Sask. NDP pledging STC revival two years after shutdown

The Saskatchewan NDP is renewing calls to revive a provincial bus service exactly two years after the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) was shut down.

NDP Leader Ryan Meili met with reporters outside the former STC Saskatoon depot on Friday to highlight the problems caused by the provincial government’s decision to close STC for good in 2017.

“This government misunderstood or misrepresented the role of STC,” Meili said. “They saw it only as a business. They didn’t understand the way it was essential (for) services, essential (for) infrastructure.”

Meili often cited a recent paper from a University of Regina business student that looked at who was affected most by the closure of STC.

The paper largely argued that STC should have operated as a service rather than a business.

The provincial government closed STC after it was deemed an additional $85.5 million would be needed to operate the company for five more years.

Meili thinks more can be done to see how much money STC was losing and if it could become profitable.

“(The government has) made the case that this is a money-loser,” he said. “But we think if you actually look at the impact on our economy, on saving dollars and services, that this isn’t a loss.”

That has led Saskatchewan’s New Democrats to call for a full audit of the impact of the closure.

“One of the pieces that has been missing is the actual economic impact analysis,” Meili said. “We haven’t looked at, or seeing this government be willing to do an audit of the impact financially.”

The paper identified four demographic groups that were impacted by the closure: Elders, disabled, chronically ill and economically disadvantaged.

Another major crux of the closure was transporting rural residents, an area where the NDP is looking to make major gains in the 2020 provincial election.

“This is absolutely essentially in rural Saskatchewan and we hear it over and over again,” Meili said.

Meili sees transportation and STC as a “key election issue” in rural Saskatchewan, but admits that STC alone won’t win over rural voters.

“It’s got to be part of a larger package,” Meili said, pointing to his party’s Renew Saskatchewan initiative.