Kindersley – Former long-time Energy and Resources minister, then minister of Economy Bill Boyd, was sentenced in Kindersley provincial court on April 17, on environmental charges he pleaded guilty to in February. Boyd, 61 of Eston, was fined a total of $35,000.
In June 2017, Ministry of Environment conservation officers investigated a possible violation of The Wildlife Habitat Protection Act and Regulations, where protected native grasslands, located adjacent to private land, had been cultivated.
On July 7, 2017, conservation officers received a call to the Turn In Poachers line regarding potentially illegal work on the bank of the South Saskatchewan River, south of Eston. This occurred while Boyd was still a sitting MLA, but no longer a cabinet minister. He retired from the legislature on Sept. 1, 2017, having announced his retirement on Aug. 15 of that year.
Officers investigated the report and found the two cases were related, as approximately five acres of protected native grasslands had been cultivated and a section of bank on the South Saskatchewan River had been excavated.
On February 6, 2018, Boyd pleaded guilty to one charge under The Environmental Management and Protection Act, 2010, and one charge under The Wildlife Habitat Protection Act. He was fined $28,000 on April 17 on the first charge and $7,000 previously in February on the second charge.
In addition to the fines, he was issued court orders to remediate the damage to the protected grasslands and the damage to the shoreline.
Boyd was first elected in 1991 as a Progressive Conservative (PC) MLA. He became PC Leader in 1994 and led that party through the 1995 election, which was won by the Roy Romanow NDP.
In 1997, Boyd was a driving force behind the formation of the Saskatchewan Party, leaving the PCs and giving up his leadership of that party to become a member of the new party. Boyd was re-elected in 1999 but stepped down as MLA in 2002 and left politics for a time.
Boyd ran again in 2007 and was elected as part of the first Saskatchewan Party government. He was re-elected in 2011 and 2016. He also served as the campaign co-chair of all three Saskatchewan Party election victories.
Boyd served as a cabinet minister from 2007 to 2016, holding various portfolios, including Energy and Resources, and Economy. As then-Minister Responsible for SaskPower, Bill Boyd, was one of the minister responsible during the construction of the Boundary Dam Unit 3 Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Project.
