Martensville Well Represented at 2023 Saskatchewan Winter Games

The Saskatchewan Winter Games will be taking place in Regina from February 19-25 with nine district teams participating in 17 different sports. Over 1800 participants will be in attendance and over 5000 spectators expected throughout the seven day event.

Young athletes from Martensville will be competing with the Prairie Central team, which consists of 119 athletes from Martensville, Warman, Humboldt, Kelvington, Fort Qu’Appelle, Outlook and surrounding areas.

Martensville will have a wide array of talented individuals representing our city, including:

Jillian Benko – Badminton, Shane Benko –

Badminton, Adelyn Janis – Gymnastics, Atley Mathies – Gymnastics, Carter Budge – Speed Skating, Jillian Benko – Figure Skating, Shane Benko – Figure Skating, Chloe Bartel

Futsal F, Justin Farfan – Futsal M, Julian Moldon

Futsal M, Abdiel Zabaleta Bargen

– Futsal M, Rene Zabaleta Bargen – Futsal

M, Coach Abel Zabaleta Alcazar – Futsal M, Rex Norman – Target Shooting, Emerson Romanow – Target Shooting, Mason Cey (Fill)

Target Shooting, Seth Norman (Fill)

– Target Shooting, Jaydyn Okell (Fill) –Target Shooting, Landon Moss – Wrestling, Zechariah Topping – Wrestling, Manager Tara Topping – Wrestling, and Mission Staff Angie Reddekopp – Figure Skating.

Good luck to all of local athletes!

Politicians Need To Work Together For Better Air Travel

In the past, we were a lot more comfortable with what we had when it came to flying in and out of Saskatchewan.

A half century ago, it wasn’t much of an issue. Few had the luxury of flying to Hawaii, Arizona, Florida, California or Mexico to escape cold Saskatchewan winters for a while.

Such things were for the uber-rich, which most Saskatchewan farmers were not. They stayed home, tending to smaller mixed operations. (The upside is that rural Saskatchewan sure produced some mighty good curlers and hockey players.) But in the last 50 years, people got richer and sun destinations became more affordable. In turn, flights also became increasingly affordable because of increased demand and perhaps because of a little more competition and the commitment Air Canada had as federal Crown corporation had to providing affordable flights across the nation.

We all know where fuel prices have gone in the last 20 years and notwithstanding the fact that Saskatchewan has increased by 200,000 people in about that same period; many of whom have become way more affluent in that time; this province’s access to national and international flights has deteriorated in a major way.

Anger over this peaked during the Christmas travel/ holiday season surrounding the cancelation of Sunwing holiday flights and news that Air Canada will no longer be flying from Regina and Saskatoon to Calgary. Both these developments mean that WestJet is our sole choice.

As anyone who has attempted to fly out-of-country from Saskatchewan, that had already become very difficult.

This hasn’t escaped the attention of our political leaders, although they pretty much did what political leaders do; complain and suggest it’s the fault of some other politician.

“This is a very irresponsible decision by Sunwing for everyone who has booked a vacation,” Moe said late last year, adding Saskatchewan Transportation Minister Jeremy Cockrill would be demanding a detailed plan from federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra on how and when people would get back, or get their money back.

Later in January, Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck seemed to place the blame squarely on Moe: “Scott Moe picks fights and sows division with the feds for division’s sake,” Beck wrote in relation to the situation. “But when given the opportunity to step up and lead, he’s missing in action. Interprovincial travel is instrumental to our economy and needs to be restored.”

Finger-pointing doesn’t help get more flights here. We must try things. Do we need deregulation to allow in foreign carriers or enticements for airlines to set up shop here? Should there be tax breaks on fuel or lower airport fees?

Admittedly, the answers may not come easily, but we all know what’s at stake. This is a growing province that we want to keep growing. We want to attract new businesses and maybe head office jobs in the larger centres. If you can’t get in and out of the province, how do you accomplish that?

There is no denying we are a trade-dependent province. We keep setting up trade office all over the world like the one recently opened in Berlin. In doing so, isn’t that just an admission that we need better international flight access in this landlocked province and it surely isn’t just business interests in play.

Right now, we are in a desperate scramble for health care workers, keying in on attracting health care workers from around the world. We are looking for doctors from all corners of the globe and we are especially zeroing in on nurses from the Philippines. It’s already hard to compete with other provinces on the wages and amenities they offer.

So how do we compete when they also offer better air travel? This is not our grandfathers’ Saskatchewan. We need to address this.