OUTLINE
I. INTRODUCTION
II. RATIONALE FOR CREATING SASKTEL AND CROWN CORPORATIONS
III. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF PRIVATIZING SASKTEL
IV. CONCLUSION
Should SaskTel be privatized? (literature on public ownership, privatization, theories on the role of government)
Saskatchewan Telecommunications or SaskTel is a provincial Crown Corporation operating under the authority of The Saskatchewan Telecommunications Act. It is the leading full service communications company in Saskatchewan, providing local, long distance, voice, data, Internet, web-hosting, text and messaging services over a fiber optic-based, fully digital network (http://www.sasktel.com). SaskTel has delivered first-rate telecommunications to the people of Saskatchewan …show more content…
In Saskatchewan, people's attitude towards privatization varies. Today, a growing number of people believe that SaskTel as a Crown corporation should be privatize. There are many critics of SaskTel who call for the privatization of it, if not all Crown corporations. Many argue that SaskTel could operate more efficiently as a private company than as a Crown corporation. Such critics argue that free market is a more efficient mechanism for the allocation of goods and services and that privatization will give the public greater choice at a competitive price. They argue that Crown corporations dominate the Canadian economy and are inefficient, prone to political interference, and distort market forces. They believe that Saskatchewan people deserve to choose which company they would like to do business with and at what price. The public also wants to see the benefits of competition. Most of them think that the government is more worried about protecting one of its cash cows than anything. Supporters of privatization say that it leads to reduced government debt, increased efficiency, and stimulates an entrepreneurial culture. In addition to critics of crown corporations, there are other arguments for the privatization of SaskTel such as the following: First, it is often argued that governments have few incentives to ensure the enterprises they own like SaskTel are well run. Whereas private owners will lose money if their businesses are run poorly, thus public money can sustain even the most inefficient enterprise. Moreover, because federal government owns Crown corporations, public officials may only be interested in improving a Crown corporation when its performance becomes politically sensitive. The government may put off making any improvements to a given corporation due to political sensitivities. Second, corporate executives and personnel may be selected for