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After ISC announced it would be part of a deal to sell all its shares to a Quebec company – including the shares owned by the provincial government – the Sask. NDP is speaking out, saying the sale will be bad for Saskatchewan people and the province’s bottom line.
On Tuesday, former Crown Corporation, Information Services Corporation (ISC), announced it was entering into an agreement to be bought by Plenary Americas LP, which is owned by La Caisse, a Quebec public pension fund manager.
The deal includes the nearly-30 per cent of shares owned by the provincial government, leftover from when the company was taken public in 2013.
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This spring, the government passed legislation which made this sale possible, removing the requirement for government to own at least 15 per cent of ISC.
Aleana Young, the Sask. NDP’s critic for Crown Investment Corporation, which held the ISC shares, had been sounding the alarm for weeks on the legislation and now on the sale of the company.
ISC operates public registries around land titles, businesses and some government technology platforms. When a person in the province buys or sells a house, has to do other work with land titles or registers a business, they go through ISC.
Young said ISC has a 30-year contract to do that work for the government which began in 2023, and now the provincial government is supporting a move to sell that monopoly to a private, out-of-province company. She called it a terrible idea.
“This is a company that is not going to be publicly traded, they’re not going to have reporting to shareholders, there’s going to be no obligation on this company to disclose to anyone publicly if they’re interested in selling ISC again,” explained Young on May 5.
Young said there’s been no evidence that there’s anything to prevent the company from selling to another foreign-owned company, which she said is concerning when it comes to farmland transactions.
She said the deal involved having the data “domiciled” in Saskatchewan, but said there’s no evidence to suggest there’s anything to stop people’s data from being commercialized, sold or combined with other data sets.
“What you can do with that data, that’s where the opportunities for growth are and I think that should be incredibly concerning,” Young said.
She is also worried about potential fee hikes for land title changes, saying a private company only has to be concerned about profits.
“There’s a reason these things are publicly owned; there’s a reason that the public interest should stay at the forefront.”
During committee, Kent Cambell, president of Crown Investments Corporation, did say fees charged under the master services agreement with Saskatchewan are contractually committed to and aren’t expected to change.
The Globe & Mail has been reporting about buyers and a potential sale for months, but when asked about a sale or about the ISC legislation, the premier and the minister responsible, Jeremy Harrison, would only talk about how the legislation would strengthen the province’s golden share.
“Strengthened to ensure that there’s board members that would come from this province of Saskatchewan, the IP would be housed here, the head office would stay here – really it strengthens what was already in the legislation,” Premier Scott Moe said on May 6.
Young also complained of not being able to get a straight answer when the legislation went to committee. She said her questions about what the legislation would mean for a sale of ISC kept being shut down because they were too forward-looking.
“This is a government that will not answer basic questions about public assets, about public money, because they either think it’s beneath them and they want to operate like a one-party state and they’ve forgotten that this is, in fact, a democracy,” said Young.
“Or, two, there are no good answers that they can give to the people of Saskatchewan about why they are selling off a company that is coming off of year after year of record profits.”
Young accused the government of acting with disregard for the people of Saskatchewan.
Sask Minister responsible for CIC Jeremy Harrison. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Speaking in Saskatoon on Wednesday, Minister Harrison said the government reviewed the recommendation on the sale from the ISC board and has chosen to support it. He said the deal is in line with the statutory provisions, the parameters that were laid out and there will be a premium paid for the shares resulting in the provincial government getting about $277 million in the sale.
“From our perspective, looking at the benefit of holding shares in perpetuity or being able to turn that share into real value and in real-world health-care infrastructure for the people of the province – we thought that was a pretty good opportunity,” said Harrison.
He said the money will be used for “provincially significant investments” into health-care infrastructure, saying the health minister would be making announcements on that later.
Harrison didn’t anticipate any disruption in services in the change-over, and said part of the legislative changes were to give the province the option to appoint up to two board members, despite not owning any shares.
