A loving husband is keeping his wife’s memory alive through speaking about how he was able to prepare for her death along with sharing vital information with others on how to successfully develop their own plan just in case something happens.

Harold Empey, who lived in Craik at one time with his wife Betty, will be presenting his free Davidson Library hosted seminar on the “Just in Case” binder April 8 at the Parish Hall. The “Just in Case” binder is a 12-section plan he created that others could use to make the decisions relative to and provide the information for all that is necessary in the event of death.

People “can expect to hear a presentation as to what needs to be done in order to give the individual peace of mind and provide information for their loved ones in the event of someone dying,” said Empey, noting the “Just in Case” binders would be available at the talk for $25. “The session will be provocative, suggestive and somewhat humorous because I can’t talk about the death of my wife (and) always be serious because it would be too hard to do. It’s a 45-minute presentation followed by questions and discussion.”

Empey said his “Just in Case” binder began in 2006 when he was sent home from the doctor and told to make funeral arrangements due to a serious heart condition. He said his wife expressed her concerns at the time that she did not know what to do about the family’s finances and other important matters if he was to pass away, so they decided to sit down and put all the information together into a comprehensive plan.

“Unfortunately my wife predeceased me, (but) everything was all prearranged because it was the same arrangements for her as for me,” he said, adding that when a friend approached him after Betty’s November 2012 death to ask how they could be so prepared a spark was created to build a plan for others. “I did it as a legacy to my wife, the gal I loved for 57 years. I’ve done over 125 seminars and gone through over 5,000 binders and Harold Empey doesn’t get one penny from it. It’s all a legacy to Betty, so (the $25) goes to recover the costs or to charity.”

September Brooke, branch librarian in Davidson, said she first heard about Empey and his presentation about a year ago, but it wasn’t until a friend’s husband passed away last fall that the importance of hosting this information session struck home. She said the young man’s death showed her that anything can happen to us at any time, so we should all be prepared to make things easier on the ones who are left behind.

To read more please see the March 31 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The federal emergency legislation designed to help clear the grain transportation backlog that is expected to be tabled today by the Conservative government is coming with high expectations and numerous demands.

Ralph Goodale, Liberal MP for Wascana, said they are glad the federal government is introducing emergency legislation to help deal with the crisis, but there has to be measures in it to make certain this doesn’t happen again. He said there are four key things that are required in the legislation starting with creating a completely independent agency tasked with monitoring the grain system, measuring the performance of what is happening and reporting on it publicly.

“The system has changed radically over the course of the last three years, biggest change in probably three generations, and there is no overall measuring system to report to farmers and others about the consequences of all this change,” said Goodale. “First of all you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so there’s got to be an independent system that is not controlled by the railways, not controlled by grain companies and not controlled by the government that will collect all the data and publish all the data so that everybody can be fully informed of what actually is going on.”

Goodale said the second measure needed is a procedure called a railway costing review, which was last done in 1992 and is a process where all the revenues and costs related to grain transportation are measured and calculated so it would be known exactly what it physically costs to move a bushel of grain and how that money is shared throughout the system. He said the railways have always said whenever they can be more efficient in moving grain they will share those efficiency gains with others in the system such as farmers, grain companies and truckers, but those words are being taken with a bit of salt now.

“There has been a lot of railway abandonment since (1992), a lot of closure of delivery points since then, different technology in hopper cars since then, the operation of the ports have changed, the grain commission has changed (and) the wheat board is gone,” he said. “It’s time to do another fully comprehensive railway costing review to examine what it costs to move a bushel of grain, what the revenue is available to the railways to move that bushel of grain and how efficiency gains in the system are being shared with all the players or as everybody expects are all those efficiency gains being horded by the railways and not shared with anybody.”

Lyle Stewart, agricultural minister for the Government of Saskatchewan, shares Goodale’s view for a third proposed measure that mandatory service level agreements with reciprocal penalties for non-compliance be implemented. Stewart said the reciprocal penalties on both grain companies and railways for failing to live up to their agreements would be in addition to the $100,000 a day fines imposed on railways in a March 7 federal government Order in Council for failing to meet targets of delivering one million tonnes of grain a week on a sustained basis by mid-April.

To read more please see the March 24 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Neighbours helping each other gain access to running water due to a frozen line this winter do not have to worry about facing costlier bills.

Gary Edom, administrator for the Town of Davidson, said people running a heated hose from their house to their neighbours so they could have pressurized water will not have their water bill affected. He said the town is going to “make it right” for anybody that is helping people affected by the unusual cold that so far has frozen four resident’s lines in town during the past couple weeks.

“It’s copper lines…from the water main in the street into the house,” said Edom. “Exactly where they’re frozen we don’t know for sure. There is no way of telling. It’s somewhere between the water main and the house that they are frozen somewhere down in the ground.”

Davidson Mayor Clayton Schneider said his neighbour, Gloria Zdunich, is one of the people suffering from a frozen line this winter and his family is going to be helping her have access to running water until Mother Nature thaws the ground and frees the line from this winter’s icy grip.

“I got a heated hose from the farm and I hooked it up to my outlet on my house and hooked it into her outlet,” said Schneider. “I have a plug in to keep electricity (running) through the hose, so it doesn’t freeze because when we initially did it we just used a normal garden hose and it froze overnight. Just that little bit of heat in the hose works well.”

Schneider said the fix pressurizes Zdunich’s water system, so along with keeping a tap in the basement running to ward off another freeze she can now get water in the same way she was before. He said to make sure his family doesn’t get overcharged on their water bill for helping their neighbour they took a picture of their water meter when they began the fix and will again once the line unfreezes.

“The difference will be compensated,” he said. “As far as other people that are helping our their neighbour, if they haven’t done that contact Gary to make sure that is looked after.”

Edom said the town brought in a water line thawing machine from Saskatoon to try and fix the problem lines, but there wasn’t enough cables on the machine to reach from the pipe inside the house to the curb stop. He said current has to flow from one end of the line to the other to unfreeze it, so when the machine didn’t work it was decided the most economical way to fix the problem is just to wait out the cold.

“I’ve never heard about this happening (before),” said Schneider. There are “water breaks and all that, but never this. It’s been an unusual year.”