Saskatchewan MLAs "Accountability" Statements

For that word to mean anything, someone needs to be paying attention.

First, take a look at these definitions from the Saskatchewan Legislature’s website.

We’ve spoken extensively, though still not enough, about the staggering number of conflicts of interests in the Sask Party caucus.

The Members’ Accountability statement is the direct result of the fraud that defined Grant Devine’s caucus in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Every year, both government and Opposition caucuses receive cash transfers from the Legislature, based on the number of MLAs each party has in each. The money is for two purposes:

1. Operating each Saskatchewan constituency office. MLAs’ constituency offices are publicly-funded and therefore not to be used, in any way, to conduct political party or partisan business or activities. Constituency offices are supposed to serve the riding’s constituents, or residents, regardless of how they voted.

2. To fund MLA’s travel expenses related to the requirement they attend the Legislature building in Regina.

When Grant Devine took power, these cash transfers from the Legislature were not audited. MLAs were trusted to use the money as they saw fit, within the parameters they were provided through the Legislature and ultimately, by the people of Saskatchewan.

After Devine’s caucus killed that trust by exploiting it and stealing millions from Saskatchewan taxpayers, the audit rules changed. One of the results was the rather aptly-named Members’ Accountability statement - as in, accountability for how they spend the tax dollars stripped off your paycheque and deposited into their hands to spend as they see fit.

In order for accountability to exist, the reports have to be reviewed and their contents shared with the public. Because neither the NDP Opposition nor the Saskatchewan media have the time, resources or inclination to do that anymore, there is still no accountability today and like their Devine forefathers, the Sask Party knows it.

I’m here to hold the oversized, authoritarian Sask Party government accountable, not its emaciated Opposition. Therefore for the purpose of this examination, I’m not looking at NDP reports any further.

With all this in mind, we’re going to look at the Sask Party MLA’s accountability reports in depth in the coming weeks, including the millions of tax dollars that have been funnelled through constituency offices to Angus Reid for polling, which serves no purpose beyond reinforcing the Sask Party’s addiction to partisanship and destructive populist governance.