Source: Press Release, Regina Association for Bureaucratic Accountability, September 21, 2018
With the July 25, 2018 announcement by the Saskatchewan RCMP Federal Criminal Operations Division that no charges will be laid in the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) Land Scandal investigations we have reached an all-time low point in the history of democracy and human rights in Saskatchewan.
From our well-researched perspective, it appears the RCMP are attempting to whitewash the (alleged) criminal actions at the blackened core of the GTH land transactions, which seemed to have been driven by a fraudulent series of land buying and selling (and overnight flipping) schemes that ultimately filled the pockets of private sector friends of the provincial government with $11 Million Dollars of taxpayer monies. And based on the RCMP’s no- charges-will-be-laid decision, apparently there is nothing at all wrong with any of those proceedings.
We absolutely believe that at least a handful of our provincial government leaders
have shamefully violated their own Code of Ethical Conduct For Members of the
Legislative Assembly: “Declaration of Principles: Members of this assembly must carry
out their official duties and arrange their private financial affairs in a manner that
protects the public interest and enhances public confidence and trust in the
government and in the highest standard of ethical conduct in public office. Members
of this assembly must act not only lawfully but also in a manner that will withstand the
closest public scrutiny; neither the law nor this code is designed to be exhaustive and
there will be occasions in which members will find it necessary to adopt more stringent
norms of conduct in order to protect the public interest and to enhance public
interest and trust. Each member is individually responsible for preventing potential and
actual conflicts of interests and must arrange private financial affairs in a manner that
prevents such conflicts from arising.”
Here are the facts: Bill Boyd was the minister responsible for the GTH in early 2012 when
Robert Tappauf (an Alberta land baron who rents farmland to Boyd at Kindersley,
Saskatchewan) made an offer to purchase a total of 204 acres of land from two
property owners, who were situated between the GTH and the West Regina Bypass.
The day after his purchase was finalized in early 2013 Mr. Tappauf earned himself a
rather excessive net profit of $6 million dollars when he sold (aka flipped) that plot of
land to Anthony Marquart (another Sask. Party-friendly developer/speculator). And
that sale was never registered with Land Titles Registry. Then, in late February of 2014 Mr. Marquart sold those 204 acres to the provincial government. And when then-
Premier Brad Wall signed an Order In Counsel on February 27, 2014 to pay him $21.1
Million Dollars (for about four times as much land than was required at a rate that was
about twenty times more per acre than what others in the area were being paid), Mr Marquart also earned himself an outrageous net profit of $5 million dollars on that oh-
so-shady land speculation deal.
So, evidently the RCMP were also okay with Mr. Marquart’s dealings, which also must
not have reached their “threshold to execute any search warrants” because the
documents they deemed necessary for their investigative work “were freely provided
to investigators by the holding parties.” Perhaps if the RCMP had executed search
warrants to obtain more revealing financial documents held by Mr. Boyd and Mr.
Tappauf they may have discovered a number of incriminating transactions that we
are certain went down between those two gentlemen. And if the RCMP would have
dug just a little bit deeper into the dirt and overturned just a few more suspicious
looking stones they very likely would have uncovered an incredibly well-concocted
get-rich-quick scheme between Messrs. Boyd, Tappauf and Marquart, a provincial
government senior advisor and chief of staff and a few GTH officials and
administrators.
Regrettably, the RCMP has closed their West Regina Bypass/GTH land dealings case
file; and they also won’t be disclosing the science behind their investigations. But we
have no doubt whatsoever that far greater economic wrongdoings were committed
on the eastern edges of our city where two major Private Enterprise Developers
purchased 640 acres of land along Tower Road after the Regina Bypass routing was
already approved to go north and south around the city at Tower Road.
Closed-door meetings–attended by a handful of preferred developers as well as
provincial, municipal and rural governmental officials—were conducted from May 6th
to 9th of 2013. A month after those secret sessions were concluded a proposal to
redraw the blueprints so that a vital interchange of the East Regina Bypass could be
relocated 400 metres east of Tower Road was introduced at the first Public Open
Forum. Then, a few months later, the government managed to push through and
approve a brand new, developer preferred plan, to construct an outdated, seriously
flawed, dysfunctional, unsafe, developer influenced, dead end $2 Billion Dollar Regina
Bypass (partly located within city limits) that will only reroute 15% of the heavy truck
traffic around the city. And it is so barefaced obvious which major corporate raiders
(and loyal Sask. Party supporters) were the primary beneficiaries of this sudden
change (and shift) of plans. And to date, the RCMP has never seriously considered
investigating any of the brazen (and very likely criminal) land acquisition transactions
and interchange repositioning activities that occured at and around Tower Road.
