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This is simply an insult to Saskatchewan cities that have contended with the brunt of the province’s 140,000-person population boom during the past decade by absorbing 11,220 more people each and every year. By contrast, all the towns and villages in the province combined have had an average annual growth rate of 780 people. And the province’s 296 RMs? Combined, they’ve grown by a whopping 88 people, annually.

According to Wall’s office Monday, the $35.9 million in grants-in-lieu of taxes from SaskPower and SaskEnergy is based on individual consumption of gas and electricity. The two Crowns will now pay that money directly to the general revenue fund as opposed to the municipalities.

The explanation goes on to correctly acknowledge that both Saskatoon and Regina will see a $10.6-million reduction, but Regina will continue to receive $7 million in payments from SaskEnergy and SaskPower so the two major cities pay the same amount. One might ask: Why?

Based on volume of gas and electricity sales in the municipalities in 2016-17, SaskEnergy paid $6 million to Regina and SaskPower paid $12.3 million for a grand total of $18.3 million.

That the Sask. Party government independently (as in, without warning or consultation with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, whose members have relied on these grants-in-lieu long before they relied on the revenue-sharing pool) simply decided that Regina and Saskatoon should fork over an equal $10.7 million from SaskPower and SaskEnergy is as puzzling as it is arbitrary. (That the government has ordered its two energy Crown corporations to pay a dividend directly to the general revenue fund rather than to the municipalities may be an interesting contractual law matter for the courts to sort out.)