Regina, Saskatchewan, for immediate release: – The Green Party of Saskatchewan (GPS) likes the Wall Government’s decision to propose a Heritage Fund for the province. “This is long overdue for Saskatchewan” says Victor Lau, Leader of the GPS. “It is wasteful to take the revenue of non-renewable resources and use it for day- to-day government operations,” says Lau. “Windfalls from Potash and Oil should be put in the Heritage Fund after our accumulated debt is eliminated.”
Lau says there also needs to be a formula created for determining the royalty rates of natural resources in Saskatchewan. This formula needs to take interest rates and the inflation rate into consideration. “It is irresponsible to say that Saskatchewan will never change its current royalty rate structure,” says Lau, “but it is equally irresponsible to suggest that royalty rates need to change without explaining how the structure should be changed. Any change to natural resource royalty rates needs to strike a balance between creating an environment for entrepreneurship and having enough resources to meet the social needs of Saskatchewan people.”
Lau suggests that as the inflation rate rises in Saskatchewan, that natural resource royalty rates increase by certain amount, and then remain locked in. And as interest rates in Canada fall, Lau says that our province’s royalty rates should be set to increase. “As resource extraction increases in Saskatchewan,” says Lau, “taxpayers should enjoy a greater share of the wealth that is coming out of our soil.”