Long Lake Investments (LLI) purchased approximately 500 acres of land adjacent to
Tower Road in 2012. Primarily owned by Mr. Murad Al-Katib, LLI purchased that tract of
land for $12,125 per acre. In 2011 and 2012 Mr. Al-Katib was a director of the Regina
Regional Opportunities Commission. And since 2013 he has served as the chairperson
of that organization (now known as Economic Development Regina Inc.). And a few years before that he was working for STEP (Saskatchewan Trade & Export Partnership)–
an agency that is privy to information regarding proposed provincial and municipal
public works projects.
LLI’s 500 acres had been categorized as non-serviceable, and wouldn’t be annexed
to the City of Regina for the “foreseeable future,” or not for at least 25 years. However,
shortly after LLI purchased those 500 acres, not only did the city change its mind
regarding serviceability, it also annexed this parcel of land–an extremely fortunate
(and lucrative) turn of events for a private sector company that just so happens to be
blessed with deep-rooted connections to the City of Regina and the government of
Saskatchewan.
LLI essentially struck gold when that very fortuitous decision was made in mid 2013 to
construct that critical Highway No.1 Southeast Regina Bypass interchange 400 metres
east of Tower Road–and right down the centre of its newly acquired land. LLI was
able to sell the provincial government 128 of their 500 acres (which had cost LLI
$12,125 per acre) for $76,586 per acre, earning them a rather exorbitant net profit of
$8.2 million dollars. And LLI still has about 380 acres in its back pocket. And because its
Commercial Development Plan has already been approved for a CN Rail intermodal
service alongside their railroad tracks–and because the provincial government built
(with public funds) this private sector company a fabulous new service road–LLI is
poised to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars of additional profits from a chunk of
land that only six years ago was deemed to be non-serviceable and of only modest
cash value. We feel this is an egregious example of conflict of interest–a blatant case
of “insider trading!”
Another instance of “insider trading” may have transpired in 2012 when Forster
Projects/Harvard Developments Inc. (also longtime Saskatchewan Party allies)
purchased 141 acres of land just south of Tower Road and Trans-Canada Highway
No.1 East for its planned Aurora Mall retail complex. The former owner of that parcel of
land, Gulf Flying J, had tried for years to obtain a development permit to build a truck
stop there; but they were also told it would likely be at least 25 years before this land
would be serviced and annexed to the City of Regina. However, in a repeat
performance of LLI’s “good fortune,” only a few short months later the city annexed
these acres as well.
Forster Projects/Harvard Developments Inc. essentially hit its own vein of gold when
that incredibly lucky and timely 400-metres-east-of-Tower-Road decision was made. If
the earlier approved routing plan had been followed they would have lost over 60
acres of their 141-acre parcel–which would have severely hampered (or maybe even
scuttled) their plans to build the retail complex. Ultimately, these corporate friends of
the provincial government lost only 0.54 acres, and their gold-digger plans for a mega
mall are still marching along.
The land scandals East of Regina most definitely did not end there. Along Highway
No.48 and Highway No.1, Mauri Gwyn, another developer (and another Sask. Party
supporter), needed land to build an easement and a fence between their property and the East Regina Bypass. In 2011 the Ministry of Highways sold them 7.4 acres for
exactly $20,000 per acre. Three years later, the provincial government repurchased
2.44 of those acres from Gwyn. And they paid Gwyn exactly $400,000 per acre!!
On the other side of the tracks, thousands of good people have been brutally
impacted!! They have lost their land, homes, businesses, ball park, access roads, life’s
work, health, history and future. People along Tower Road, who were never properly
consulted, were literally bulldozed through by the government’s relentless
expropriators. At least half a dozen people in the vicinity of Tower Road are now
battling terminal illnesses; and the extreme stresses they’ve been subjected to have
obviously greatly contributed to their dire circumstances. Heinous examples of
Highway Robbery!!
One home and business owner in close proximity to Tower Road—who had lived and
worked on his property for over 45 years–was approached by the governmental land
grabbers on a Friday with an offer that was half of what it would have cost him to
relocate his home and business. And then he was harshly told that he had until
Monday to accept their unfair offer, and that if he didn’t his land would be
expropriated and he would have to fight in court for fairer compensation. This quiet,
unassuming man was battling prostate cancer at that time and therefore saw no
other option than to give in and sign a confidentiality agreement stating that he could
not disclose his monetary compensation.
The provincial government’s corporate confidantes are realizing tremendous financial
windfalls from their recent land acquisitions along the Regina Bypass’s repositioned
routes; while longtime landowners in those very same areas have been paid far less for
their lost properties and possessions and have also been forced to sign confidentiality
agreements so they won’t speak of their miserly cash compensations. Such appalling
cases of favoritism and preferential treatment!!
