Premier Brad Wall was on a road trip of the Northwest region Wednesday.
And it literally was roads that were the focus, as Cut Knife-Turtleford MLA Larry Doke wanted to show the premier what was needed to upgrade the conditions of highways in the area.
Doke and other area leaders have been lobbying for upgrades to Highway 26 as well as passing lanes on Highway 4, all in an effort to deal with addressing the increasing amount of traffic from a booming economy in the region.
Among the drivers of the growth is the Husky Thermal project announced for Edam and Vawn, as well as increasing agricultural and tourist traffic. As a result, local officials have stepped up their lobbying for funding from the highways ministry.
In speaking to reporters in the riding, Wall pledged there would be action on the road concerns.
"There will be," the premier said. "I'm sure people would say not soon enough, and I understand that. We inherited a significant highways deficit situation, and we've had record highways budgets every single year since '07, but we know it's not enough."
The premier acknowledged Doke's lobbying on the issue and pledged to look into what can be done.
"We're going to look at these things just to see what's possible in a balanced budget, so we can continue to improve the highway system in the province."
The view is for any highway work in the area to be included in the 2015 budget year. The premier did not seem optimistic that it could be accomplished sooner.
"There's always the chance for adjustments in year," said Wall. "It's hard to foresee that kind of an adjustment happening now. It's possible, but if we understand where we're going for next year that'll help in terms of moving ahead, planning, that sort of thing."
Roads and infrastructure concerns were among the items on the agenda during a meeting in the afternoon in Maidstone, where the premier met with the mayor and council from the town, as well as the reeve and council from the RM of Eldon. According to the premier's Twitter feed, that meeting also included discussions on PDAP - the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program.
More discussions on the highways issue will happen in early May, when officials with the Ministry of Highways, including Minister Don McMorris, are due to come in the riding to meet with local officials and examine the issue first hand.
While roads were a focus of the tour, another focus was booming economy in the Cut Knife-Turtleford riding, which has seen good times in both the energy and agricultural sector.
The major focus on this day was agriculture, which was the highlight of the premier's visit to the new Cavalier Agrow office building, located in Cavalier, just outside Meota on Highway 26.
Once a tiny ghost town, proprietors Martin and Monique Detillieux saw an opportunity to revitalize the area by locating their agricultural retail business there. A two-storey 20,000 square foot building and shop facility was built in 2013, and the business soon expanded to other communities.
It was inside the new Cavalier Agrow building where the premier joined the Detillieuxs for a ceremonial ribbon cutting in front of staff and over a hundred invited guests.
That allowed Wall the opportunity to acknowledge the role small businesses had in driving the province's economy.
"This is a small business and we know most of the jobs are being created by small business people," said Wall.
The ribbon cutting also allowed Wall an opportunity to boast about agriculture's importance to the province in general.
"Agriculture is a rock star in Saskatchewan today," said Wall to reporters.
"Yeah, there's interest in potash and energy and all those things, but agriculture opens doors. We go to economies around the world where they have an emerging middle class and they want a more intense protein diet, and that means more pulse crops, and they're interested in more healthier oils, and that's canola oil, for example. Agriculture is one-third of our exports in general."
But the premier also acknowledged the one big problem producers have at the moment - how to transport their 2013 bumper crop to market due to the rail backlog.
Wall called the recent legislation by the federal government a step in the right direction but nevertheless believes more should be done.
The "federal legislation is a start, because there was none before," acknowledged Wall. But he believes more can be done in mandating the number of cars as well as with fines.
"We asked specifically as a starting point for a quarter million dollars in penalties per day," said Wall, instead of the $100,000 in fines now. "That's still our position."
"We do think they could go further with respect to fines, and with respect to mandating cars."
