Float Like A Butterfly
The Estevan Golden Eels Swim Club hosted the first swim meet of the summer, collecting 17 medals on their way to a first place showing in the standings. See story on B2.
⇢B6
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY FOR 111 YEARS
Wed., June 25, 2014
Issue 7
The Marvelous Wonderettes
www.estevanmercury.ca
Mailing No. 10769
School division ends impasse By Norm Park normpark@estevanmercury.ca
The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure hosted an open house at the Estevan Leisure Centre last week to show the public a number of concepts for how interchanges in the future may be incorporated along the Estevan Truck Bypass.
First look at intersections By Jordan Baker editor@estevanmercury.ca
When it comes to Saskatchewan roadways, the province is in a state of constant planning. With construction ongoing this summer on the Estevan heavy-truck bypass, the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure released numerous proposals for how interchanges may be introduced onto the bypass to improve traffic flow when volumes on the
Open house shows bypass options
route increase. An open house June 18 welcomed the public to view numerous concepts and leave feedback on what may work best for traffic changing onto the bypass either from Highway 39 west and east of Estevan or from Highway 47. These interchanges, however, will not be built in concert with the bypass. While the bypass has been long in the works and now
has a completion date of fall 2014, the interchanges will come long after, when the Ministry has an opportunity to study traffic along the route and determine the necessity and structure for interchanges on and off the bypass. Mark Rathwell, senior communications consultant with the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, said when it comes to engineering access on and
off the truck route, they’re in the brainstorming stages. “There’s not a preferred concept at this point. That’s what this meeting is about, to gauge people’s reaction to the concepts that are out there and take that feedback and put it into the mix of the overall planning process,” said Rathwell. “We’re at the very early stages of this. This is about gathering information, getting input → A2 Traffic
New regulations will ‘drastically’ affect business in Estevan By Alex Coop acoop@estevanmercury.ca
Michel Cyrenne, Estevan Chamber of Commerce executive director, said the federal government’s reformed regulations for Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program will “drastically” affect the City and will put serious pressure on local businesses that use the program. In hopes of preventing the system from being abused by employers, the federal government unveiled exhaustive reforms to its Temporary Foreign Worker Program on June 20. The new regulations were quickly met with displeasure from across the country, as a number of government officials and employers said the new regulations place an unfair burden on businesses that legitimately utilize the foreign worker program to function. “It’s simply a reaction to political
pressure, particularly from Ontario where the unemployment level is what it is,” said Cyrenne. “(The federal government) is basically bowing down to that pressure out east.” Cyrenne said the 300 per cent fee increase for applications, alongside the reduced time and overall number of foreign workers that are allowed to work in Canada, will hurt a number of local businesses in the service sector, i.e. hotels and restaurants, that rely heavily on employees from outside the country. The federal government also said that regions with unemployment rates above six per cent will be blocked from hiring temporary foreign workers. “Our unemployment rate here is well below three per cent,” said Cyrenne. “But our region states that it’s 6.2 per cent, and the cap is six. We’re being unfairly treated at the expense of gaining support in the east.” When it comes to the abuse of
the program, which is what the federal government hopes to prevent with the stricter regulations, Cyrenne said that those who do abuse it are in the minority, but he doesn’t have a problem with harsher penalties handed out to those that fall into that category. “This program, especially in a province like Saskatchewan, is being used by businesses that need it. It’s not being used by businesses that want to try and pad their pockets with extra cash.” The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was created in 1973 to allow businesses to hire highly skilled foreign workers. In 2002, it was broadened to allow employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in low-skilled jobs. According to the Government of Canada’s website, 83,740 temporary foreign workers entered Canada in 2013, equalling 0.44 per cent of the total Canadian labour force.
The dispute between the Provincial Auditor and the South East Cornerstone Public School Division’s trustees has ended. The school board has agreed to submit some student files to the auditor’s office, but only after names and certain sensitive items have been redacted by the school division’s staff under administration’s guidance. The impasse that existed for a couple of weeks was finally settled on June 23, with a conference call with Acting Provincial Auditor Judy Ferguson, Cornerstone’s chairman Harold Laich and other administrative staff. “We also had a strategic planning meeting with Education Minister Don Morgan earlier,” said Laich, who had noted on June 19, before the board’s regular business session, he hoped they could find some common ground for a procedure that would allow the auditor’s office to gain access to the files and information they wanted. On June 23, after the conference call, Laich said that common ground was found when Ferguson suggested her office would only require about 60 student files from random locations that would let them verify whether Cornerstone was meeting requirements with regards to bullying, other student behaviour issues and attendance records. “This type of audit doesn’t focus on finances, it’s about compliance with anti-bullying programs, attendance and processes,” said Laich. “If we had been given the number of files she wanted right at the start, we might have been able to avoid this whole thing. Our staff will be able to redact (black out) the names and sensitive items in 60 files. If they had wanted several hundred, well, we wouldn’t have been able to do that and student confidentiality could have been compromised and
Harold Laich we wouldn’t let that happen.” Laich said Cornerstone was the only school division in Saskatchewan that was asked to submit this type of information for this specific style of audit. “We asked for a letter from the provincial Justice Ministry absolving us of any responsibility if something went wrong when we complied with this request. We left that issue in Morgan’s hands,” said Laich, referring to the education minister. In the meantime, when the original request to submit student files to the auditor was denied, Ferguson filed a report to the provincial legislative assembly, noting her concerns regarding the refusal to have her office gain access to the student information. In an earlier interview, Ferguson stated she was “puzzled” by the Cornerstone reaction to the request, and noted that it was the first time liability factors had been raised regarding the auditor’s office since protections were in place “to protect both parties.” “We can now give them what they require, and it won’t be full access,” said Laich. “They (Ferguson’s office) gave us enough information about what they need to have to do their compliance audit. I believe we will be giving them what they want this fall, once the new school year begins and all our staff members are back and can carry out the redactions and work with the auditor’s staff. I expect they’ll be able to do it within the first two months.”