Letter to the Editor #1
Submitted by Nestor Mryglod
I was intrigued by the recent Leader Post article titled “Manitoba prosecutors conclude GTH investigation.” And I now have renewed hope that maybe, just maybe, the long arm of the law and the scales of the justice system may soon come crashing down around those Sask government officials who seemed to believe their favorite private sector friends were entitled to line their big pockets with many millions of our taxpayer dollars.
Perhaps the “two businessmen connected to the Saskatchewan Party” felt their land speculating, buying, flipping and profiteering services would help to lighten the Ministry of Highways’ work load when additional acres on the southwest fringes of Regina needed to be grabbed up once again from McNally Enterprises and an order of Catholic nuns. After all, back then the Highways’ land snatchers were working overtime to convince (under threat of expropriation) many other longtime property owners that they should accept the government’s miserly cash offerings because their homes, businesses and life’s work needed to be demolished so that the incredibly dysfunctional and scandalously expensive Regina Bypass could be unleashed upon the unsuspecting public before the public realized what was going on.
Letter to the Editor #2
Submitted by Ross Sherman
The Leader Post’s “Manitoba prosecutors conclude GTH investigation” article nicely updated the utterly confounding (and most likely criminal) land dealings that went down several years ago between political and private sector players in the vicinity of the Global Transportation Hub. And those bizarre circumstances obviously raised enough red flags to catch the attention of RCMP inspectors and Manitoba Justice prosecutors. However, just over a year ago a local group (that is strongly opposed to every aspect of the Regina Bypass project) entrusted me with their binders containing information they had unearthed regarding the bypass’s highly suspicious planning, re-planning, land procuring and construction phases. Once I had poured over their eye-opening pages it seemed blatantly evident to me that other influential business associates of our provincial government were able to redirect a critical section of the east bypass and twist
it into tremendous cash generating ventures for their respective corporate entities.
Those corporate raiders purchased tracts of land in close proximity to Tower Road in 2012. Then in May of 2013, it appears they–along with select municipal and provincial government stakeholders–participated in a series of closed-door meetings. And those secretive gatherings seemed to be the breeding grounds (i.e. ground zero) that spawned the Sask Party’s fateful (i.e. infamous) decision to reposition that critical section of the bypass from along Tower Road to 400 metres east of Tower Road. That abrupt decision sent out very powerful seismic shock waves. The impact of that fateful decision has already “gifted” the provincial government’s enterprising business friends with tens of millions of dollars–primarily because their recently acquired land holdings ended up being perfectly positioned for a mega mall development and for the opportunities to resell portions of their land to the government (at outrageously inflated prices, of course). But for too many others, the impact was absolutely devastating, primarily because their long-held land holdings ended up in the (repositioned) pathways of the East Regina Bypass; and therefore fair game for the Ministry of Highway’s land procurers to either expropriate or purchase their properties (at outrageously undervalued prices, of course).
In my opinion, if the Eastside Schemers are not questioned and investigated–by the appropriate legal and law enforcement authorities–the legacy of our great province will be forever sullied by what appears to be the most egregious incidents of misappropriations of taxpayer funds in the history of Saskatchewan.
