“If they want the way to encourage tourists in our province, then restore the roads so that driving in Saskatchewan is a pleasure again and not a challenge.” – Lorne Calvert, June 23, 1987, Hansard”
June, 2006:
The Funk-meister might want to participate in this SaskParty project;
“The Saskatchewan Party is encouraging people to invite Premier Calvert to drive their highways so that he can have a better understanding of how awful some of our highways are and the negative impact crumbling roads have on local economies, tourism and the safety of local residents,” Saskatchewan Party Highways Critic Randy Weekes said. “Some of these highways are so bad, they don’t even deserve to be called highways.”
Motorists can log onto the Saskatchewan Party Caucus’ website at www.skcaucus.com to submit their invitations to the Premier, along with photos and testimonials about their highway. The Saskatchewan Party will then plan a summer driving tour route for the Premier based on submissions. Click here for more information.
There is a slideshow at the link.
Saskboy’s Adventure On Gravel.
Trying NOT to state the blatantly obvious here,but why,when Canadians WILL NOT gamble on the NDP federally,do we keep letting them in to f*ck up various provinces?Their priorities are every bit as messed up as your highways.
Hey, that’s not fair and balanced reporting. I do not see any pictures of the good road, the Calvert driveway.
sincerely,
Lorne
Head Dipper
It is for precisely this reason that I hope upon hope, that Nova Scotians come to their senses on Tuesday and prevent the NDP from swallowing up another province.
It is for precisely this reason that I hope upon hope, that Nova Scotians come to their senses on Tuesday and prevent the NDP from swallowing up another province.
It is for precisely this reason that I hope upon hope that Nova Scotians come to their senses on Tuesday and prevent the NDP from swallowing up another province.
Sorry about that folks… my internet went nuts. Damn Aliant
The NDP is bankrupt of ideas, morals and common sense.
On Golbal news Calgary this morning, they show some retarded NDP stunt about the poor state of school infrastructure and blame the Alberta government.
And the Alberta government just threw in an extra $45 million into schools alone.
And there is talk of laying off teachers.
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT?
I just love the photo captions. I still like the one I “borrowed” from the late John Morgan of the Royal Canadian Air Farce; No Discernable Prospects.
We only have to think of the Fast Ferry Fiasco when the NDP come calling. That generally screws any cridbility they might have acquired.
Now, if the Sask. government was on the ball, they’d be trying to figure out how to get on the VANOC 2010 Olympics bandwagon. Surely there must be a way.
Maybe I shouldn’t give ’em any ideas.
Mike from Canmore passed away? Damn, that just ruined my day.
I’m sure that if John Morgan ever took a road trip in Saskatchewan he would tell lorne calvert to “Get Stuffed!”
Thanks for the link Kate. I emailed Gormley about the view of Highway 15 from space. It’s really possible to see the potholes from hundreds of kilometers away, as you can see in the link for “#15” in my blog entry you linked. I found that to be incredible.
The USA is littered with hellways.
Seems that Dippers and Republicans have something in common. Dippers have no business sense and conservatives are tighter than bark to a tree. Net result…bad roads.
They’re re-paving perfectly good highways in Ontario just so they won’t fall into a state of disrepair.
Vote Liberal and you’ll get great roads.
Saskboy…Thanks for the link to that amazing photo.I say amazing because this stretch of Sask.highway actually has a curve in it!COOOOL!! 🙂
We had a family function in Saskabush in May and decided to take our trailer for sake of convenience and possibly to take an extra day before and after. Before leaving I had a gander on the internet for day trips and camp sites along the way. Both searches were fruitless goose chases. Being used to Travel Alberta, I assumed it was just me, that I couldn’t seem to locate much in the way campgrounds or rest areas other than those, way off the beaten path.
After having been there, done that, and beating a hasty retreat home, I can see why there isn’t much done to welcome or encourage tourism in Saskatchewan, let alone pulling over for a rest. Apparently the don’t encourage lingering in Sasketchewan. Even the ring roads in places like Saskatoon and the Battlefords don’t seem to give any advance warning that you’re almost out of town and headed for the next elevator. Sad to say.
p.s. Our cousin, now a quadrapalegic, is no better off under the Sask. Health system. I’m quite certain his recent problems due to a bed sore and the resulting blood infection would never have happened in Alberta.
