Premier Brad Wall Accidentally Asks Very Pertinent Question

By on March 22, 2012 in Film, Politics, Uncategorized


Good point:

Companies receive a credit for base payments against profit tax. The base payment credit is:
Base Payment Tax Rate ($11.00 to $12.33) x (sales for which the producer is paying both Base Payment and Profit Tax) – 50% of Crown and Freehold Royalties + Excess Deductions from the Base Payment Calculation.

About John Cameron

John Cameron is a freelance journalist and occasional writer from Regina, Saskatchewan. He was the editor-in-chief of the Carillon, the University of Regina student newspaper, from 2010 to 2012. You can find more of his work in the Trash folder of several prominent national magazine editors' inboxes.
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19 Responses to Premier Brad Wall Accidentally Asks Very Pertinent Question

  1. JB March 22, 2012 at 5:32 pm #

    If it brings millions more into the province’s economy than the original spend, employs hundreds of people, allows us to have a thriving cultural community, and will otherwise “survive” in another province and give them those benefits instead of us? Then… yes?

  2. Talbot Fresh, Jr. March 22, 2012 at 7:03 pm #

    This only makes sense if you defend it from the alter of pure economic development, which is only one way to frame it but the way the governing party has used.

    I don’t know what the total spinoffs are, but I know in the end it doesn’t cost the government anything, and it creates culture and other things of value, and keeps people here in the “New Saskatchewan”, so what’s the problem? It doesn’t fit into the framework of Sask Party “economic development”? Fuck that. Get a life. People gotta stop going with the narrow-minded talking point flow of lame political parties.

  3. anonymous March 22, 2012 at 7:03 pm #

    Doesn’t STC receive a permanent subsidy? What about farmers? This comment opens quite a few doors!

  4. Talbot Fresh, Jr. March 22, 2012 at 7:12 pm #

    @4, yes, but many rural businesses and seniors rely on STC for cheap, subsidized shipping/transportation, and film takes place almost entirely in the city, so it’s highly-political, though I’m sure they’d like to kill STC but it’s too valuable to rural businesses.

  5. Emmet Matheson March 22, 2012 at 9:38 pm #

    It would be (marginally) easier to take if these dudes would just stand up and say, “Hi, my name is Brad and I hate unions and movies and movies about unions.” Instead they sneer behind some pretty specious claims of sustainability and transparency and just look like smug little schoolboys who’ve found a loophole out of doing what’s right.

  6. Ron March 23, 2012 at 12:03 am #

    So Brad, if I collect a GST/PST cheque, am I getting a subsidy?
    I live in a city that has an oil refinery, why do I pay $1.219 for a litre of reg gas? Who the Fuck am I susidizing?

    ****GasBuddy as of today,a few selections :
    Winnipeg 1.10 / Fredericton 126.9 / 3.41(1 US gal) Utah .

    At the Sk price, we pay 4.60 for 1 US gal, while the USA average is 3.70

    A kick at old school;
    1 gal Imperial measure $5.53

    still here Brad..****

    The CO-OP? Syncrude? Or wherefnever your retirement pension ( & all your on the job perks you get now,(paid for any food lately?)), comes from I guess. LOL

  7. Ron March 23, 2012 at 12:25 am #

    #4 TFjr
    I think you may be mistaken.
    CBC’s “The Englishman’s Boy” , & Terry Gilliams Tideland,( a great watch ),were filmed mostly in a field somewhere outta town.

    You know, the same place where the production co.’s bought their fuel,food and lodging, not helping the local economy at all.

  8. Talbot Fresh, Jr. March 23, 2012 at 6:14 am #

    @7 – You are correct, sir. Tho I did not say “all” was filmed in the city or at the sound stage. I hope peoples’ eyes do not deceived them to make them think that’s what I wrote.

  9. Baby with a Blowtorch March 23, 2012 at 9:08 am #

    Heard Murray Mandryk this morning on CBC Radio point out how much of a subsidy the potash industry gets from the province. Something like $100k for every office job brought into SK and $25k for the jobs already in SK.

