Corporate Welfare Name Change?

REGINA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on the provincial government to scrap plans to implement its new corporate welfare program, Innovation Saskatchewan. The program would allocate $25 million each year towards Saskatchewan companies making commercial enterprises from new technologies.

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“This is corporate welfare, plain and simple,” said CTF Saskatchewan Director Lee Harding. “This is little more than slapping a new coat of paint on an old corporate welfare program.” A year ago, the province announced it would end the Investment Saskatchewan corporate welfare program by buying-out the contract with Victoria Park Capital that required the government to spend $25 million per year on provincial companies. “It is ridiculous that the province would spend extra money to buy out a contract that ended one corporate welfare scheme only to create a similar one with the same financial commitment as the one that it ended,” Harding said. In a CanWest article, Minister of Innovation Bill Boyd stated, “You have to look at whether the government wants to be -- we have concerns about being in business but we also want to have an innovation agenda.” “The Wall government is right to be concerned about meddling in the free-market,” Harding said. “This program would be a step backward and it should be scrapped before it even starts.”

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