I’ve been down hundreds of highways, large and small, across the US – including Montana and North Dakota where the weather challenges are the same as ours.
I have seen nothing resembling what we have across this province. These are not isolated examples – these are the norm in rural Saskatchewan.
Your comments about rest stops are important – there are virtually none to be found.
I agree with Kate. I grew up in the US. The roads in the US are made from a much higher standard than in Canada. There is nothing like the interstate system in Canada—PERIOD.
Plus, I recall that road conditions are usually much worse in Democratic, big union regions like lower Michigan.
Want better roads–become more like America!
Take that you pathetic wimp wayne!
Rob, I’m hoping that the NDP support remains concentrated in Halifax (always has been before), which means that their 36% polling number won’t translate into nearly as many seats as the Tories 38%.
Mind you, having that spend-happy, gas-regulating Rodney Mac as premier for the next 4 years doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement. He’s far more of a Red Tory than Hamm was in my opinion. I’m having a hard time mustering up any real enthusiasm for voting for the PCs on Tuesday.
Kate… I totally agree, we should be devoting much more of the provincial budget to highways. But provincial spending is about choices and successive gov’ts. have chosen to devote 10% of the provincial budget to grease the interminably squeaky agricultural wheel. If the farm welfare lobby is successful in getting the egregious NISA program reinstated, that percentage will increase substantially. Until we get the ag monkey off our backs, forget about it.
BTW, how much of the state budgets of N. Dakota and Montana are devoted to ag subsidies?
Meanwhile, back in NB, there’s a hole in front of my workplace the entire width of the road… they’ve been there now for a week… whatever they’re doing, why on earth can’t they do it in a day? Stupid. It’s just one hole, for heaven’s sake!
That’s where my tax dollars go… into big holes in the ground where little seems to be accomplished… putting union types to work basically standing around…
Not much different, really, from Sask doing nothing… the roads here always suck, too… hell, the other day some guy got his Tercel hung up in a rut…
Maryjane “But provincial spending is about choices”.
In MB, they don’t have a CHOICE about where to spend money collected for roads. We shouldn’t here either.
And you’re so out to lunch blaming farmers for bad roads. It’s farming related, but blame the feds, the SK NDP for poor foresight, RMs for agreeing to railline abandonment, and CPR and CNR for the added load on our roads.
Get off the agricultural hobby horse, maryjane.
Millions upon millions pour out of the rural regions which create the wealth in this province – and directly into subsidizing a bloated provincial NDP-voting civil service that creates none. Rural communities see nearly nothing in return. Crumbling roads and closed hospitals and steadily increasing local school taxes paying the union waqes negotiated by a union-controlled government in Regina.
The municipal roads – paid for by local ratepayers – are in pretty good shape. It’s the provincial highways, especially those at the edges of the province and in the north – that are the embarrasment.
Lorne Calvert isn’t building a wall around this province, as has been said. He’s digging a ditch, one pothole at a time.
Kate, you have a comma in your URL when you post.
On the tourism note, the south is severely neglected for highway funding. south of Killdeer, Rockglen and Wood Mountain, the highway to the border with Montana is pretty sad. Grasslands National Park east block is right there, as are Wood Mountain’s Regional and Historic parks. The local highway crew does a fantasic job of keeping things patched, but without a railroad any longer, it’s hard to see it lasting very much longer. Highway #13 west of Assiniboia was redone about two years ago, and it already looks like the worn parts of #1 between Regina and Moose Jaw. The highway was noisy and rough as soon as they finished, it was obviously a botched job.
The NDP are simply statists and collectivsts by another name. They don’t care about the highways, as they want to get away from isolated transportation devices like automobiles, and have us all ferried across country on communal buses and trains, like in their Cuban and Chinese utopias.
Timo, don’t knock the busses or trains. The NDP can at least be given credit for supporting bussing, but sadly couldn’t give a *poop* about trains or the benefits of them.
What an eye opener. When I visit Quebec, I’m astounded at the bad roads, I had no idea Sask. is giving them competition.
Saskatchewan…on a quiet night you can hear the asphalt crumble…
Saskboy….How many times must I repeat: I don’t blame farmers, I blame farm SUBSIDIES.
