Rural Integrated Roads for Growth partnership gets $16.8 million

Some Rural Municipalities (RMs) will be happy to hear about a “very needed” $16.8 million partnership with the provincial government.

Funding will go toward projects in 13 different RMs under the Rural Integrated Roads for Growth (RIRG) program.

The province will chip in more than $5.3 million while the RMs in question will pay for the remaining $11.5 million.

Bill Huber, acting president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), said it was an important project given the condition of some of the roads.

“We’re dependent on municipal road infrastructure to get our product to market. We’ve got a growing agriculture economy and hopefully, we’ve got a growing and expanding oil industry and we need good transportation access to get our products to market,” Huber said.

“We have 40 per cent of the arable land in Saskatchewan and our agriculture producers have done a super job in the last number of years, increasing yields along with production and we need to get that product to market in a timely fashion so that we don’t have any disruptions for our customers abroad.”

Huber said it’s important for SARM to have a stable and sound infrastructure program.

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Huber explained SARM manages the RIRG program and RMs apply for funding through it.

“A lot of the roads need repair,” Huber said. “We need to make sure that those roads are passable and are in good, safe driving conditions for our truckers and farmers and ranchers that produce the products that are exported.”

One of the 13 projects is a two-and-a-half-mile paving initiative in the RM of Eldon from Township 492 at the junction of Highway 21 that goes west until it reaches an oil refinery.

MLA Blaine McLeod said the money was for this year’s construction season but any remaining funds can still be used for the next season.

“When you go back not many years ago, most of the grain hauled off the farm was three-ton trucks, I saw that in my lifetime. Now, we’re talking Super-Bees (trucks) and b-trains and all kinds of stuff — much larger trucks and so the roads have to keep up and be built to maintain that,” he said.

“Bridges, culverts, everything associated with that, nothing lasts forever and nothing gets new. It all ages and needs to be replaced. And so, continued focus on making sure that an export-focused province like ourselves – we can get the product to the market when the market wants it.”