Local rail transporters, however, say that the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly would spell the end of shortline railroads that depend on CWB grains for 99 per cent of their cargo. Lonny McKague of Omega-based Red Coat Road and Rail, which serves Weyburn and southern Saskatchewan, said that about 99 per cent of the producer cars are for CWB grains.
McKague predicts that if the CWB monopoly ends, the CWB will be dead within one year - and furthermore, that the shortline railways will be out of business a year after that, unless there is specific protection put in to continue to allow producer cars to be filled.
McKague said Ottawa also plans to cut the funding for the Canadian Grain Commission (which also governs the use of producer cars) in half, and those costs will in turn be passed onto farmers.
Weyburn, however, is not wholly dependent on the grain industry. It is also sharing in the oil and gas boom in southern Saskatchewan, which is expected to see a 17 per cent increase in oil drilling this year.
Much of the drilling takes place near Weyburn, where horizontal drilling has increased the life of the Weyburn-Midale oilfield by more than 30 years. Today, Weyburn has one of world's largest enhanced oil recovery operations and is the site of the largest geological greenhouse gas sequestration project in the world.
Weyburn has matured into more than a farm or oil town in its 109-year history, however. It is the headquarters of the Sun County Health Region, has 10 schools, six recreational facilities, three art centres and one of Saskatchewan's newest urban park developments.
Meanwhile, the oil boom has driven the residential vacancy rate to near zero, and the city is scrambling to provide more building lots to meet demand for housing.
from Western Investor November 2011
