said Pedro Antunes, deputy chief economist
at The Conference Board of Canada. “Over
the past 25 years, Saskatchewan has invest-ed
less in public infrastructure than most
other provinces. Our report suggests that
Saskatchewan could improve its long-term
growth path by increasing public investment
in infrastructure.”
The long-term economic growth and
prosperity of any economy can largely be
attributed to the quantity and quality of its
capital. Public capital, including schools,
hospitals, roads, bridges and recreational
and cultural infrastructure, create the en-vironment
that businesses need to operate
and by doing so, help boost private sector
investment and productivity.
Saskatchewan has invested relative-ly
less historically in public infrastructure
than other provinces. While national aver-age
spending was 3.5 per cent of GDP during
the 1990s and 2000s, Saskatchewan’s aver-age
spending was just 2.9 per cent. Despite a
pick-up in investment over the 2010 to 2015
period, the province’s spending continued
to lag behind that of most other provinces.
The report, Infrastructure in Saskatche-wan:
Assessing the Benefits, evaluates the
impact on Saskatchewan’s economy had
the province invested in public infrastruc-ture
on par with other provinces between
1991 to 2015. Lifting real public infrastruc-ture
investment by roughly 0.6 percent-age
points over the 1991 to 2015 period to
match the national average would have
added $280 million (in 2007 dollars) per
year to investment over a 25-year period.
The increase in the stock of public capi-tal
would have boosted the province’s real
productive capacity by 1.6 per cent in 2015.
This represents an increase in in the aver-age
income of Saskatchewan residents of
$969 per person in 2015, or nearly $2,500
per household (in current dollars).
“Investing in public capital helps boost
private sector production by contributing
to an educated and healthy population, as
well as providing the transportation and
other infrastructure relied on by business-es,”
said Antunes.
Brandt purchase of
world-class Saskatoon
manufacturing facility
finalized
The Brandt Group of Companies has suc-cessfully
concluded its purchase from
Prestige Equipment and Hilco Global of the
former Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems
Canada Ltd. (MHPSC) facility in Saskatoon.
The entire 22-acre parcel, along with its
208,000 square-foot manufacturing facility
and all of its highly specialized equipment
has made the transition to local owner-ship
for an undisclosed sum. The plant fea-tures
the largest machining and fabrication
equipment in Canada and has produced
power generation equipment for custom-ers
around the world, including SaskPower.
“We are very excited to have successfully
completed this major expansion so quick-ly,”
said Brandt president, Shaun Semple.
“It is an important milestone for the com-pany,
as doubling our manufacturing foot-print
will open up significant opportunities
to grow our current product offering and
create high-value skilled trades jobs in
the province.”
The acquisition of this facility has in-creased
Brandt’s total manufacturing foot-print
to over 500,000 square feet, split evenly
between Regina and Saskatoon. Brandt is
currently in planning to determine an op-timal
return-to-operations schedule for the
facility, but has already begun hiring local
workers to aid in bringing the facility up to
the company’s exacting LEAN standards as
quickly as possible.
“We’re anticipating sitting down with
SaskPower and all three levels of govern-ment
to lay the foundation for a renewed,
Saskatchewan-owned green energy indus-try,”
said Semple. “We are very hopeful that
SaskPower and the provincial government
will be supportive and stipulate that any
towers brought online in the province must
be built here as well, guaranteeing a bright
future for many skilled Saskatchewan
workers.”
Upgrades to the
TransCanada Highway
On Feb. 17, the Honourable Amarjeet
Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and
Communities, and B.C. Transportation,
and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone
were in Kamloops to announce $469.4 mil-lion
to expand and upgrade two major sec-tions
of the TransCanada Highway. Out of
this amount, the Kicking Horse Canyon
project accounts for nearly $450 million,
while the Donald to Forde Station section
of highway accounts for over $19.4 million.
“The Government of Canada recognizes
that strategic investments in public infra-structure
help connect people, and create
growth and middle class jobs. This ma-jor
transportation infrastructure project
in British Columbia will benefit residents,
businesses and tourists, while fostering
long-term prosperity across the region.
We will continue working in close collab-oration
with British Columbia to ensure
we make smart infrastructure investments
that help build the Canada of tomorrow,”
said Sohi.
Highway 1 through Kicking Horse Canyon
will be realigned and expanded to four lanes
with median barriers and widened shoul-ders.
Improving this section will also require
a combination of bridges, retaining walls,
rock catchment ditches and other measures
to reduce rock fall hazards. Work on the sec-ond
section of Highway 1, approximately 20
kilometres west of Golden, from Donald to
NEWS FROM THE FIELD
GUTEKSK7/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
The report, Infrastructure in Saskatchewan: Assessing the Benefits,
can be downloaded from www.conferenceboard.ca
Continued on page 12
10 Think BIG | Quarter 2 2017 | saskheavy.ca
/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
/www.conferenceboard.ca
/saskheavy.ca