Saskatchewan’s Wild West: Digging Our Own Graves Through Lax Regulation and Government Hype
Critical mineral industry? What an absolute joke.
If you’re familiar with pump-and-dump schemes, you’ve probably watched Wolf of Wall Street.
It’s a form of securities fraud where shareholders artificially inflate, or “pump,” the price of a penny stock, typically by releasing (or leaking) forms of misinformation about the company to stimulate a buying frenzy of its shares. As the stock price climbs, scammers sell off their shares at the inflated price. This sudden selloff causes the stock price to tumble again, leaving other investors with nothing but the smoking ruins of a company.
Saskatchewan’s vast speculated mineral wealth, including uranium, potash, and rare earth elements (REE), is ripe for investment fraud, with its combination of abundant natural resources, weak regulation, and limited public accountability.
Well, that and the fact the province is being ran by lying sacks of shit.
Saskatchewan’s regulatory environment is notably lax, allowing speculators to operate without scrutiny.
But we’re really cool and call that the “wild west”.
The Sask Party is so desperate to convince you it’s got a handle on the resource market (it doesn’t) it’ll say and do anything, true or false, about it. Coupled with a sparse media landscape that lacks investigative journalism and provincial newsrooms raking in millions of dollars in government advertising, there’s no will at all in Saskatchewan to expose fraudulent activity in the resource industry.
On the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) there’s no regulatory definition of a “penny stock”, but it’s generally accepted as anything that sells for under $5 per share. Those companies are only worth a few million dollars total, as opposed to, say, Costco (COST.TO), valued at half a trillion.
Penny stocks are highly speculative, therefore prone to intense price swings. They’re “emotionally reactive”. Retired rich dudes High net worth, risk-tolerant investors love gambling that the next penny stock they buy will be the Holy Grail.
The unicorn.
And there have been Saskatchewan unicorns.
For example, Athabasca Potash Inc., a TSX-listed (API) junior resource company was acquired by BHP Billiton in 2010 for $341 million CAD, or $8.35 per share. Only one year prior, API shares were $4.90. Earlier investors hit the jackpot, cashing out at exponentially higher amounts than they paid.
But those are called unicorns for a reason - they’re rare, if not impossible to find.
The goal of junior resource (or junior mining) companies is not to lift the commodity out of the ground, but just to find and prove it’s there. Once that happens, in theory the company - which is just a bunch of mining permits issued by the Sask Party government* - is then sold to a more senior mining company, which drops a shaft and builds a real mining operation on the site.
*🚩
Again, like BHP did with Athabasca Potash, which today you know as Jansen.
Junior resource investors take on the risk of funding a company’s explorations, which could end up in nothing at all. The invested cash is going almost entirely to the salaries of the company’s executives and directors, presumably under the guise they’re trustworthy and have a proven track record of setting up and selling off resource companies.
To target these types of investors, junior resource companies rely heavily on “hype” related to potential mineral discoveries. Unsurprisingly, this creates a breeding ground for exaggerated claims or misleading announcements that can artificially inflate share prices, rendering Canadian junior resource penny stocks perfect for pump and dump schemes.
Even small, coordinated buying efforts or promotional campaigns, sometimes amplified by provincial government endorsements*, can trigger significant share price increases.
*🚩
Then the shysters, which generally means insiders with advance knowledge of drilling results, regulatory moves or incoming government announcements*, sell off their shares at the peak price, with more scrupulous investors left holding the worthless bag.
*🚩
In Saskatchewan, junior resource explorers and entrepreneurs have been salivating over the province’s rich deposits of uranium, potash, and critical minerals for decades.
The problem is the rate at which the Sask Party government has stepped in, not as a regulator, but as a promoter of these publicly-traded companies.
Official Saskatchewan government news releases tout junior resource companies as economic saviors, promising wild benefits - even committing public dollars to their profitability - while glossing over their financial instability or lack of operational history.
Take the Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum, hosted by the Saskatchewan Mining Association and the Ministry of Trade and Export Development, meaning paid for with your tax dollars. It’s just one annual event in the province which showcases “advancements” in critical mineral and REE sector, with greasy little dumbfucks like Jeremy Harrison front and center. These photo-ops and endorsements signal to investors that Sask Party government is all-in, even when the companies involved aren’t credible or proven.
This isn’t just bad, it’s a recipe for securities fraud.
It’s also terrible for Saskatchewan’s reputation.
What else is new.
Without reforms, Saskatchewan is going to become a cautionary tale in this arena too; a place where government endorsements actually erode public trust.
Personally, I think you’re fucking insane if you invest a dollar in any company that relies on the Sask Party government for any form of credibility, viability or profitability.
And let’s be real clear: if any Saskatchewan Party elected official has ever had advance knowledge of information enabling them to offload publicly-traded stocks in junior mining companies during a price surge, it would constitute a textbook pump-and-dump scheme. In the real world that elected official would face severe ethical and legal implications.
The fallout would also damage the province’s reputation as a safe investment environment, repelling legitimate capital and stifling economic growth in the mining sector.
I want to believe the threat of devastating political ramifications would be a deterrent for Scott Moe’s Sask Party, but we already know it’s not. A scandal involving insider trading, painting the party as complicit in or negligent of corrupt practices, is just another day ending in Y around this backwater nightmare.
Government-backed promotions, like ribbon cuttings or glowing press releases, being coordinated to facilitate such schemes should cause outrage.
The Saskatchewan NDP Opposition should seize the opportunity to demand accountability, potentially forcing resignations or triggering a broader inquiry into government-industry ties.
None of that has happened. At this point, it never will.
Regardless, in the coming weeks I’ll still show you multiple examples of stocks that were pumped by the Saskatchewan government, as well as individuals including Scott Moe and Jeremy Harrison. I’ll show you examples of statements both men have made about TSX-traded companies that were demonstrably false. There will be charts clearly detailing how those stocks spiked prior to Sask Party announcements, then mysteriously plunged again.
Those stories will involve not just one but two former Canadian Prime Ministers.
You’ll read it and nobody will do a fucking thing. The Saskatchewan NDP might trot it out in three months, pretending they dreamt it up all on their own. I’ll remain unemployable and reputationally-ruined in this fucking shithole for doing nothing more than telling the truth about it.
But I’ll still write it, because that’s what I do.
I’ve been totally and brutally honest with my audience since day one. I’m telling you today I really, really hate writing about Saskatchewan. I fucking hate all of this so much - it’s been such a ridiculous waste of the last decade of my life, literally. I’d have been far better served to just dive into the NDP’s lazy entitlement, or the Sask Party’s corruption, like everyone else has done.
I cannot wait to leave this province again, which I’m doing again in a matter of weeks. This time, there will be no looking back.
But at least when Saskatchewan is relegated back to a federal territory, thanks to the fact nobody did anything while the Saskatchewan Party torched everything our great-grandparents and grandparents built around here, you can’t say you didn’t know it was coming.
You’re welcome.
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Thank you.