Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says his party moved cautiously on privatization, but hinted that a case for selling SaskTel remains.Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan from 2007 to 2018, partially privatized liquor sales and also sold shares for Information Services Corporation (ISC), the Crown that dealt with land titles in the province. Recently, Wall offered fresh musings about SaskTel while receiving honours in Regina from the Canadian Tayers Federation (CTF).“It's a well run company. Great women and men work at that company, but I think other than North Korea and Quebec, it's the only government-run…telephone company,” Wall said.“By definition, is it deprived of capital that could come in through a partnership or through some other ownership structure to do things like we want it to do, like improve connectivity and build up the network and have cell towers where we need them,” Wall continued.Wall made his comments in conversation with former radio host John Gormley at the Hotel Saskatchewan Oct. 16. The CTF presented Wall with its Tax Fighter Award for his opposition to carbon taxes.“I don't know what happens down the road, and I'm not going to saddle anybody with my opinion on that, because I respect those very much who are in a position to have to deal with these challenges,” Wall said..In conversation, Gormley recalled being a labour lawyer in Alberta when, to his delight, Ralph Klein privatized all liquor sales in 1993.“You disappointed me greatly that you didn’t do that. But the strategy you used, I thought, was brilliant,” Gormley told Wall. “If you ask a person under 40 years old today, ‘Do you think the government should own the liquor store?’ they look at you like you need your head examined,” Gormley added.In 2012, Wall announced that all new liquor stores would be privately operated. Ten years later, the Scott Moe government announced the provincial government would get out of the liquor retail business entirely by March 31, 2023.After ISC had its third-highest profits in history, the Wall government sold shares in the company in 2013. The province remains the company’s highest shareholder at 29 per cent. It also maintains a single Class B “golden share,” which provides veto rights over critical decisions, such as relocating the head office outside Saskatchewan or altering the company's core registry operations. This arrangement was reaffirmed in a strategic review last month.“ISC was a big success,” Wall said. During the fireside chat, the value of ISC was touted at $200 million. However, the market capitalization of ISC, reflecting the current total value of its outstanding shares, is $654 million..Wall recalled how his party lost the 2003 election under Elwin Hermanson’s leadership over fears of privatization. Later, the NDP government under Lorne Calvert called for a standing vote where each MLA was called to affirm that certain crowns would never be privatized without a provincial referendum.“We stood up in our place and voted for it. Was it the best policy? I don't know. Saying never is a dangerous thing,” Wall said. “But we knew that we would never get the bigger change…that we thought we might be able to bring to the province, unless we stood up.”Wall said Saskatchewan had more “religion” about keeping the Crowns than it did about government health care. In 2010, his government contracted out surgeries where there was a high wait list. It also introduced an arrangement where people could buy a private MRI, but in return the provider had to offer one to the public system.By 2014, when the initiative formally ended, the number of patients waiting for surgery more than three months had dropped by 87 per cent.“Our wait list went from the longest in the country to I think the second- shortest, or the shortest,” Wall recalled.Wall claimed the Trudeau government that arrived in 2015 was opposed to an increased role for the private sector, despite this success.“We were trying to shorten waitlists, something that Trudeau talked about all the time,” Wall recalled, “And the upshot of it all was, ‘Well, if you keep doing it, we're going to cut your funding.’”
