It is too early to tell how yields will be this fall, but the quality appears to be good according to early reports despite an armyworm infestation among canola crops and fusarium outbreak with wheat.

Kent McLeod, manager of Viterra, said among the crops of canola, lentils, wheat, peas and barley that are seeded in this area, it is just the peas and barley that are starting to “come off.” He said the quality so far “seems to be fairly decent,” but it will still be a few more weeks before everything can be classified as successful.

“There has been some diseases in the canola and the armyworm in the canola,” McLeod said. “Spring wheat has been suffering from fusarium. It’s kind of new to us here. We’ve had some, but not to this extent. Until the guys get combined, it’s going to be hard to say just how much damage has been done to both quality and to yield.”

Grant McLean, cropping management specialist for the provincial Agricultural Knowledge Centre, said the higher humidity that Saskatchewan has experienced this summer has brought on more leaf diseases and the armyworm population is “quite high,” but for the most part crops across the province are looking quite good.

“With the humidity and moisture, we are seeing higher incidences of leaf diseases in the wheat, barley and durums,” McLean said. “Certainly we are seeing higher incidences of other diseases in the canola and the sclerotinia in particular has been a bigger risk and in some cases causing concern, but it’s too late to do anything about that now.”

A farmer’s only hope in stopping the outbreak is applying a fungicide or insecticide to the leaf surface to protect it, which is “like trying to saran wrap a three-year-old on a tricycle and keep him dry in a rain storm,” he said.

To read more please see the August 20 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

A potential federal Liberal Party leadership candidate stopped in at Lake Diefenbaker last week in an effort to gauge the problems of Western Canadians as he formulates his plan to revive the Liberal brand.

David Bertschi, a practising lawyer in the private sector for the past 28 years, said he is travelling “from coast to coast to coast” to discuss with Canadians on what they think is needed from their federal representatives to better serve their interests in Ottawa. He said that he specifically toured through Saskatchewan in order to meet with its “hard working salt of the earth people” and to hear their hopes and concerns.

“Saskatchewan has always been a land of opportunity for as far as I could remember and it’s a wonderful opportunity for the Liberal Party of Canada to have its rebirth and to rebuild,” said Bertschi. “I am very encouraged travelling across the West and travelling across Canada meeting with people regardless of political stripe that are looking for a party that is balanced and not extremist. That is common through the rest of the country and it is true in the West.”

Bertschi said he would decide whether he will be throwing his hat into the ring to become leader of the Liberal Party after his tour through the country and after the party announces the leadership contest rules. The Liberals are set to select their new leader at the party’s national convention next April.

Bob Rae is currently the interim leader of the party after Michael Ignatieff stepped down following last year’s third place finish in the federal election, which saw the NDP take over official opposition status to the ruling Conservatives.

“I’m obviously seriously considering it,” said Bertschi, who lost in the last election to Conservative Royal Galipeau in the riding of Ottawa-Orleans. “I have received a lot of support from across the country and am very pleased and humbled by that.”

Sound fiscal policy, responsible government and help for those most vulnerable provides the framework for Bertschi’s plan to transform the government from one he believes that talks a lot about fixing the problems faced by Westerners, but does nothing about it.

“We’ve got a lot of underemployed or unemployed young adults who are very bright and want to work, but don’t have the opportunity because the federal government is not paying attention to that problem,” he said. “The last month we lost 30,000 jobs in Canada.

“We have to start paying attention to what is important and that is health care, the economy and allowing Canadians to feel that their representatives in government are listening to them and acting for them in their best interest to grow the economy and to make us competitive. That is the Canadian advantage.”

The new federal electoral map proposed last week by the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan has drawn the ire of a local MP.

Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre Member of Parliament Tom Lukiwski said the new map creates an “us versus them mentality” between constituents in urban and rural ridings, not to mention increasing the size of the rural districts to such a point that it will reduce the effectiveness of a MP to be responsible for their whole area of coverage.

“The best way to have representation, effective representation in Saskatchewan, is to have members of parliament to have both portions of urban and rural in their ridings where possible, because the economy of Saskatchewan is so intertwined in the rural and urban centres,” said Lukiwski, Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader.

“It just makes sense to have MPs who are totally conversant and knowledgeable about issues in both the urban and rural portions of the province.”

The proposed electoral map up for consideration at public hearings this fall is set to establish two exclusively urban electoral districts in Regina and three in Saskatoon. The remaining nine ridings will remain primarily rural, including Lukiwski’s.

The difference is Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre would almost double in size taking over the majority of the Blackstrap riding currently held by Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, as well as an area around and including Moose Jaw, currently named as the Palliser riding and held by Ray Boughen.

“Constituents want to personally meet with Members of Parliament,” said Lukiwski. “They want members to attend certain events in their home communities and by increasing the size of the rural riding by such a dramatic amount, it really would reduce the amount MPs could spend in all the areas of their riding.”

Under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, every 10 years in Canada since Confederation, an electoral boundaries commission is set up in each province to redraw electoral districts according to population shifts. This is done after each census is completed, the last being in 2011, which noted Saskatchewan’s population has increased from 978,933 to 1,033,381 over the last decade.

John Courtney, a member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan, said the new electoral map was proposed due to the change in population densities in areas within the province. He said communities of interest, historical factors, transportation lines and natural geographic boundaries such as rivers and mountains are also taken into consideration when creating a new map.

“Some areas obviously grow, some decline, others remain stable and some parts of the country are overrepresented and some are underrepresented,” said Courtney. “It’s simply to try to keep, in tandem with the population shifts, the parliamentary seat distribution pretty well equal from decade to decade.”

To read more please see the August 13 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Prairie Central under-14 basketball team competing at the 2012 Saskatchewan Summer Games in Meadow Lake July 29 to August 1 may be underdogs, but they are not shy about getting into battle against meaner competition.

The team boasts five ballers from the area on the 10-player roster including shooting guards James Morrison and Mark Rettger, centre Ben Nykiforuk, and point guard Huck Rettger from Davidson as well as forward Austin Evans from Kenaston. Assistant coaches Ian Kadlec, from Bladworth, and Davidson’s Luke Edwards are helping skipper Ken Rettger, a junior basketball coach at Davidson School, to prepare the team for the tournament.

“We have a great group of kids,” said coach Rettger. “You never know going in as we have all kinds of kids from different towns and they don’t know each other, but there is some very nice team chemistry.”

Rettger said the four players from Davidson have been playing together for the past five years, so they have a “pretty good idea” of what each other is up to on the court, plus the player from Kenaston used to play with them on a Basketball Saskatchewan team a few years back. He said their main obstacle is they are an inexperienced team as a whole compared to their opponents.

“We’re young but we’ve got some pretty good ball handlers and some good shooters,” he said. “We have a couple of big kids too, like we’ve got a boy from Osler who plays centre as well and he’s six foot four. We have a little bit of everything, some big guys who play well inside, some very good ball handlers and some shooters. They’re coming together. The last couple practices they really started to play as a team.”

The main competition at the tourney will be the city clubs from Saskatoon and Regina, which seems to be the case at every tournament due to their higher number of players available. Team Saskatoon appears to be a real threat, considering the team is made up of almost exclusively club players from the Saskatoon Slam.

“I’m hoping we can learn to play against them,” said Rettger, adding the team will have a chance to match up with Saskatoon during exhibition play before the tournament at the PAC gym at the University of Saskatchewan in late July. “I don’t know if we could legitimately go in there thinking we could win, but I just want to play well against them and show them what we’ve got.”