual language of the Code of Ethical Conduct for Saskatchewan MLAs.
It’s breathtaking how hard all of this behaviour from both the private sector and the Sask Party has spiralled out of control in Saskatchewan, while simultaneously normalizing itself.
There are corporate political donors from across the entire for-profit spectrum, not just in Saskatchewan but Alberta and other provinces as well, who donate to the Sask Party: real estate, hotels, restaurants, vehicle dealerships, construction… you name it.
In fact, there’s probably an entire other piece here determining who the other shareholders are in companies owned by Sask Party MLAs.
I’ve (uncomfortably) mentioned a few times now that anyone interested in chipping in on this donor research, which is proving expensive as each document I need to write this series I have to pay ISC’s corporate registrar for myself, can etransfer me at tammyrobert0123@gmail.com. Thank you so much to all of you again.
The donors that have always bothered me so much - maybe even the most - are the lawyers. Accountants aren’t far behind, but they’ll get their own post.
If you search the word “legal” or “law” on Elections Saskatchewan’s Contribution Search Tool, you find over $100,000 in donations from small firms, tons of professional legal corporations (aka individual lawyers) and so on.
Lawyers and accountants are regulated professions (as are lawyers and accountants who work directly for a public service), because we need to be able to trust them. They’re probably one of the most integral sources of government transparency and the preservation of democracy in a civil society we could have.
That’s perhaps one reason the Law Society of Saskatchewan has a Code of Conduct that hinges on “Integrity”:
“…avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”
What a novel idea.
Of course, this is the same Law Society of Saskatchewan that refuses to sanction John Gormley - to the point he laughs about it and at them on-air - after racist tirades and plenty of other well-documented incidents of harassment and public harm.
But sure… even the appearance of impropriety. Integrity.
There are three Saskatchewan law firms that show up, time and again, on both the Sask Party’s donor rolls and the province’s financial statements as payees for both the Crown Corporations and the General Revenue Fund.
Again, these are by far not all of the lawyers and law firms donating to the Sask Party or enjoying government-funded revenue. But in dollar amounts, they do appear to be not insignificant outliers.
McKercher LLP
Only regulated professions like lawyers, doctors and accountants are allowed to start LLPs, which are typically held between a general corporation and all the other partners in the firm. That means that unlike other corporations, the partners in a LLP are not personally responsible for the liabilities of the other partners, or the general partner.
McKercher Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) and the McKercher family have been around Saskatchewan since forever. You can find its history on their website. Gord Wyant was a partner until after he was elected. He dropped it to become Justice Minister.
The McKercher family is what you might describe as ‘old stock Saskatoon’.
There’s a ton of lawyers in the family, but the McKerchers were and remain massive real estate developers. You know McKercher Drive in Saskatoon? Yeah, they once owned all of that, and still own major commercial holdings on that strip.
They also own and have owned cattle ranches and farmland across Saskatchewan. Robert McKercher started the law firm; his dad bought scores of land around Saskatoon in and around the early 20th century, including enough to build his own airport, which the government refused to license.
In other words, the McKerchers are old-money rich and have been for almost a hundred years.
Peggy and Robert’s daughter was a national equestrian champion. Their son Duncan owns Kenmore Land Company. He also owns Crossmount Village, a massive development just outside Saskatoon that includes high-end residential housing, a craft brewery, an entertainment centre and private health care services for seniors.
Here’s how McKercher LLP’s donations stack up against their taxpayer-provided revenue.
A word from McKercher’s “Anti-Bribery Anti-Corruption Policy”.
“The purpose of this Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Policy is to reiterate McKercher’s commitment to full compliance by our Partners, Of-Counsel, Associates, Lawyers, Students, Management and Staff with Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (“CFPOA”) and any local anti-bribery or anti-corruption laws that may be applicable.”
Sure, but this isn’t about foreign states (well it is but this post is already too long) and we already know that Saskatchewan’s laws - particularly regarding political finance - are pro-corruption.
For posterity’s sake, however, let’s have a look at what anti-bribery and anti-corruption means to McKercher LLP in 2023.
Two of the four McKercher partners listed on their website as responsible for this policy have also personally donated to the Sask Party.
The vast majority of McKercher’s revenue has come in from Crown Corporations. For example, McKercher provided counsel for Sask Power and Sask Energy when the Sask Party government attempted to overturn the federal carbon tax in Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal circa 2018-19.
Note that in the graph I created above, I only included the Ministries and Crown Corporations revenue.
You can add the U of S, Sask Polytech and the GTH to that list as well. The GTH stuff certainly wasn’t related to real estate sales; it appears instead to be connected to the four year saga between the organization, the privacy commissioner and Geoff Leo.
The contract for the “financial close” of Saskatchewan’s P3 schools would have been doled out during the exact same as Sask Party MLA Gord Wyant was at its helm.
The Sask Party have anointed McKerchers’ partners:
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
two judges on Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal
five King’s Bench judges, with three still sitting
one provincial court judge
Oh, one last thing. In addition to a law firm, McKercher is a registered lobbyist in Saskatchewan.
MLT Aikins
MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman LLP and Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson LLP joined forces in early 2017 and from there MLT Aikins was born.
There’s no record of Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson, or its partners, donating to the Sask Party (or the Saskatchewan NDP), though they were huge federal Liberal supporters in the nineties and early 2000s.
