Dear Premier Wall: If your government is not willing to address our growing infrastructure needs, then we respectfully request that you give us our money back - about $400 million should do it - for now. You can send the rest along later. SignedEstevan and area taxpayers. Certainly, we understand that this is not how things are done in the wonderful world of politics, but somebody has to deliver the harsh message pretty soon because the second business explosion in the past six years is well underway and we're still waiting for responses from our first round of requests (public arenas excepted, of course). In the most recent sale of Crown lands for oil and natural gas rights, over $70 million was spent on land in the southeast part of the province. In the past three years, more than $400 million. That is land that is now being exploited by the industry. They are hammering our highways and grid roads. They are stretching the limits of our accommodations, resource supplies, power, water requirements, pipe production, health care facilities and so on. The time has passed for a detailed action plan. We now require reaction and soon. We don't need a twinned highway by 2021, we need a twinned highway by 2012, or at the latest 2013. Do you get the drift of our desperation and exasperation?Somewhere, somehow the messages aren't being delivered and received. This is the corner of the province that is keeping your government afloat right now, and we do appreciate the friendly greetings at the table, but it's well past the point where lip service can still smooth the waters. Recent information released by the Canadian Border Services Agencies showed that more than 10,000 commercial trucks pass through the Highway 39 port monthly, a seven per cent increase. Commercial truck traffic is up by 26 per cent year-over-year. So who's not getting this message? Regina is about to become a truck and rail terminal and hub. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to accommodate this new reality now. Who is out there addressing our $1 billion new reality? We have been told that with our highway traffic flow between Estevan and Weyburn at a mere 3,750 vehicle, we don't fit the current "threshold for consideration" of 5,000 vehicles.Obviously those who have emerged with these figures haven't spent a day plying this stretch of Highway 39. And what is 26 per cent of 3,750? It could be close to 5,000, Mr. Premier and that's just counting big trucks. How many pictures must we take? Where is the foresight or vision, or call it what you may but please call it. The Regina hub will have to be fed. The southern feeder line will be going through North Portal by both rail and road. The Bakken oil play will be front and centre for the next 20 years.By the time the government ministries get around to addressing this fast driving fact of life, the plans to build a four-lane highway will probably be arriving about the same time as the oil resources are declining. We require more than plans at this point. We need someone in a decision-making mode to help us out here.So please, Mr. Premier and team, do something to help us meet these challenges, or provide the refund and we'll go find someone who can.
