CRIME SEVERITY INDEX
GOLDEN EELS
Estevan’s crime rate up A5 slightly
Best in southern Sask. A9
Issue 13
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
ESTEVAN’S
SOURCE FOR LOCAL & REGIONAL NEWS
Time for the Rafferty Rumble By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
After nearly a year of planning and promotion, the Rafferty Rumble is about to make its return to Estevan. The event will run from July 26-28 at venues throughout the Estevan area, although most of the activities are planned for July 27. “There has been lots of co-operation from the business community. The City of Estevan has been amazing to work with,” said committee chair Josh LeBlanc. The Rumble will open on the 26th with a slow-pitch tournament inside Woodlawn Regional Park, which is filled with 16 teams registered. The tournament is expected to continue until July 28. Activities on July 27 will feature attractions in downtown Estevan, and tournaments and other events elsewhere in the city. It will kick off with a free pancake breakfast at the Tower Café parking lot, starting at 9 a.m. There will also be a show and shine, a street fair put on by the Downtown Action committee and an artisan market with more than 60 booths, all downtown. “There will be everything from baking to fashion to jewelry … we have a huge selection down there for everyone,” said LeBlanc. A music festival will be set up in the 1100-block of Fourth Street. Eleven bands are booked for throughout the day. “There has been a significant investment in entertainment from the Energy City, and we’re hitting every genre, from rock to country to alternative,” said LeBlanc. Local act The Ross LeBlanc trio will open the music festival at 9 a.m. Then there will be West of Mabou, which is a traditional Celtic band, local folk trio Hook & Nail, Nick Faye and the Deputies, Megan Nash, Dead Levee, Bombargo and Saskatchewan country music singer Brock Andrews. LeBlanc noted Bombargo will be starting their Western Canada tour at the Rafferty Rumble. A street dance will begin at 8:30 p.m., with music from The Bromantics, El Guitaro and Fogdog; the latter group performed previously at Sa-
vour the Southeast. As for the tournaments, they include the slow-pitch tournament, the Party on the Pitch soccer tournament at the Woodlawn Athletic Field, and the inaugural Force Fitness Challenge that is being organized by Fresh Air Fitness, all of which start at 8 a.m. A beach volleyball tournament at Woodlawn’ Boundary Dam beach site starts at 9 a.m. The TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club will have a free driving range throughout the day, and a clinic at 2 p.m. The Rafferty Rumble was last held in Estevan in the early 1990s. This event will be much larger. “People might remember the Rafferty Rumble from before,” said LeBlanc. “That’s not what this is. We’re not just pulling a flatdeck downtown and making it happen.” A few events – the football tournament hosted by Penta Completions Estevan Minor Football, the Eve of Destruction at the Estevan Motor Speedway and the Rock of Ages musical at the Estevan Comprehensive School – had to be cancelled due to a lack of registrations. Ticket sales are going quite well, he said. The gate charge for admission to the downtown activities is the same as advance tickets, so he expects people are waiting to see what the weather will be like that day. Proceeds from the Rafferty Rumble will be directed to the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum. LeBlanc noted the agency sustained some significant funding cuts, and so it needs to make up the money. “We knew the Rafferty Rumble hadn’t been here for a while. It was an idea I always had in the back of my head to bring it back. Being on the board of the directors for the art gallery, I thought what a better way to do that.” But they wanted it to be more than a street dance, and they wanted to infuse arts and culture. A2 » VOLUNTEERS
GEORGE C.
FORD OF CANADA
Tight turn Reauna Blight rode her horse tightly around a barrel during the barrel racing extravaganza Saturday at the Estevan Exhibition Grounds. The event attract horse and rider tandems for two days of racing. For more on the event, please see Page A11. Photo by David Willberg
Estevan is talking independence of Western Canada By Ana Bykhovskaia abykhovskaia@estevanmercury.ca
Ideas of Wexit, or Western Exit, were discussed at the Estevan Elk’s Club Wednesday night. Former MLA/MP Allen Kerpan, who is now travelling across Saskatchewan with the “Can Confederation be Fixed?” tour, was joined by a crowd of about 40 people in the conversation about the future of Saskatchewan and Western Canada in the context of what may happen following the October’s election. Kerpan brought a petition to be signed to form Wexit Saskatchewan into a new political party that would look for more independence for Saskatchewan. “They need 2,500 names of residents of Saskatchewan in order to form a political party. That’s the goal of Wexit,” said Kerpan. The conversation started with the discussion of the history of western alienation, the notion that western provinces are alienated and sometimes
Former MLA/MP Allen Kerpan came to Estevan to talk about Wexit Sask. Photo by Anastasiia Bykhovskaia even excluded from mainstream politics in favour of Ontario and Quebec. “ Western alienation didn’t start last week, or last month, or last year, or 10 years ago. I really feel that western alienation started when (Frederick) Haultain
(the premier of North-West Territories) came to the west 110-15 years ago. He proposed to the liberal prime minister (Wilfrid) Laurier that there should be one province… of Alberta and Saskatchewan… Laurier… said they didn’t want to do that because that
would give too much political strength, too big of an area, so they split in half,” recalled Kerpan. Then he turned towards the experience of the Reform Party, later renamed the Canadian Alliance that he used to be a part of. The party was born out the sense of alienation and tried to get the west strong working under the slogan “West wants in.” “I think the biggest mistake that we made (with) the Reform Party… was that we decided to expand our base from Western Canada to the rest of Canada,” said Kerpan. The unity of western Canada may be beneficial in the current situation, but Kerpan noted that even if put together the population of three prairie provinces won’t surpass even the Greater Toronto Area. So in order to achieve something any western candidates have to serve Ontario and Quebec. “Under our current system it’s impossible for any A2 »PLEBESCITE
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