REGINA – Elections Saskatchewan said that its current system would be unable to support a potential referendum relating to the sale of SaskTel.
According to a CBC News report, Saskatchewan’s chief electoral officer Michael Boda told provincial politicians last month that Saskatchewan’s current legislative and regulatory framework for conducting provincial referendums and plebiscites is “out-of-date and largely unworkable”, noting that it has not been updated over the past 25 years.
“I am concerned that the province's current legislative and regulatory framework would not allow Elections Saskatchewan to administer a referendum/plebiscite in an efficient and economical manner or at service levels that citizens would expect," Boda wrote in a letter. He included a discussion paper with four voting options for how to manage a referendum question, and suggested that mail-in ballots would work best.
Dustin Duncan, the minister responsible for SaskTel, echoed premier Brad Wall’s earlier promise that citizens would be given a say on any sale of the Crown corporation.
"We may never get an offer”, Duncan says in the report.
