Transport committee  Thirty seconds?

Transport committee  I'll start, Mr. Chair, and take a crack at that. When we're looking at funding, there's one thing we've been requesting for a long time--and I think it's something we must have--and that's a long-term infrastructure strategy. We need to have that with the federal government, the provinces, and municipalities.

Transport committee  Sure.

Transport committee  I would be concerned about the logistics of it, for many reasons. With the freight movement we're seeing across Canada now, I would be very concerned about safety issues. We're seeing trains rolling through our communities--Vancouver-Toronto and Vancouver-Chicago--virtually on an hourly basis.

Transport committee  Yes, we did.

Transport committee  Right.

Transport committee  Well, thank you very much for the question. I don't know how; I guess we took the initiative and thought we had to look in the mirror at what we were doing. It was something that our membership endorsed. That was another good thing, really, that came out of it. I guess how we could work on it with other jurisdictions could be through FCM, at one of the committee levels.

Transport committee  It would be. We tried that in Edmonton a few years ago. We called it “Rural Matters!”, and AAMDC took the lead on that. We had people from rural municipalities from right across Canada in a three-day workshop format, and we came out with a living, breathing document that talked about that very issue: what rural Canada needed.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  I don't think it's not a matter of learning. It's a matter of commitment. I think that's where the province has come to the table and that's a reason why we're here today. STC is a corporation within the provincial boundaries that has lost money over the past few years in operations, but it does provide a vital link to approximately 260 communities in rural Saskatchewan.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for inviting SARM to appear here today to give a rural perspective on transit and some of our issues. SARM is an independent association that represents all 296 of Saskatchewan's rural municipalities.

Finance committee  No, it worked well where it did work, and a lot of our members received some good dollars for it. There's always more that can be needed.

Finance committee  We have taken advantage of the stimulus. Really, what happened in the case of much of the stimulus package is that we had quite a few municipalities apply, but when your road or your bridge is put in the same category or context as water and waste water and sewer, unfortunately you don't rate as high in the rankings.

Finance committee  Yes, and we're aware of it as a result of what happened in Saskatchewan this year, with approximately 12 million acres that didn't get seeded or were flooded out. When the federal and provincial governments announced the payments through the AgriRecovery program, that payment would be reflected in any other payments they received through the AgriStability program.