One of the main arguments against a potash royalty review has been the claim that the 8 years since a 2003 overhaul - in which potash prices have tripled and profits soared - is too short a time frame to consider changes to the royalty system. So let's consider how long it was that Saskatchewan potash producers considered themselves bound by the previous incarnation before requesting a change.
All editorializing in the source aside, the answer is: three years - and with no suggestion from the Sask Party that we should have held producers to a deal for longer than that if it wasn't producing fair outcomes. (Which of course fits with the Sask Party's willingness to change royalty systems as long as the result is less revenue for the province rather than more.)
But then, those possible changes resulted from requests by industry rather than the province. Which looks to make for the real point of contention in royalty rate debate: is the province ever able to suggest that royalties be reviewed in its own interest? Or is the province's job - as so dutifully performed by Wall and his party - to make sure that our royalty rates give away as much money as possible to corporations which will make massive profits from the province's resources either way?
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