Municipal councillors donated to Saskatchewan Party using taxpayer funds to gain access to premier, other provincial politicians
CTV
Multiple municipalities, including the City of Regina, have donated tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to Saskatchewan’s political parties in the past few years, a joint investigation between CTV Regina and the Investigative Journalism Foundation has revealed.
This story is a joint investigation between CTV Regina reporter Donovan Maess and Investigative Journalism Foundation reporter Kate Schneider.
Multiple municipalities, including the City of Regina, have donated tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to Saskatchewan’s political parties in the past few years, a joint investigation between CTV Regina and the Investigative Journalism Foundation has revealed.
The donations were made by top municipal officials, such as the mayor of Regina, purchasing tickets to party fundraising events that offered access to top provincial politicians, such as the premier. Nearly all of the donations were made to the governing Saskatchewan Party.
Saskatchewan is one of the few remaining provinces in Canada to allow corporations, including municipalities, to donate to provincial parties. Its minimal restrictions on who can donate and how much have led the province to be deemed the “wild west” of election finance by academic experts and media alike.
“It’s unethical and undemocratic for them to be using taxpayers’ money in this way and it should be prohibited,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of government accountability non-profit Democracy Watch.
Daniel Westlake, assistant professor of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan, agreed that these donations were “probably not good practice.”
“The danger is you taking money that taxpayers expect to be sent on the city and city services and it ends up flowing to a particular party,” said Westlake. “You want to be very careful about the way the public funds get sent to parties or get used for this kind of stuff because it is, in principle, problematic.”
