Former Saskatchewan cabinet minister fined $35,000 for environmental violations
by The Canadian Press
Bill Boyd served as a Saskatchewan Party cabinet minister from 2007 to 2016 and is well-acquainted with political scandal. Charges were laid against Boyd last summer for cultivating protected grassland
KINDERSLEY, Sask.—A former Saskatchewan cabinet minister has been fined $35,000 for environmental violations involving Crown farmland and the shoreline of a river.
Bill Boyd pleaded guilty in Kindersley provincial court in February to cultivating protected grassland near Eston, Sask., and to changing a section of riverbank along the South Saskatchewan River without a permit.
Two other counts were dropped.
Boyd also has been ordered to fix the damage to the protected grasslands and to the shoreline.
The charges were laid after conservation officers investigated two complaints last summer about potentially illegal land work.
Boyd, who retired from politics last year, served as a Saskatchewan Party cabinet minister from 2007 to 2016 in various portfolios, including energy and resources, immigration and economy.
Former premier Brad Wall kicked him out of the party last August after the conflict-of-interest commissioner said Boyd tried to influence potential investors while he was on a trip to China.
Prior to that, he was in the middle of a controversy over a land deal outside Regina in which land was allegedly sold to a Crown corporation for inflated prices, costing taxpayers millions.
Boyd was first elected in 1991 as a Progressive Conservative, but left to help form the Saskatchewan Party in 1997.
He was also instrumental in running the Sask. Party’s election campaigns.
