It's funny how the changes that most effect rural Saskatchewan often start somewhere else.
You don't have to do much more than look out your window to see the result of those changes. They come in form of a semi driving by to the nearest grain terminal 40 miles away. Or maybe it's the fact that there isn't as much traffic where there were once kids on the way to school or people busily shopping at their local grocery store.
But when you stop and think about it, it's change that started somewhere else - sometimes in a corporate board room half a world away but sometimes as close as the marbled halls of the Saskatchewan legislature. One recent story reminds how change to rural life can start as quiet rumble across the ocean.
News of late sees a possible takeover of Viterra Inc. as a result of Swiss commodities conglomerate Glencore International making an initial $5.44-billion offer to buy the Regina-based company.
As we all know, Viterra - the country's largest grain handler and this province's biggest business at $8-billion in revenue - is the remnants of what once were the Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta Wheat Pools that abandoned its one-member, one-share co-operative approach a decade ago. That produced a visible change to the rural landscape, as smaller grain elevators in virtually every community were demolished in favour of the inland terminal model that private companies had already proved success.
From that sense, one might argue that further change to being owned by those with shares in a larger private multi-national conglomerates wouldn't be that big a change. This might be the case. After all, other private grain companies and terminals in recent years have seen ownership changes with little or no effect on local operations. With change being the constant, it is important to not automatically assume it is always going to be a negative.
That said, it's also be possible that a takeover of Viterra may be a bigger change that some might first realize.
If Glencore isn't the successful bidder in what seems a relatively amiable takeover (it's initial asking price is roughly 30-per-cent more than the average Viterra share trading price in 2011) there are still a number of other suitors waiting in the wings. A potential bidding war might even be possible, as The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge, and even Calgary-based fertilizer company Agrium are all interested.
Of course, any such bidding war is great for Viterra shareholders. But it might not be great for Saskatchewan - and especially rural Saskatchewan. In Regina, there's the lingering question of what happens to the head office jobs (the ones that haven't already been moved to Calgary) if Viterra is swallowed up by any of these larger entities.
But a perhaps even more interesting impact for rural residents is the impact on the competition in the grain-marketing industry - regardless of who winds up owning Viterra. Premier Brad Wall rightfully points out that the issue of competition - something that might have to be sorted out by the federal Competition Bureau in Ottawa - comes into play even if the Canadian-based grain is taken over by one of its current competitors or a consortium. "That's more of a strategic consideration, even though we don't consider a grain-handling company a strategic resource," Wall told reporters at the legislature in Regina.
Of course, all this is now happening because of another faraway decision - the one made by the federal Conservative government in Ottawa to do away with the Canadian Wheat Board as a single-desk seller that has contributed mightily to making a takeover of Viterra much more inviting.
As suggested, the perpetual change to the rural Saskatchewan landscape comes about as a result of starts somewhere else.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 15 years.