If you are talking about dedicated taxes in Man., then fine, dedicate every dime of gas taxes and license fees to roads. That’s where the choice comes in. An increase in the highways budget means a decrease in some other program. That’s not ideology, dear boy, that’s arithmetic. And the logic of a dedicated tax for highways implies a dedicated tax for every expenditure but I have yet to see a robbing urban Peter to pay farmer Paul tax.
Kate… If subsidizing farming creates wealth in SK, then subsidizing any enterprise ,(Meadow Lake pulp mills, P.A. pulp mills , Moose Jaw pork processors, hell, any business that runs, walks, or crawls) makes economic sense. Sounds like socialism to me.
“Sounds like socialism to me.”
Maryjane, your reponse suggests you struggle with literacy.
In your case, commenting anywhere is a waste of effort that would be better spent improving your reading comprehension skills.
Hmm… “The Roadkill Diaries”… could be subtitled, perhaps: “Documenting the socialists’ killing of Saskatchewan roads”.
Now it might have two meanings.
Know what? I think the Sask NDP is finished. No way will the people take any more of that horseshit from those reds.
I see it coming: their end. Soon.
Those signs all look like they were made by the same disgruntled Conservative…
I frequently see pieces on this Blog that whine and complain about the commie government the residents have elected. I don’t recall the right wing run being much of a reprieve either.
Since Sask is an ugly, silly, flat, underpopulated place with awful weather and a horrid economy anyway, why not just move to say … BC or Alberta where you would find it a paradise comparatively.
I am sure you must know by now that there are too many idiots living in Saskatchewan to ever have improve.
Flashback: Toomy and George and Lester and Jack and George Grant. Oh,.. almost forgot the Rev. L. Calvary. …
“Grant had pleaded with Douglas not to side with Pearson.”
The ongoing alliance/bond/pact between the CCF/NDP/Liberals leads to this: Socialism; a dead-end road. …
“The 1963 Federal election in Canada set the stage for Lament for a Nation. Tommy Douglas (NDP) joined ranks with Lester Pearson (Liberals) to defeat John Diefenbaker (Progressive Conservatives). Grant had pleaded with Douglas not to side with Pearson. President Kennedy had backed Pearson, and Grant knew that if Douglas tipped his cap to Pearson, this signaled a green light to Kennedy’s brand of American imperialism and the defeat of Canadian nationalism. Kennedy despised Diefenbaker, and although Grant was no uncritical fan of Diefenbaker, he did stand by his nationalism against American imperialism.
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050307145911911/print
Did I mention there are way too many Indians there too. Maybe get the hell out and let them run the place themselves. Who knows, they might then get a clue about ow important the white sucker is to their very standard of living.
I seem to recall that before the white sucker came along, they lived in teepees and had to rub sticks together to make a fire.
When all else fails, employ the invective. Good one Kate.
Kate should lay off the NDP. Our roads are progressive! :))
As for the farmers, I’m not an expert on the subsidy thing, but I do know that my Grandfather and Grandmother (farmers) worked their fingers to the bone and had little to show for it when they retired/passed away. It was grossly unfair – they had cattle so they worked 7 days/week – but they had farming in their bones.
Sure, there are some farmers who are well-to-do, but I believe the overwhelming majority are barely getting by. Why do you think farm children opt for a 40 hour/wk job instead of deciding to farm like Mom and Dad did?
Maryjane, you don’t understand, I believe.
Infrastructure is the great enabler; the great facilitator.
Without infrastructure, nothing much will work. Not the private sector, nor the communist nonsense.
However, the only industry, eventually, that’d be viable in Sask. the way things are going will be in high-clearance 4x4s with low range transfer cases. Hell, GM will resurrect the Humvee H1…
I can see it now… everyone with a Hummer, a 4Runner, a Range Rover…
Yeah… why invest in roads? What good’ll it do?
What business does gov’t have in infrastructure, anyway? Yeah!
/sarcasm off
BTW, Willy Sutton robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” I ride the ag hobbyhorse because THAT’S where the money is. I mean Kate, essentially we are in agreement as far as the need for increased infrastructure spending. But it is my opinion that ag subsidies HAVE to be on the table of any budgetary tradeoff discussion.
Dr Wayne: “The USA is littered with hellways.”
