Your money, their Amicus

I haven't yet blogged about the Saskatchewan NDP's strong questioning of the Wall government about the sweetheart deal given to the builder of a Saskatoon care home. But it looks like the story will be a big one in the months to come, and Murray Mandryk nicely summarizes why it figures to be important:

(S)tories of how Grant Devine's Progressive Conservative administration first got into trouble are legendary in NDP ranks -- stories of water purifier contracts that went to PC party friends, the manufacturers whose plastic shopping carts didn't quite fit in supermarket aisles or investments in computerized French translation services that didn't exactly translate anything.
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(V)eteran Saskatchewan New Democrats know that it was a lot of these smaller stories -- the rewarding of business supporters, family members and sometimes even themselves with favourable taxpayer-financed contracts or loans through the old Sedco and other avenues of government finances -- that first started to turn the political tide against the PCs.

Well, a story emerging out of the legislature, raised by veteran MLA Pat Atkinson, about an untendered contract to build a Saskatoon nursing home let to a construction firm owned by a large Saskatchewan Party donor appears to have many of the elements of these old stories that first got the Devine government in trouble.
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Atkinson last week spoke of an "odour" wafting around the plan to build a 100-bed, private long-term health-care unit that will allow Level One and Two residents occupancy with more critical Level Three and Four spouses. The agreement, announced by the Saskatoon Health Region, sees Amicus Health Care Inc., a subsidiary of the Catholic Health Ministry of Saskatchewan, paying the upfront capital costs, supported by what Atkinson described as a government loan guarantee. She also questioned the government's decision to charge a larger-than normal daily bed fee.
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On Monday, Atkinson raised the spectre of the Saskatoon Health Region (read: provincial taxpayers) having to pay the outstanding balance should Amicus or the health region decide to terminate the contract. As Atkinson noted, this does seem to fit the definition of a loan guarantee, causing the Saskatoon MLA to ask: "Why is the Sask. Party government using taxpayers' money to reward its friends?"

For a Sask. Party government that has both vowed not to pick winners and has desperately tried to distance itself from the Devine Tories, such allegations are not good a sign.