Premier Brad Wall announced over social media that the province will be repealing Bill 40 during Wednesday’s throne speech which would have allowed for minority sales or partnerships with Crown corporations.
In April, the province passed the bill which defines the term ‘privatization’ and allows for up to 49 per cent of a Crown corporation to be sold.
READ MORE: Sask. government passes Bill 40, allows for up to 49 per cent sale of Crown corporations
The announcement of the repeal surprised many including Jim Farney, associate professor of politics and international studies at the University of Regina.
“It’s part of a mystery of the last six or eight weeks. The government has been walking back a lot of its core commitments in the budget. And if you think about it politically, they took a huge amount of heat,” Farney said.
“There are folks not running in the leadership race because of how the budget story played out. Now it seems they’re willing to walk back a lot of the controversial stuff that they did and this bill was really the centrepiece of it.”
Farney also said that with only a few months left in his leadership and not having anointed an heir apparent, it would be expected that Wall would be doubling down and trying to get the things done that he couldn’t do before.
“Mr. Wall is a pretty free market guy, so saying that he’s going to make it harder to sell the Crowns is surprising.”
Wall posted the video on Tuesday afternoon, saying he and his MLAs have heard directly from the people who do not agree with that definition and believe that any sale or any stake or any part of a crown corporation is privatization. He’s heard a sale would counter an important promise they have made in three separate election campaigns.
Later in the video, Wall added that tomorrow during the throne speech the government will be repealing Bill 40 and no portion of the crown corporations will be privatized.
The throne speech will take place on Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m.