No Money Set Aside For All-Weather Roads

No Money Set Aside For All-Weather Roads

Friday, November 19, 2004 at 14:29

Saskatchewan’s finance minister says residents of the Far North shouldn’t read too much into the fact that the province didn’t set aside any money for a proposed all-weather road network earlier this week.

Harry Van Mulligen delivered his mid-year financial report for the province on Tuesday.

He announced provincial funding for several one-time initiatives due to some extraordinary circumstances that have recently pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into provincial coffers.

Van Mulligen announced that the government was setting aside 12 million dollars as its share of the cleanup of abandoned uranium mines in the North, and will wait for Ottawa to at least match those funds.

However, there was no mention of any money for all-weather road construction in the Athabasca Basin.

Van Mulligen says he took his cue from the transportation department, which apparently felt there needed to be more negotiations with the federal government before the project could get some sort of funding commitment from the province.

However, Van Mulligen says there’s still a chance some money will be set aside for the roads in next year’s budget.