I find it interesting that despite the clockwork consistency of McKercher’s election campaign donations to the Sask Party, MLT Aikins has overall enjoyed a much higher value of government contracts.
The above donor amounts reflect the Sask Party donations of MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman LLP and its partners up until the merge, and then MLT Aikins and its partners afterwards.
2016 was MLT’s biggest donor year, with both a slew of partners and the firm itself cutting cheques to the party. The spike on the chart in their 2019 government contracts reflects a $7.5-million dollar payment MLT Aikins was given by Sask Power in fiscal 2018-19.
Everything listed above in Aaron Runge’s bio related to Sask Power would predate 2015. Big thanks to Runge for the Shand carbon capture test facility though, which is a taxpayer-funded, expensive failure.
Word has it that MLT Aikins lobbied the Sask Party pretty hard, but I can’t tell you what for.
According to the Saskatchewan Lobbyist Registry, the Sask Party’s favorite lobbyist firm, Hill+Knowlton’s Regina office, lobbied on MLT Aikin’s behalf from March til the end of May of 2017.
In 2018-19, MLT Aikins was paid $7.5-million by SaskPower.
In 2019-20, MLT Aikins was paid $4.8-million contract by SaskPower.
In 2020-21, MLT Aikins was paid $4.5-million by SaskPower.
Why does SaskPower need to pay one firm $17-million in legal fees in three years, after receiving a record-amount of money in donations from that firm in 2016 and then being lobbied on their behalf in 2017?
I don’t know.
In June of 2020 NDP justice critic Nicole Sauer asked about the cost for the Supreme Court challenge.
It appears MLT did indeed stay within that $500,000 range, as paid by the Ministry of Justice.
Still doesn’t explain the Sask Power payments.
The Sask Party have anointed MLT Aikins partners:
one judge on Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal
three King’s Bench judges, all three Chief Justices
one provincial court judge
McDougall Gauley
This one is interesting.
McDougall Gauley has an odd relationship with the government. I’m guessing, in part, because of Dion Tchorzewski, who former NDP leader Ryan Meili referred to on his last day in the Legislature in 2022 as NDP “royalty”. Dion’s dad was Ed Tchorzewski who was a NDP MLA in Saskatchewan for 25 years, during which he was Minister in a few capacities.
So Gauley is one of the only firms that have given big money to the Sask Party while also giving donations to the Saskatchewan NDP, albeit not close to what they’ve now given the Sask Party.
Someone at McDougall Gauley decided the Sask Party needed more of the firm’s money in 2016. I can’t help but wonder if McDougall Gauley lawyer Ryland Hunter’s entrance into Sask Party politics in 2019 escalated the need as well.
Either way, after making a record-breaking donation to the Sask Party in 2016, McDougall Gauley was given $4.8-mil in payments by SaskPower in the fiscal year of 2019-20.
So in tandem with MLT Aikins, we’re up to $20-mil in payments to legal firms by SaskPower over three years.
But tell me more about rate hikes, please.
Why does the Government of Saskatchewan even hire its own legal counsel?
What the hell are the over thirty lawyers employed by the Sask Party government doing? Earning an average of about $150,000 per year each, that’s $5-million in salaries on top of what we’re paying externally.
The Sask Party have given McDougall Gauley’s* partners:
three judges seats on Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal
four judges spots in King’s Bench Court
one provincial court judge.
*the first version of this post wrongly stated MLT Aikins instead of Gauley.
For the record, like Sask Party MLAs, many if not most of the individual partners at each of these firms has business interests separate from the legal sector. The list is infinitely long and many of those connections will be made in upcoming posts, particularly on real estate and the construction industry.
Just because everyone is acting legally under laws the Sask Party writes and controls does not make what’s happening in Saskatchewan with political donations right, ethical or appropriate. Instead, it’s a slap in the face and two middle fingers to every Saskatchewan resident voting in good faith for a good faith government.
“…citizen frustration with public sector corruption and poor governance (which often corresponds to high levels of corruption) may lead to citizen apathy, a lack of civic engagement and a lack of trust in the political and democratic process. Apathy and indifference are dangerous because where citizens fail to hold public officials accountable, corruption spreads even further, together with impunity for corrupt conduct.” - Citizen Participation in Anti-Corruption Efforts, United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime
Like every other corporate donor out there, the partners in these law firms agreed, through whatever internal mechanisms they’ve established to make these decisions, to take money from their firm’s coffers to give to the governing political party. It’s a transaction. There’s an expected return and only the donor knows for sure what that is.
The blatancy is troubling. These people know the reason they make political donations and that they’ll be publicly reported for making them. Neither the Sask Party nor seemingly any of their political donors care what you think.
Surrounded by giant piles of your money, maybe they don’t hear criticism like we do. Muffles it.
“The outsized capacity of a small group of economic elites to so heavily influence politics and policy raises grave issues in a democracy.” - Centre for Political Accountability, Conflicting Consequences, July 2020
Talk to you soon,
PS: Have you checked out my new Substack?
It’s quite a bit more personal, therefore you have to request approval to subscribe, but so far there’s just been a couple of psychos I’ve had to decline so don’t let that dissuade you! If I don’t recognize the email address or your handle, I will reach out to you.
I have left in Saskatchewan and am now living in the Caribbean. Join me as I decide whether I can ever go back to the province I want to call home, but currently cannot. T.