As we enter 2025, we need to look at the state of infrastructure in our province and our country.
In Saskatchewan, we have a record number of residents using our roads. With over 1.2 million people in the province, Saskatchewan roads, highways and bridges are seeing more tires hit the surface than ever before.
As we know, Saskatchewan is an export province that relies on its infrastructure to get its goods to market. As our exports grow year over year, the demand of having functional infrastructure to move those products to customers across the globe is imperative to our quality of life.
A thriving economy is how we get to build our hospitals and schools. But to do this we must have the resources to fund infrastructure before a single shovel is put into the ground.
How we fund and maintain our infrastructure has a direct relationship to how successful our economy will be.
This year will be a challenging time for many sectors in Canada and the province as the country faces potential punitive action from our largest trading partner, the United States, in the form of tariffs. Governments will have to come to terms on how to best mitigate the impact tariffs will have on our provincial and national economies.
Building our schools, hospitals and infrastructure will become costlier if the tariffs come to pass. It is time for governments at all levels to think smart when it comes to the priorities of where taxpayers’ money is spent.
One of the government’s basic principles is to maintain functioning infrastructure to support its citizens and its economy. When government takes its eye off the ball to focus on pet projects of their liking, the results tend to be catastrophic, as witnessed by the recent Los Angeles fires.
As we work our way through 2025, our message to governments of all levels is to focus on the core services that maintain a healthy economy, and that starts with proper funding of infrastructure in our cities, province and country.
