Municipal leaders in the province’s north are tired of waiting and are now demanding the government take some action to deal with the unsafe condition of many northern roads.
The issue was the subject of a passionate discussion at a recent meeting of the Saskatchewan association of Northern Communities in Prince Albert.
The leaders all agree something needs to be done to make the roads safer and they have launched a campaign aimed at getting the governments attention. The CEO of New North, Al Loke, says a lot of the discussion at the meeting dealt with a tragic van accident last month on Highway 155 north of Buffalo Narrows involving a high school football team from La Loche.
“Maybe it was dusk, or whatever it was, he hit a pothole and ended up tipping the van injuring six or seven individuals in the van with the young lady losing her right leg.”
Loke says Highway 155 is in the need of the most attention right now, but he says it goes far beyond that. He says basic maintenance for northern roads is not getting done. He says northerners are tired of being treated like second class citizens.
“Northern Saskatchewan is part of the province and we deserve the same quality of roads that they have in the south. They (the government) seems to be spending a lot of money around the large cities but they are forgetting about northern Saskatchewan.”
The New North meeting heard that the current Ministry of Highways five-year plan has not scheduled any new construction for northern Saskatchewan. Loke says that is unacceptable. He is currently organizing a delegation of northern municipal leaders who will be taking their concerns directly to politicians at the Legislature.
But a spokesman with Saskatchewan Highways says an investigation by the ministry did not find any evidence of a pothole where the high school football van rolled last month near Buffalo Narrows.
Steve Shaheen says investigators were on the scene the day after the rollover.
“Our ministry did conduct a brief investigation. Maintenance inspected the area the morning of September 5, and reported the road surface was straight and no potholes were found in the vicinity of the accident.”
Shaheen also says the ministry is doing the best it can to maintain and improve roads in the province’s north, but says there is only so much money available in the ministry’s budget.