  10. JB March 23, 2012 at 11:33 am #

    Though many production companies and film-related businesses are in the cities, here’s a map of Saskatchewan that shows pretty clearly that rural Saskatchewan has a stake in this as well. That map only shows SCN-related productions, so it doesn’t include any Hollywood stuff, or Corner Gas, or other productions that have done business in rural Saskatchewan.

  11. JB March 23, 2012 at 11:34 am #

    Dang my html. Here’s the map: http://www.scnmatters.ca/smile/

  12. JRB March 23, 2012 at 11:54 am #

    Is he talking about power and energy?

  13. Talbot Fresh, Jr. March 23, 2012 at 12:06 pm #

    Yeah man, doesn’t the Sask Party know a crew spent $12.71 on chips and soda at the St. Walburg co-op store in the making of 15 Mins of Fame?

    Point is, I guess, besides loss of industry and economic spinoffs, the SP killed off an entire rural story-telling industry. Though it just goes to show that they do not care about little stories from the areas where they are strongest. All they get boners for now are multi-billion-dollar-generating transnational resource industries. Seriously, to them, “Telling Stories” is so ‘Old Saskatchewan”.

  14. Steve (not Whitworth or LaRose) March 23, 2012 at 12:39 pm #

    The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)sums it up nicely in this article:

    http://www.behindthenumbers.ca/2012/03/23/brad-walls-wonderful-world-of-laissez-faire/

  15. anonymous March 23, 2012 at 3:59 pm #

    JB #11 – I tried the http://www.scnmatters.ca/smile/ and
    http://www.scnmatters.ca
    All I get is “The server at http://www.scnmatters.ca is taking too long to respond.”

    Website appears to be down?

    Guess SCN no longer matters….pardon the pun.

  16. anonymous March 24, 2012 at 12:53 pm #

    In regards to #14…
    Interesting how this article fails to mention that most of the lowered Oil/Natural Gas and Potash royalty rates were originally done by Lorne Calvert and the NDP.

  17. anonymous March 25, 2012 at 1:33 am #

    @15 I guess it’s interesting in that it shows the SP has been coasting on high royalties from Potash and Oil, royalty rates having been set by the NDP. They like to take credit for the “booming” economy, but basically the groundwork was laid by the NDP, the SP hasn’t changed anything in that regard.

    The destruction of the film industry in Saskatchewan was a bone thrown to the rabble to show that the SP are indeed keeping a keen eye on “wasteful” spending. The SP have no plan, no vision for the province, and in their struggle to just maintain their cred as conservatives they’ve thrown the film industry under the bus.

    What I’m really curious about is why they made SK Tourism a Crown Corporation. At least I think they did. Aren’t they ideologically opposed to Crown Corporations? Aren’t Crown Corporations a blight on the free market? I can’t tell if they hate SK Tourism and are pulling it closer to destroy it, or love it and are going to manage it… to destroy it.

    Bottom line though, a conservative government awash in money is a difficult thing to watch. Where, and better yet why make cuts? Then again the SP isn’t conservative, I don’t know what they are.

  18. anonymous March 25, 2012 at 4:17 pm #

    @16. Yes, the SP can claim credit and rightfully so. While the SP can thank Lorne Calvert and the NDP for finally making initiative changes against backwards NDP ideology and policy that only hindered the Sask economy for so many years, they failed to convince the voters in 2007 that they were the ones to lead this province and growing economy. Good ol’D Link and NDP in the 2011 election only showed just how out of touch they were for a growing Sask economy when D Link shot off his mouth about raising Potash Royalty rates.

    Yes, you are right. Sask Tourism will become a crown corp again this year.

    http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/local/sk/tourism_saskatchewan_to_become_crown_corporation/48d1ec4a

    Brad Wall has publicly stated he won’t touch the crowns. He knows they are a political bomb if he sells any of them.

    Me thinks Brad Wall’s tweet is more of a survey than anything.

  19. anonymous March 28, 2012 at 12:23 am #

    @17 So to follow your argument to its conclusion, when the NDP finally puts some policy in place that gets the economy rolling again, we vote SP and they get to take credit for it. When there’s a down turn or some mega projects go tragically wrong, we vote NDP again, they work at getting things back on track, we get comfortable, vote SP… rinse, repeat. Is that about right?

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