Saskatchewan is Growing!

The province continues to grow according to Statistics Canada and is now nearly 1,130,000. The data is October 1,2014 and shows that in the previous quarter 4,489 people moved to Saskatchewan and for the year to date more than 18,000. Seven years ago Saskatchewan crossed the 1 million population mark.

Here is what the Premier is reported as saying:

"Since then, we have seen steady growth of another 130,000 people - nearly 20,000 per year," Wall said.  "That kind of growth creates both opportunities and challenges.  One of those challenges will be to keep our economy and our population growing in 2015 in the face of falling oil revenues.  Our government will be working hard to meet this challenge through sound fiscal management, continued investment in important infrastructure projects and tax incentives for new growth and job creation.

"The good news is that Saskatchewan's economy is a lot more diversified than it was just a few years ago, so a slowdown in one sector can be offset by growth in other areas.  That's why we continue to enjoy the strongest rate of job creation and the lowest unemployment rate in the country, in addition to continued population growth."

I agree with what the Premier has to say but would want to add that there needs to be continued investment in both hard infrastructure such as water treatment plants and waste water lagoons and soft infrastructure like arts and recreation facilities. The province also needs to demonstrate appropriate leadership when it comes to district and regional planning. With the equivalent of the third largest city in Saskatchewan moving into the province in the last seven years, there needs to be the corresponding investment and planning.

Likewise with the current instability in the resource sector: this too will pass but reasonable investment needs to be made insuring adequate infrastructure and planning is in place to support both population growth and economic diversification.

Kindersley is working on the infrastructure and will be submitting three submissions to the Build Canada Fund: from the Regional Landfill Inc an application for money to build the landfill and on behalf of the Town two applications of which one is for upgrades to the Haubrich Water Treatment Plant and the replacement of the remaining iron pipes.

Build Canada will not fund arts and recreation funds nor fire halls. We are continuing to to pursue funding options for Phase 2.

The original information was found here.