For sale: the Sask. Transportation Company, the Sask. Grain Car Corporation and the Sask. Pastures Program. All have served the people of this province for decades, especially those who live in rural areas. All were owned by us. Shamefully, all have been scrapped in Brad Wall’s 2017 budget.
STC was created in 1946 – a crown corporation. For 70 years, it has served the people of Saskatchewan, and it has been a mainstay for rural and northern people. STC will now be privatized – the profitable intercity routes, that is. The rural routes will likely disappear.
The Saskatchewan Pastures Program gave farmers and ranchers access to 780,000 acres of crown land: “to maintain a healthy, diverse landscape, which is representative of the natural functional prairie ecosystems.” The privatization of these 50 pastures will end that history of public ownership and stewardship.
The Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation is our own fleet of 1,000 grain cars. It was created in 1979 to help move grain to market, at a time when the country's grain car fleet was obsolete and inadequate. It has served farmers ever since. Its mandate: “In partnership with farmers, and community groups…to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of transporting and handling grain.” Another crown corporation. Privatized. What next?
In a time of climate change, Brad Wall is selling off our only public transit company and our fleet of rail cars. And he is giving up stewardship over a valuable carbon sink – our prairie pastures and grasslands. To pay his government’s debts, he is selling off Saskatchewan, bit by bit.
Lon Borgerson,
Former MLA, Saskatchewan Rivers,
MacDowall
