Playing politics with Station 20 West

On Mar. 26, when he confirmed that the Saskatchewan Party government would not honour a previous funding commitment made by the former NDP government of $8 million for the Station 20 West mixed-use development in Saskatoon, Finance Minster Rod Gantefoer said when his new government took a look at the project, “there were a number of problems.”

He managed to cite only one, though, and it turned out to be completely wrong.

Gantefoer said fundraising from private donors was supposed to contribute between $12 million and $14 million toward the total cost, but he was told only about $75,000 had been collected – raising concerns about whether the province would end up on the hook for a shortfall. [Core project in limbo; Sask. Party pulls $8M from centre on 20th Street (StarPhoenix, Mar. 27, 2008)]

At a press conference on Mar. 27, Station 20 West project manager Paul Wilkinson said organizers needed to raise about $3.5 million on their own, and had already received commitments worth about $1 million. They knew they would be able to obtain a mortgage to cover a further $1 million, and felt confident a public fundraising campaign could net the remaining $1.5 million within the next few months, Wilkinson said.

“We have a large number of very significant partners in this project.”

Gantefoer’s office confirmed he’d been mistaken about the numbers. [20th Street ‘mall’ not a priority: gov’t (StarPhoenix, Mar. 28, 2008)]

Gantefoer has not said what the other problems were.

In the same StarPhoenix article Premier Brad Wall gave a different explanation for his government’s despicable attack on Saskatoon’s poorest neighbourhood, one that appears to be closer to the real reason for the decision — ideology.

Wall said the concept of the project was “problematic” for the Saskatchewan Party, that it was essentially a “mall development.”

“We ought not to be in the mall business and it’s just, it’s a different approach. We don’t think that the government of Saskatchewan should be opening up basically a mall development, where we’d be competing with grocery stores, competing with others who are already renting (facility space) now to community clinics in the area.”

Wall failed to mention, however, that there hasn’t been a full line grocery store in the area for over ten years and that there are no developers planning to build one any time soon. Many low income residents are forced to travel a considerable distance to get food and other necessities.

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