Then, to make matters even more exasperating, the government awarded the
general construction contract to Vinci, a company from France that is embroiled in
scandals all across Europe–scandals such as human rights violations and money
laundering and kickback activities. And Vinci has even been linked to a number of
notorious interactions with Russia’s President Putin and his government. So many good
construction jobs and contracts could have been created for deserving (and
experienced) Saskatchewan road and bridge building companies. Very few of these
Saskatchewan companies (many of which have helped to build this province) have
received any work from the Regina Bypass, the largest infrastructure project in
Saskatchewan’s history. Sadly, a number of these companies have had to layoff
workers; and some have even gone out of business.
The inability of our law enforcement agencies (who are paid with taxpayer funds) to
recognize and properly interpret so many red flags and smoking guns should be of
great concern to every taxpaying citizen in Saskatchewan. In the latter half of the
19th century, when our province was still contained within the boundaries of the
Northwest Territories, it must have been relatively easy for corrupt territorial administrators and their closest robber baron friends to demand (i.e. extort) excessive amounts of monies from the local common folk because North-West Mounted Police officers were far too overextended at that period in time.
However, in the last decade of the 20th century Saskatchewan judicial and law
enforcement authorities charged, tried and convicted 14 of former Premier Grant
Devine’s Progressive Conservative MLAs (and two caucus workers) of fraud and
breach of trust for illegally diverting just under a million dollars from government
allowances into a phony expense-claim scam. And we feel it’s appropriate to note
that Grant Devine’s political team in the early 1990s included MLA Bill Boyd and
ministerial assistant Brad Wall; and those two gentlemen just had to have learned a
few tricks of their trade during those formative years.
Now we have entered the 21st century, an era when multiple checks and balances
and regulatory agencies and watchdog groups are supposedly in place to ensure
that taxpayer funds will never be unlawfully, unethically or immorally squandered
and/or misappropriated. But how could such seemingly illegal and indictable Regina
Bypass dealings between certain rogue political players and their private enterprise
co-conspirators not have been uncovered by our Saskatchewan RCMP (one of our
last lines of defence against public and private sector marauders)?
Our group, the Regina Committee for an Alternative Bypass Solution/Why Tower Road,
has logged well over 20,000 hours in our determined effort to expose all the sordid facts of what we believe are the most serious governmental land scandals and cover- ups in the 113-year history of our resilient province. We are in the process of writing a book, Highway Robbery: The Regina Bypass Land Scandal, that will tell the tragic story
of how our province was economically crippled; and how all levels of our politicians
were most likely responsible for the carnage; and how all levels of law enforcement most likely turned a blind eye on such blatant and unprecedented acts of public-
private sector fraud, collusion, conflict of interest and conspiracy.
The taxpayers of Saskatchewan need to know the concerning details regarding how our human rights have been so maliciously violated and how our democracy has been so deliberately compromised. The provincial 2017-18 slash-and-burn budget cut government services, sold off Crowns, reduced wages and imposed a 6% PST tax that has significantly
hobbled our construction and service industries. The massive overspending on the
misguided and ill-advised Regina Bypass has driven our province into a recession that
will take many, many years to fully recover from.
We are calling on concerned people who live, work and pay taxes here in Saskatchewan to rally together to help rein in and expose those conniving politicians and their insatiably greedy corporate sector bosses who appear to have helped themselves to vast sums of our public funds. Even if many taxpayers believe it is far too late to ever recoup even some of their wasted dollars, it is absolutely critical for us to band together to ensure that such detestable actions by our elected public servants will never, ever reoccur.
On October 24 our provincial politicians will be back in session. And on that day there
needs to be a mass demonstration in front of the Legislature with people demanding
openness, accountability and full disclosure so that all the shady and suspicious
aspects of the Regina Bypass–the grandest political scandal in Saskatchewan’s
history—will finally be dragged into a very bright light. We need help from everyone in
our province, including all the labour union administrators and their memberships, to
rally as many people as possible to this defining event. We are hoping every
Saskatchewan taxpayer will receive this letter so that they will be aware of even some
of the disturbing details of what is happening to our province—details our ruling
government has been so desperately trying to keep buried and hidden away from
public attention and scrutiny. We need to broaden and amplify the calls for an intensive Judicial Public Inquiry, an extensive Forensic Audit and a deeper and more objective RCMP Economic Crimes Division investigation. We need to put Saskatchewan on the road to fiscal recovery and we need to forever rid our province of unscrupulous public and private sector Highway Robbers.
A closing quote from English philosopher, jurist and social reformer, Jeremy Bentham
(b. February 15, 1748 – d. June 6, 1832): “Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy,
ought never to be the system of a regular government.”
