In a perfect world, we would have one of two situations involving the soon-to-be dissolved Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC). Ideally, it would have been a profitable venture, and its merit would never be debated. The other situation is it wouldn’t be necessary, and its demise would have happened years ago. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. STC was a money pit, but it was still needed for Saskatchewan. I’m the type who would be strongly opposed to STC in sheer principle. It was a money-losing Crown corporation that required a significant influx of taxpayer dollars to survive. Therefore, in theory, it should have been shut down in the 1980s or the 1990s, when it was perennially in the red, and it was abundantly clear it would never see profitability again. It’s easy to ponder why the government had a bus company to begin with. Among the jurisdictions that don’t have a governmentowned bus company, I don’t think any of them have said, “You know what our government needs to do? Start up a bus company.” It would be grounds for a recall vote. And the Saskatchewan government couldn’t sell STC either. Nobody would buy it, since it’s guaranteed to lose money. So if having a bus company doesn’t make sense from a fiscal perspective, and no government would be nutty enough to start one up now, then why should we have one to begin with? It was legitimately needed by a significant percentage of people in the province. Not just for travel, but for shipping. I would guess that a majority of Saskatchewan residents have never ridden an STC bus. (I have taken one round-trip with STC in 16 1/2 years in this province.) Most of us can drive to where we need to go, or we can find a ride with a friend. But not everyone in Saskatchewan can drive. And not everyone can find someone to take them to Regina or Saskatoon for medical appointments or any other need. Saskatchewan has a lot of people, particularly seniors, who live in remote, rural areas. For many of them, their one means of access to Saskatoon and Regina was through STC. Now it will be much harder for them to reach those appointments. It will be a strain on their families to drive them to those sessions. Or they will have to move into the city for the care they need. People who support the government’s decision to discontinue STC cite the dwindling number of passengers. But STC was not just transporting people. Local people have relied on the STC for shipping parts, equipment, packages and more. The private sector will step in, but the level of service likely won’t be the same, at least for passengers. It’s unlikely a private bus company is going to consistently run buses from Estevan to Regina with just a handful of people on them. The provincial government claims that just two of 27 STC bus routes were profitable. It would be unreasonable, and unrealistic, to expect privately-owned businesses to operate a bus route that is consistently losing money. I’m all in favour of the private sector driving our economy, and government staying out of the way of the private sector as much as possible. But I’m also in favour of Saskatchewan people having access to the services that we need. In a province like Saskatchewan, with so many rural communities dotting our map, it means having certain services that wouldn’t exist elsewhere. Which is why we needed STC, even though it was never going to find itself in a profitable position ever again.
