Tank: Two main Sask. parties remain mum on potash royalties

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In less than a week, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck promised to suspend the gas tax for six months and also spend $500 million more a year on education.

Last month at her campaign launch, Beck also signed a pledge that an NDP government will not raise taxes.

Her dubious plan to pay for a temporary tax cut and $2 billion more on education over a four-year term amounts to “betting on this province” by expanding the economy and cutting wasteful spending.

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Opposition politicians can always find relatively small examples of spending that stoke taxpayers’ rage, but the gas tax is worth more than $500 million a year.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation suggested in a recent opinion piece that money could be saved by reducing “corporate welfare,” which averages about $900 million a year under the current government and produces little benefit, according to the right-wing Fraser Institute.

Why Beck failed to echo this sentiment, since nobody likes handouts to corporations, can likely be traced to the fear the NDP harbours of being seen as anti-business.

And Beck ruled out entirely another source of revenue, pointing to her promise on taxes, by pledging to refrain from tinkering with the potash royalty revenue stream.

Former Saskatchewan NDP finance minister and resources minister Eric Cline has written a compelling book called “Squandered: Canada’s Potash Legacy,” asserting that billions of dollars in potential government revenue have been lost due to the province receiving an inadequate return for its most valuable natural resource.

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Beck’s predecessor as leader, Ryan Meili, supported a review of potash royalties. Yet Meili’s disappointing performance and departure as NDP leader likely makes Beck hesitant to repeat any of his policy ideas, even though such a review makes ample sense.

Beck has obviously rejected a wealth tax, which formed a central part of Meili’s unsuccessful 2020 election platform.

Plus, targeting a significant industry in Saskatchewan — although the 6,000 or so potash employees make up only about one per cent of the province’s workforce — could reinforce the stereotype of the NDP as unfriendly to business.

Yet the upstart right-wing Saskatchewan United Party is brazenly promising to hike potash royalties in order to help cut the six per cent provincial sales tax in half.

You can question the populist party’s math, but the newcomers make an argument similar to that of Cline and other fiscally conservative economists — that the province’s people are failing to get a fair return on its most critical resource.

Meanwhile, the potash industry repeatedly touts its “green” credentials with environmental initiatives, but maybe the older meaning of green — as in money — reveals why its royalty regime goes untouched.

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Nutrien, the Saskatoon-based largest producer of potash in the world, donated $21,800 to the Saskatchewan Party from 2018 to 2022, including $8,000 in 2022 alone. Conversely, Nutrien gave a token $465.20 to the NDP in 2018. That’s about two per cent of the amount given to the governing party.

So you might understand why Premier Scott Moe seems content with potash royalties as they are.

But you might wonder why Beck rejects changes — especially since an extra source of revenue would bolster belief in her tax-cutting and spending promises. She could also boast that she’s standing up for Saskatchewan’s people.

However, Beck’s NDP also receives substantial donations from potash companies, including $39,030.74 from 2016 to 2022 from the Mosaic Company, which is based in Tampa, Fla. That’s a little over half of the $74,200 Mosaic gave to Moe’s party over the same period.

Yet that amount for the NDP is far more significant considering that last year Beck’s party raised only $56,156.21 from corporations, less than five per cent of its total $1.4 million. Moe’s party raised $1.2 million last year from corporations alone.

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Beck is probably hoping for more corporate money than her left-leaning party has recently received, since this year’s election is expected to be the most competitive since 2007.

Even the government is acknowledging a close race, and that’s why we’re unlikely to hear much about potash royalties from either of the two main parties, despite the undeniable case for reform.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

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