Corporate landlords, financiers, CEOs are top donors to Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party

In Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan, public policy appears to be open to the “highest bidder.”

Thanks to lax regulations for campaign financing, Premier Moe’s Saskatchewan Party has lined its pockets with donations from corporate landlords, oil and gas companies, financial firms, and the largest landowner in the province.

Since Moe became premier in 2018, the Saskatchewan Party has raised over $6.7 million in corporate donations. 

Many of those contributions are from businesses outside Saskatchewan, including Alberta, Ontario, and Manitoba. 

With voters heading to the polls on October 28 for a provincial election, The Breach reviewed the Saskatchewan Party’s top ten highest individual and corporate donors in 2023.

They offer a glimpse at the connections forged between Moe’s government and corporate elite—both inside and outside the province. 

In 2023, the party raised $3.6 million in donations, with $1.2 million of that coming from corporations, followed by the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, which raised $1.4 million in total, with $56,000 coming from corporate donors. 

The Saskatchewan United Party and the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan both failed to hit the $1 million mark. 

Simon Enoch, director of the Saskatchewan office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the numbers give an indication of the influence corporations wield in the province.

With so much money at play, he said that the provincial NDP has also attempted to “appeal to corporate Saskatchewan during this election.” 

But according to Enoch, corporate interests clearly lean in one direction.

“Business in Saskatchewan firmly backs the Saskatchewan Party.”

Donors taking ‘every advantage’ they’re given

One of the Saskatchewan Party’s largest funders last year were the Semple family, who have been described as treating the province like their “fiefdom.”

Founder of Brandt Industries Ltd Gavin D. Semple and wife Annette Semple each contributed $15,000 each, and several affiliated parts of their companies also donated amounts, all totalling $43,260.

The Breach reported on a private cash-for-access fundraiser the wealthy family hosted last fall for federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre at a private hangar where they keep a collection of more than 100 vintage cars. 

Another high-profile donor is Robert Andjelic, whose company owned more than 225,000 acres of farmland as of 2022—making him the biggest single landowner in Saskatchewan.

His company, Andjelic Lands Inc, which he solely owns and directs, rents out land to tenant farmers. He has spoken out against what he calls the threat of “overregulation.”

Andjelic donated $13,275 to the Sask Party under his own name, and Andjelic Land Inc donated another $10,000. 

This kind of individual and corporate donation double-dipping is “emblematic of how unregulated Saskatchewan’s campaign finance is,” said Enoch. “Donors will take every advantage you give them.” 

The Sask Party did not return a request for comment from The Breach.

Its other major individual donors include pipeline champions, covid conspiracists, and fundamentalist pastors. 

Grant Greenslade, who has served as mayor of the small town of Shaunavon, donated $5,000 to the Sask Party this year. Greenslade sits on the board of the provincially-owned utility Sask Energy and has co-founded three energy companies. 

He currently serves as an energy sector consultant and appeared in a 2020 advertisement for the controversial and now-abandoned Keystone XL pipeline expansion, claiming that it was a necessary move to make small towns in Saskatchewan economically viable again. 

The Sask Party vocally supported the pipeline project and tried to rally public support for its completion.

Another donor of $10,000 was Stacey Wempe, a dental assistant with a pro-Trump, pro-Poilievre social media presence who used her experience as a dental hygienist to advance medically unfounded claims about face masks early in the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Olugbenga John Owojori gave the Saskatchewan Party $5,250 as an individual donor. 

He and his wife are associate pastors in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (Heaven’s Gate), an evangelical denomination known for aggressive expansion and for its notorious leader, Enoch Adeboye, who has said that a woman is always inferior to her husband “no matter how educated or successful you are.”

Out-of-province donor aims to establish monopoly in Saskatchewan

The largest corporate donor to the Saskatchewan Party is Parrish & Heimbecker Limited, a grain production company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba that donated $24,400 in 2023.

The company has been buying grain terminals and milling plants all around the province with the aim of securing a monopoly over Saskatchewan grain dealings, according to Enoch.

Parrish also currently appears to be undermining the right of port workers in Vancouver to strike by lobbying the provincial and federal governments to designate grain deliveries as “critical services,” which could potentially force striking workers back on the job.

The same tactics, also led by the trade organization Western Grain Elevator Association that Parrish belongs to, were used against striking rail workers earlier this year. 

Other out-of-province donors included Wealth Creation Preservation & Donation Inc., a firm based in Ottawa that brands itself as a “boutique financial services firm specializing in tax reduction, philanthropy and financing for junior mining and critical mineral exploration in Canada.” The company gave $11,160 to Moe’s campaign. 

Further donations from the financial services industry came from Edmonton-based Calvin T. Carpenter Professional Corporation and Calgary-based Prairie Merchant Corp. in the form of one $10,000 donation each.  

For some of these companies, like the W. Brett Wilson-owned Prairie Merchant Corp., the goal of the donations is probably just ideological agreement with the Sask Party, Enoch said. 

In other cases, corporations might be trying to curry favour or gain work contracts with the new government. 

Wilson is a loud supporter of the oil and gas sector, which aligns with Moe’s government. 

Wilson, a former Dragon’s Den host who made his fortune in the oil industry, is well-known for his far-right outbursts on social media. 

He has called for protesters opposing pipelines to be hanged and made headlines for claiming in 2017 that then-Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi won re-election by playing “the race card.” 

‘Public policy open to the highest bidder’

Saskatchewan is one of the only provinces or territories in Canada without a donation limit, alongside Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador. 

These are also the only places that allow corporations to donate even if they’re not located in the province or territory.  

Provincial donation limits range from Quebec’s strict $100-per-authorized-candidate donation, to more Maritime provinces like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick where donations are capped at $5,000 and $3,000 per registered party. 

But Enoch points out that even when corporate donation limits are in place, they can fail to meaningfully stop corporate influence.

While several provinces have outright banned donations from corporations and trade unions—Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and BC—others like Alberta and Ontario allow corporations to participate in the political process.

Corporations can make contributions as “third-party political advertisers,” meaning that corporate donations can still be used to support preferred candidates. 

But Saskatchewan’s complete lack of regulation has earned it the reputation as one of the most lax jurisdictions for political contributions in Canada. 

“When corporations are not even present in the province when making their donations, it does seem like a very potent sign to business that public policy is open to the highest bidder,” said Enoch.