“Conservative governments are such firm believers in private enterprise they will spend any amount of public dollars to make it work”.
The Sask Party has
destroyed our Health Care and Education with gross underfunding (though they
have money for private religious schools which need not follow government
education standards). They have untold money for useless mega-projects such as
the Global Transportation Hub, the Regina Bypass which costs Saskatchewan
taxpayer roughly $10,000 per vehicle that uses it, and now an irrigation
project that even KPMG’s feasibility study says cannot repay the principle costs in 50
years.
A transport hub is a
place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or
between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid
transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports, and ferry slips.
Regina’s Global Transportation Hub Industrial Park (GTH) is
an integrated transportation and logistics inland port designed to encourage
manufacturing, value-added processing, warehousing and distribution operations
in the heart of Western Canada, according to their website.
.png) |
| GTH according to their website |
The GTH became the subject of controversy over its involvement in a land purchase that disproportionately benefited businessmen with personal ties to Sask Party MLA Bill Boyd (Wikipedia).
Loblaws was the first business to locate in the GTH. Their
warehouse is a disaster as they did not take into account the nature of
Regina’s clay soil when pouring the floor. If, as rumour has it, they may have
attracted attention of a large American regional chain with their own
distribution centre, it would likely close if a merger occurs.
Several City of Regina (Emterra) and provincial crown
corporations (SaskTel, SaskPower, Sask Liquor and Gaming Commission) have
located there but don’t really count as location decisions were politically
made.
The largest company to locate there is a Cargill canola
crushing plant on the far west edge of the GTH. However, no modern large scale crushing
plant will be built without access to both rail lines, e.g. the Yorkton crushing
plants, so the government must build a spur from CPKC and CN to the plant to
allow unit trains. The government built a CPKC (South) rail spur to create an intermodal terminal for container transfer. Now it must extend it to the Cargill plant and build a spur from the CN line to
the Cargill plant - at what cost?. I would love to know why Cargill located there. What did
they pay for the land? How much are they paying for utilities? The government
is paying for the rail connections.
 |
| GTH showing location of Cargill plant and the CPKC rail spur and intermodal terminal |
Please, in the upcoming election, No MOE, no mo’e.
That opening quotation made me laugh out loud! It's so friggin true. Same thing goes on here in Alberta, of course. I suppose it's too much to hope that Saskatchewan will toss out Moe and his gang in the upcoming provincial election?
ReplyDeleteA direct quote of a policy wonk friend. I left his name off to protect the guilty until after the election. There is a distinct possibility Moe could get the heave ho but it is a slim chance. This is not the Saskatchewan of Tommy Douglas I grew up in.
Delete* sigh * we sure could use Tommy Douglas again.
DeleteAmen to that. And Joe Clark and Lester Pearson
DeleteSigh. Sadly I suspect that too much money has already been spent on it, for the plans to be mothballed.
ReplyDeleteEC, I expect you are right. I will ask Carla Beck what they will do when they win this fall
Delete