Bull. I’ve travelled in the USA numerous times and their roads are a helluva lot better than ours. Indeed, most of their roads seem to be along the line of Alberta’s roads. Travelling from Sask into Alberta is like night and day when it comes to roads.
All my friends say the same thing about US roads versus Sask roads.
Sorry Sentinel…As far as Saskatchewan goes, it’s obvious you don’t know your arse hairs from celery shreds.
Another failure of literacy.
That wasn’t “invective”. It was “observation”.
Perhaps you are experiencing a failure in reader comprehension.
You ingrates.
Can’t you see that no ANFO truck bomb could navigate those roads? The clairvoyante NDP gubmit of Sask has added all these security devices to the road system for your benefit. It’s part of the elaborate “security moat” Calvert promised you all.
Maryjane, I’m from Saskatchewan. So I know what has happened to the roads since I left in ’78, when they were just fine, as I remember. I also remember that the economy was better. Much.
And I see you make a very convincing counterargument. I see you understand how the economy works. You paid close attention pursuing your business degree, obviously, particularly the economics courses.
I’m impressed, honey. 😉
Have you driven in Manitoba lately? I’ll match your miles of bad road with our miles of bad road and our NDP government.
At least the Trans-Canada is in good shape across Saskatchewan (which, I admit, is about the only highway I drive in the province and I do spend at least some time there.)
Sentinel….Indeed, in ’78 the roads, the economy were much better. , under the NDP. Then in ’82 the Devine Conservatives were elected, espousing the same freemarket fundamentalism as yourself, and things kinda went downhill from there. Don’t let a business degree get in the way of commom sense.
The NDP, however, has been in power a long time now… and the roads and economy have gotten worse.
Don’t blame a long-gone gov’t.
Blame the guys who’ve had the means and power to do the right thing… or not… for I forget how long.
Common sense? You have that? You, who believes in socialism, which has been proven over and over again all over the world to be ultimately unworkable?
YOU’re telling me about common sense? I know what I’ve been observing and understand how it does and doesn’t work.
Don’t knock education. It isn’t ALL dogma. Some of it is actually good stuff!
No Sentinel, actually the economy has much improved since the Conservatives were given the boot in ’91. The roads, however have gotten worse because the gov’t. has elected to waste money on farm subsidies rather than invest in infrastructure, which is my point, however illiterately expressed.
Maryjane, Sentinel makes way more sense than you do.
Farming IS where the money is, but not the subsidies. The “subsidies” you rail against [pun intended], are critical to providing stability to the province. You can’t just tell a farmer with a million dollars invested in dedicated, one purpose equipment, to switch careers for a year, then flip back when the conditions are right. If Canada wants professional farmers, running domestically owned farms, then be prepared to keep them in business. Being able to provide our own food is a national security issue, not just good economic policy.
Roads aren’t just for farming you know, there’s tourism in them thar hills, eh?
“Since Sask is an ugly, silly, flat, underpopulated place with awful weather”
I just wanted to quote a troll, ok?
It’s so easy for people to whine and complain. It would appear that a lot of readers don’t understand the nature of physicl reality but that’s really what is up for question here. Why are the roads falling apart? Ask yourself that.
The truth is that the rail companies were allowed to abandon branch lines following the elimination of the crow subsidy. All of that grain freight was downloaded onto provincial infrastructure.
Further, All of those b-trains hauling grain are exempt from road weight restricitions and the faster they travel the more damage they do. Many semi drivers have modified the suspension systems on their rigs to allow them to carry even more weight and thus improve their profit margins. As long as the grain is moved on highways, Saskatchewan taxpayers will be paying to fix roads.
Interested in solutions? Well, we could slow the trucks down, encourage (open to debate) the use of short line railways, or build new railways on the old rail bedss.
In the reality based community, we deal with the nature of the universe…not the whimsy of a bunch of whiners who didn’t help build anything and can’t understand why things are the way they are. Stand down Tories.
Um, Maryjane… if the economy is so robust in Sask, then how come so many youth keep leaving to find employment, as I hear?
Plus I noticed you slammed the NDP for neglecting the roads. Very good. That shows you do have some common sense at least.
Now you need to come to understand that is a symptom of the ineptitude of the socialist overlords of today and give the SP a try.
What could it hurt? At least they’ll finally fix the bloody roads, which really need fixin’!