According to a new Leader-Post article, the Saskatchewan government is now considering two proposals in regards to future ownership of SCN. While Dustin Duncan, Minister of Tourism, Parks, Culture, and Sport, would not provide details about the proposals, he indicated that he wasn’t yet sure if they were “solid business plans” and that — contrary to the accelerated and uninformed proceedings on the shut-down of SCN so far — the ministry is hoping to take time to understand what it is doing before moving forward:

“We just don’t have all the information we need to make an informed decision,” said Duncan, who hopes to have more information on the two proposals by the end of next week, but noted there is no set date. “We want to make sure these are solid business plans before we get too far down the road.”

While no clear timeline has been given for the process, Duncan said that negotiations may stretch into July — though funding for SCN is only available until the end of June. He said that a decision about how long SCN will remain on the air hasn’t been made, but also said that SCN’s broadcast will continue into July if negotiations require it. It was unclear where funding for the continued broadcast would come from, why the ministry did not consider the need for time and funding for this process when it initially announced the shut-down of SCN in March, and what will happen if the ministry’s information-gathering reveals that the proposals are not “solid business plans.”

For more background on the irregularities in the government’s handling of SCN, please see our May 9 press release here.

Read the full Leader-Post article here.