The Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Dundurn is welcoming a move by three developers to make capital improvements to the recreation sites at Blackstrap Provincial Park.
“From our municipality’s perspective, our population is increasing with residential subdivisions and when people move into an area they like to have some leisure time and recreation is fairly important,” said Fred Wilson, Reeve of the RM of Dundurn. “With that facility right next door to our municipality we feel that the improvements there would greatly enhance the residential living in our municipality plus our neighbouring municipalities also.”
Wilson confirmed the three proposals that were submitted to the Saskatchewan Parks Service in December included one to rebuild the ski hill on Mount Blackstrap as well as add a year-round resort. The other two proposals involve leasing land in the park from the province in order to build cabins and concession stands.
“The process is a long way from the construction stage,” he said, noting the province must still look at these proposals first and then will tender out for more proposals later on in the year. “I don’t think there will be anything concrete done in the summer. From what I understand the tendering of proposals will take half the summer to get put in place. The way things are right now is we don’t expect anything will be happening in the near future other than just regular operations and upgrading of the maintenance.”
To read more please see the Jan. 14 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The provincial government is starting the new year with a new look.
The government of Saskatchewan has replaced the classic wheat sheaf with a new logo on its news releases and the government website.
Saskatchewan New Democrats were quick to jump on the move, calling it one that is partisan and lacking common sense.
“The new logo is a Sask. Party brand in party colours,” Buckley Belanger, NDP deputy leader, said Friday. “It’s not appropriate, and the fact that the Sask. Party tried to quietly sneak this change through makes it obvious that the Sask. Party knows it’s doing something wrong.”
The light brown wheat sheaf logo has been used in official correspondence, news releases and other government documents since 1975. The sheaf is symbolic of the province’s agrarian heritage. In 2007, shortly after it was elected, the Saskatchewan Party attempted to replace the sheaf logo with a new one, but had to quickly drop it due to public backlash.
Sask. Party MLAs such as Arm River-Watrous’s Greg Brkich are mindful of that public outcry.
The province is still retaining the wheat sheaf as its official emblem on signs and such, Brkich said.
Although it is a recent addition to news releases and the website, Brkich said the government has been using the new logo for some time on material that is seen out-of-province.

The Saskatchewan Government introduced a comprehensive new labour act in the legislature Dec. 4, claiming it as an attempt to create greater transparency among unions, develop a formula for setting the rate of minimum wage and help employers and employees find the needed information they may be looking for.

Don Morgan, Saskatchewan Minister of Labour, said the new Saskatchewan Employment Act, which is expected to be passed by the May long-weekend when the provincial house rises for the summer months, would combine 12 present pieces of labour legislation into one bill. He said the act was devised through recommendations from government officials and 3,800 written submissions from the public over 90 days last summer after the government first proposed the new act last March.

Morgan said the new act succeeds in making the laws more readable for anyone looking to find information on labour laws, plus it allows the government to streamline remedies and appeals processes under various parts of the legislation. He said the public now has another 90 days to respond with concerns or recommendations on specific bills that are to be affected and the government will respond in kind.

“We posted everything on our website and in addition to the bill itself there is a (side note) that indicates what the significant changes would be, so the information is available now,” said Morgan. “We’ve also asked the public to give us their comments on it and if there are things that we have missed or could have some unintended consequences we would make whatever house amendments that are necessary before the bill passes in the spring session.”

A few of the main proposals of the new act would include regulations permitting, with consent from employer and employee, four ten-hour work days instead of the normal five eight-hour days, an ability for employers to pay wages by other means such as prepaid cards, higher fines and degree of accountability on employers to ensure that their workers are safe at all times and an indexing of the minimum wage to the annual change in average wage and the Consumer Price Index.

“I can’t imagine ever lowering (minimum wage),” said Morgan. “We could have lowered it before if there was a good reason and never did. I think that would be one of the worst things you could do to low-income people. The reason we have the process that’s there (in the new act) is it will be a blend of Consumer Price Index and average hourly wage. If they went down then it would come to cabinet before there was automatically a reduction, but I can’t see cabinet ever wanting to do that.

“We’ve raised it significantly since we’ve been in government. We’ve raised it well over 25 per cent and want to continue to make sure we’re midway or in the top half of the rest of the provinces and want to make sure we’re able to attract workers into the province.”

To read more please see the December 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Rural Municipality and Town of Dundurn has agreed with plans from real estate company Brightenview Development International Inc. for building a massive wholesale outlet just north of the town.

Fred Wilson, Reeve of the RM of Dundurn, said the 155-acre centre that would house 350 Chinese businesses is “not for sure yet,” but the town and RM are helping the company facilitate the process of getting the project underway. He said the project, called the “Dundurn International Exhibition Centre,” would vastly change the “scope” of the community once construction is completed sometime in late 2014.

“It is (massive) and that is the part that is going to change Dundurn the most if we’re looking at upwards to 1,000 jobs being employed at the site,” said Wilson. “The development of housing and just the extra traffic within the community is going to make quite a difference.”

The centre would be located half a mile north of Highway 211 and Highway 11 intersection at Dundurn on the east side of the highway. The developer has already purchased the land from a private owner and construction is slated to begin in spring 2013 lasting for 18 months.

“The developer viewed different sites and Dundurn has a fairly good water and sewer system that they just spent $30 million revamping and constructing, so it was available,” said Wilson about why Dundurn with a population of 650 was picked for the project. “The four-lane highway was definitely an asset and it’s still fairly close to the City of Saskatoon for air travel and transportation.

“We’ve got a lot of residential properties in the municipality that are available for occupancy and as far as financial obligations we haven’t been asked for anything.”

To read more please see the December 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

A new Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission (SWDC) and Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission (SBDC) have been proposed in order to give the province’s wheat and barley producers a greater voice in their industry.

The SWDC and SBDC will be a producer elected and directed organization with a mandate to ensure farmers have resources, leadership as well as provincial, national and international representation to protect Saskatchewan wheat and barley producers’ interests.

A steering committee has been formed for each proposed commission under the direction of the provincial government to survey producers to determine their acceptance of the proposed commission’s views on market access, railroads, varieties research and agronomic practices.

Gerrid Gust, Davidson farmer and wheat steering committee member, said the commission is a response to the ending of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) monopoly last August. He said the end of the CWB provided “greater access to markets” for farmers and gave them a chance to make decisions based on their own cash flow and farms without having a centrally managed economy demanded by the board.

“A lot of this stuff farmers have been paying for for years,” said Gust. “We think as an industry that farmers would be interested to fill some of those gaps left over from the wheat board, roles that this had filled, and have a voice for Saskatchewan producers and farmers.”

Gust said the idea of the commissions was proposed at a June 22 meeting in Regina where the industry, including major commodity farm groups, as well as APAS (Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan) and SARM (Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities), sat down to decide the best future direction of wheat and barley producers.

The steering committees are now completing establishment plans for the proposed commissions and if approved by the provincial government will begin operating on Aug. 1, 2013, with an interim board of directors.

To read more please see the December 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.