The Saskatchewan East Enterprise Region (SEER) whose mandate included economic development and fostering an overall business climate has hung a 'Going Out of Business' sign on its Melville headquarters.
The six staff members employed at SEER expected to close the office on First Avenue Friday following the provincial government's decision to stop funding the regional arms of Enterprise Saskatchewan (ES), launched in 2008.
The announcement was made in the recent provincial budget when the government indicated it was reducing $4 million in funding for Enterprise Saskatchewan.
Enterprise Saskatchewan in turn supplied funding to six regional offices around the province.
The Melville SEER headquarters, which received some $300,000 a year in funding from Enterprise Saskatche-wan through the provincial government, oversaw 105 communities in an area ranging from Kamsack to Canora over to Foam Lake, south to Montmartre, and across to Moosomin to the Manitoba border.
In a recent interview Enterprise Minister Jeremy Harrison said the decision to pull fun-d-ing from Enterprise Saskatchewan isn't an indication the much-touted approach to eco-n-omic development wasn't working but instead was a shift of focus beyond provincial borders.
"We're going to re-orient our focus in terms of economic development to the national and international development level. We're increasing our funding for the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP) fairly significantly," Harrison says.
"On the other side of the equation we're going to be leaving local economic development up to local municipalities and industry to drive that process."
Under the current system, says Harrison, there are six ES regional offices - all of which will be closed - and 13 southern economic regions which are autonomous organizations with their own boards and memberships.
"These organizations are going to be deciding whether they're going to go forward and in what capacity they're going to go forward" but without funding from ES, Harrison explains, adding SEER's portion was $330,000.
Although funding has dried up from that source, there'll be money available through a different channel that will allow local organizations to carry on with their own economic development programs.
"We're transferring significant new amounts of money to municipalities. This year it's about $21 million for municipal governments. Next year on top of that additional $21 million it's going to be over $35 million transferred to local municipal governments.
"The municipalities are going to have the resources. They're going to have to make decisions how they're going to deploy those resources but there is a very, very significant increase in funding - 24 per cent over two years for municipal governments."
Harrison says the decision to withdraw funding from Melville's SEER and others isn't an indictment the program wasn't working or that the program wasn't fulfilling its mandate but instead reflected the government's desire to embark on larger national and international pursuits.
"It's a policy shift without question but we felt that was the appropriate plan for the government... That put it into the court of local government how they want to proceed with local economic development."
Harrison points to Saskatchewan's overall strong economy which is partly a reflection of the government's focus on infrastructure investments, lowering taxes and increasing international markets.
With Saskatchewan leading the country in nearly every economic category, now is an opportune time to hand local economic development over to local organizations:
"It's a very attractive investment environment... and we're going to continue focusing on the fundamentals
- lower taxes, infrastructure, investments, making sure Saskatchewan is open for business," Harrison concludes.
Meanwhile, SEER's chief executive officer Kim Wondrasek says the six staff in the Melville office are reeling from Wednesday's fundingwithdrawal announcement.
While Wondrasek says changes to Enterprise Saskatchewan were mentioned at the recent Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities annual convention, there was no indication those changes would be so drastic.
"(It's) unfortunate. It's been very quick. (We) had no idea of the severity of it," Wondrasek says. He also says the loss of $260,000 from the government announcement constitutes the majority of SEER's budget. SEER's mandate, Wondrasek says, was "economic development and looking at a global strategy and investment attraction" with the Melville office pursuing different projects like the Transactions conference and the wide-ranging potash impact study which was presented in the city earlier this year and which drew some 100 representatives from municipal and other organizations from the region.
SEER was also involved with a project to encourage greater First Nation participation in the regional labor force
Wondrasek says at no time did the provincial government indicate the Enterprise Regions were not fulfilling their mandate, not doing a proper job, had lost focus or were duplicating services: "Minister Harrison never once made an effort to make contact with our Enterprise Region. Not once."
With the closure of the Melville office happening immediately - other than retaining a website for the next several weeks - there's no contingency to hand over files to whatever organizations take shape to replace SEER.
"That's where my frustration is with this... We're working on a business retention and expansion project for the entire region. We have no one to pass that on to... It's done. We shred our folders."
