Ryan Kiedrowski
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The World-Spectator
Thanks to a matching grant, the Town of Esterhazy will see some work at their local airport. Since 2007, the province has offered the Community Airport Partnership program, which strives to help communities bolster their local aviation services.
“It really does benefit a lot of the regional airports,” said Highways Minister David Marit. “This year, we’re putting $935,000 into the program. There’s eight different projects around the province on regional airports. And really what it does is it really helps those communities that have regional airports to upgrade the airport.”
Esterhazy will receive $79,500 from CAP with the town contributing the other half for a $159,000 total project cost. Runway and apron revitalization is slated to begin this year.
“The recent CAP funding is really great news for Esterhazy,” said Mayor Randy Bot. “It gets us another step closer to finishing much needed upgrades to our runway and apron—important pieces for a small town like ours.”
“It’s also part of economic growth, and we’ve seen it in some communities where companies come in, they want to do a project, so the CEO wants to be able to fly and have a look at the project. So it’s really important for us as a government to help these communities to upgrade their airports,” says Marit.
Joining Esterhazy in this year’s round of funding is the Town of Assiniboia, RM of Eye Hill, Town of La Ronge, the Moose Jaw Municipal Airport Authority, Town of Nipawin, Town of Tisdale, and City of Yorkton.
“Esterhazy is a booming community,” Marit said, pointing to the importance of Mosaic’s potash operations nearby. “As well as for the community, for making sure that they have the availability for fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds, whether it’s for economic growth, whether it’s for emergencies, or whether it’s for agriculture.”
Bot echoed those sentiments, underlining how crucial a role the airport plays in Esterhazy.
“Having a safe, reliable airport isn’t just nice to have, it’s a lifeline. It supports things like emergency medical and ag services,” he said. “It’s great to see the province recognizing the value of rural airports with this kind of support, and we’re definitely glad to see some of those dollars landing here.”
When CAP was first floated back in 2007, the idea was to extend the program over 10 years, but Marit is confident that it’s here to stay.
“It is more now a fixed program that we look at it,” he said. “The committee is structured in such a way that people look at the projects and say, ‘this one is probably important to that community,’ and they put it forward. It always gets oversubscribed, so we just want to make sure that we’re doing it right in the best way we can.”
Marit gave the real credit to the people of Saskatchewan
“We’re trying to do what we can and be responsible with the dollars that the people of the province paid to the government,” he said. “The government doesn’t have money, it comes from the taxpayers, from resource wealth, and economic growth. So it’s important for us to utilize the dollars the best way we can. Obviously, there’s lots of needs right now with the growth that we’re having in the province—and growth is a good thing—and that’s something we just want to strive to continue to do.”
