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Just two days later, we learned in a CBC iTeam story that the government spent $103,000 an acre for a parcel of land ($21 million for 204 acres) in the path of the planned West Regina Bypass beside the GTH. This was three times the Ministry of Highways’ own appraisal of $30,000 – $35,000 an acre and double even the GTH’s own appraisal that suggested it was only worth between $51,000 and $65,000 an acre.

Boyd explained to reporters that the government (read: taxpayers now stuck with two years of deficit budgets) had to pay the higher per acre price because the landowner had an even higher evaluation and that he believed the government needed to move quickly on the purchase.

Yet Boyd — who admitted he ordered the purchase on behalf of the supposedly arm’s-length GTH — seemed to have forgotten that his government’s highways ministry has no problem with expropriating/threatening to expropriate land from other businessmen, farmers and even nuns who also requested higher prices for land needed for either the bypass or the GTH.

In fact, the government is currently in court with Regina businessman Wayne Lorch, a well-known Sask. Party supporter, over another parcel of land Lorch was forced to sell to make way for the GTH bypass.

And there there is the issue of the supposed urgency. Really? Since the Sask. Party took over government in 2007, it has struggled to find new private tenants for the GTH.

Making this matter even messier is the fact that the CBC story also noted that Boyd is renting 2,240 acres of his own Kindersley-area farming operation from Robert Tappauf and his family.