FARRELL AGENCIES LTD.
Bonding - Property Insurance - Commercial Auto
Insuring the building
of Saskatchewan
since 1974
HEAD OFFICE – PO Box 758 41 Broadway Street West
Yorkton, SK S3N 0L6
Phone: 306-783-4477 Toll free: 1-800-268-3675
www.farrellagencies.com
201 Third Street Bredenbury, SK
Phone: 306-898-2333
Fax: 306-898-2103
320 Main Street Foam Lake, SK
Phone: 306-272-3242
Fax: 306-272-4294
305 Main Street Stoughton, SK
Phone: 306-457-2433
Fax: 306-457-2636
132 Vincent Avenue East
Churchbridge, SK
Phone: 306-896-2269
Fax: 306-896-2242
FEATURE
in federal funding available to the prov-ince.
This includes a combined $120 million
through the Clean Water and Wastewater
Fund (CWWF) and the Public Transit
Infrastructure Fund (PTIF) in addition to
over $435 million through the New Building
Canada Fund.
“Investing in infrastructure creates good,
well-paying jobs that can help the middle
class grow and prosper today,” says Minister
Sohi. “And by making it easier to move peo-ple
and products, well-planned infrastruc-ture
can deliver sustained economic growth
for years to come.”
As an example, green infrastructure in-vestments
not only help to spur economic
activity in the same way as more conven-tional
infrastructure – roads, bridges, ports,
etc. – but they can also assist with Canada’s
transition to a cleaner, lower-carbon, cli-mate
resilient economy and generate the
economic and human health co-benefits
associated with this transition.
“Investments in greenspace in cities to
offset urban heat effects and reduce green-house
gas emissions, or in wetlands and
shorelines to help manage flooding and less-en
the impacts of storm surges, can have ad-ditional
benefits including providing habitat
for biodiversity, supporting the management
of storm water run-off and improving air
and water quality,” Minister Sohi adds.
A spokesperson from the Ministry of
Government Relations for the Government
of Saskatchewan echoes these sentiments
and says, “Saskatchewan is in the process of
reviewing and negotiating terms and con-ditions
of a bi-lateral agreement with the
federal government to ensure our full par-ticipation
in the CWWF and PTIF.”
For the first phase of these new pro-grams,
the PTIF federal funds allocation
for Saskatchewan is approximately $29 mil-lion,
while the CWWF allocation of federal
funds is approximately $89.3 million.
What’s next?
As for what is next, Minister Sohi says his
government is currently engaging on Phase
2 of its 10-year infrastructure plan with
provinces, territories, municipalities and
stakeholders.
“We want to hear from Canadians across
the country to help us establish priorities
and develop this plan, which will be an-nounced
within the next year. These con-sultations
will inform the program design
and funding formula of the plan and also
the outcomes we – as a country – would
like to see from these investments,” he says.
Adds Somerville, “Phase 2 will – in prin-ciple
– be more ambitious and more ex-pensive.
Building infrastructure that
serves no long-term purpose will provide
no benefits to the economy beyond the
jobs generated to construct it and, per-haps,
the jobs created to demolish it. A de-gree
of caution is prudent to ensure that
public funds generate the infrastructure
needed to help grow the economy and se-cure
our long-term prosperity.”
He says his knowledge of boondoggles in
Saskatchewan is weak, but in other areas of
the country, he cites several examples.
“Think of Montreal’s Mirabel Airport
which was abandoned and recently demol-ished;
Toronto’s Union-Pearson Express
train link’s ridership has been – to put it gen-tly
– disappointing; and Toronto’s ferry ter-minal
to Rochester, N.Y. was demolished.
Then there was Orrville’s $100,000 gaze-bo
built for the G7 summit (but never used
for official purposes during that event),”
Sommerville says. “Bureaucrats are only hu-man
and everyone enjoys pointing out their
mistakes but, in the final analysis, they get it
right far more often than they get it wrong.”
Bill Ferreira, vice-president, Government
Relations and Public Affairs for the
Canadian Construction Association, says
the types of projects funded by Phase 2
dollars will largely depend on the regional
needs, but must fall broadly under the three
umbrellas – public transit, social and green
infrastructure.
“The Saskatchewan government will be
instrumental in directing this process as
the federal government does not propose
projects,” he says.
“It simply approves them if they are con-sistent
with the broad funding criteria for
the new funds. For Saskatchewan Heavy
Construction Association members, the
types of projects likely to be of greatest
interest are water, wastewater, electrical
grid improvements and urban affordable
housing. Due to the significant demands
for infrastructure improvements on First
Nations’ lands, we also expect a signifi-cant
portion of the new funds to be in-vested
in water, wastewater, housing and
school infrastructure improvements in
these communities.”
saskheavy.ca | Quarter 3 2016 | Think BIG 43
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