A YEAR AFTER LAST RIDE
STC customers miss service
As the brakes were put on the government’s bus service, promises rolled out of private lines that would rush to fill the void left by the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.
But for Sandra Lune, a year without STC has been a time of frustration and isolation.
On May 30 last year, the longtime Bjorkdale resident and regular STC user boarded a bus on her way to Regina, a trip she made often. But that time was different; it was her last using STC.
“It’s a very sad, sad trip,” she told the Leader-Post as she made her final run to Regina from the seat of a government-owned bus.
Lune’s easy back-and-forth rhythm of bus travel to and from the Queen City ended that day.
“Basically, I had to stop everything I was doing (when STC shut down),” she said in a recent interview. “I miss it because it was my lifeline.”
Like many people the LeaderPost encountered on those final runs for STC last year, Lune was grappling with what the future would hold post May 31, 2017, when the buses came to a halt.
After the Saskatchewan Party government announced in its unpopular March 22, 2017 austerity budget that it was shuttering the 71-year-old Crown agency, the outcry from the public, interest groups and provincial NDP Opposition was immediate, loud and wide-ranging.
Those against terminating STC’s operations demanded to know how the numerous rural and northern residents without their own vehicles would get around the province. They asked how patients who used STC to come into Regina, Saskatoon or other centres for medical appointments would be able to make those trips in the future, and how rural labs that shipped drugs and test samples would do so going forward. What effect would it have on the mobility of students, seniors and newcomers? And what options were left for the many farmers and small businesses that used the provincial bus service to ship freight?
The Saskatchewan Party’s main response was that private enterprise would step in to fill the gap, with nimble transport firms finding ways to serve many communities and turn a profit doing so, something STC was unable to do.
So why did the government insist STC — which proponents argued was an essential public service, regardless of whether or not it made money — had to go? And how have things panned out since its demise?
Started in 1946 by the socialist CCF government of premier Tommy Douglas, STC eventually served 253 communities on 25 routes. In the end, only the run between Regina and Saskatoon still turned a profit. In 1980, the company carried almost 790,000 riders; in 2016-2017, just under 186,000. The last time it operated in the black was 1979.
Last year, then-finance minister Kevin Doherty said STC was costing the government between $10 million and $11 million per year to subsidize, and projected having to spend $85 million to support it in the next five years. The subsidy expressed as a figure per passenger was $94, compared to $25 a decade earlier. Revenues covered 50 per cent of costs, with the subsidies covering the rest.
Money-making efforts over the years had included luxury executive service between Regina and Saskatoon, seat sales for seniors, and smaller, fuel-efficient buses — all to no avail.
At the time of the budget announcement, Ray Orb, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), said, “I wish there was some alternative way that we could still operate a publicly owned transportation system.” Saskatchewan communities relied heavily on STC for moving goods and people, added Orb.
The path to the eventual termination of passenger service on May 31 (the last freight shipments were accepted was on May 19) was strewn with protests and efforts to have the decision stalled or reversed. Protests have since continued sporadically — also to no avail.
“I still think (shutting down STC) was a big mistake because I’ve talked to a lot of people, and (they are also finding) it’s difficult getting around,” Lune said recently.
“Getting to Regina from Bjorkdale (near Melfort) is practically impossible, unless you have someone that will take you.
“I had to stop helping my daughter with her day care (in Regina) because I had no way back and forth. And also, in November, when my son was critically ill, I had to go to Regina. I had to get neighbours to take me because there was no bus to go. And then once I was in Regina, I had to stay there for five months, and I had no way back and forth, where usually I could have just come home for a couple of days.
“(Losing ) STC has really been an inconvenience.”
For Kelly Wills, a disabled 58-year-old Gravelbourg man who uses a wheelchair, the loss of STC service has been a significant setback.
On April 19, he sent an open letter, directed at Premier Scott Moe, to the Leader-Post. “I’m a physically disabled individual who is struggling to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach and medicine in my body while having the means to travel to my scheduled appointments,” he wrote.
“Your government first stole my means of transportation from Gravelbourg to Regina for my medical needs when you cancelled the STC bus.
“Now I have to beg for rides, and while social services does pay for gas it does not compensate those who offer to be my travel companion for the day for their time. I have already missed appointments because I couldn’t find a companion with transportation for the day. I ask, would you be willing to set aside six to eight hours of your day to drive your car and wait all day for someone you barely know?”
What about all those private transport entrepreneurs who were going to step in to fill these needs?
In the wake of the STC shutdown, 10 applications were made to the provincial government for operating authority certificates. The operators faced opposition from groups or individuals who favoured STC, and hearings were conducted by the Highway Traffic Board.
Several firms were operating by summer 2017. However, most exited the business within a few months.
Today, only two Saskatchewan companies offer a significant level of scheduled passenger service in the province. Rider Express Transportation runs routes between Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert. DiCal Transport has service between Regina and Yorkton.
“Business is going OK,” said Rider Express owner Firat Uray. It’s the first year of the service, and he believes people are just getting to know the company.
“It’s not really what I was expecting ... It’s going to take some time to get there.”
Uray said Express is just starting to pull trailers for parcels behind their vans, hoping that will help to grow the company.
In the future, he’d like to add a Swift Current-Saskatoon run, when the company hopefully has more income. He’s also fielding calls from La Ronge, Swift Current and Estevan, asking about any plans for service.
Uray hopes for some financial assistance from the provincial government “to get more routes, try to help more people around the province.
“We are not asking for millions and millions of dollars (and not for any support for their Regina- Saskatoon-Prince Albert routes). We are just hoping they can (provide) a small of amount of help so that we can go on (smaller) routes.”
Uray said it’s not possible to cover the costs with passenger service alone on the smaller routes. At the moment, the routes they already have “are just covering the costs; not much profit on it,” he added.
“We want to stay in the business. Hopefully the government will have some plan for us in the future.”
Uray said his company ’s fares for passenger service are about the same as what STC charged, while the fees for freight are lower.
If the company can attract more parcels and freight, it may be able to afford to add more routes to its service, he said.
“This business, it’s hard to survive.”
Over at DiCal Transport, with the Regina-Yorkton route, business is similarly “OK,” said owneroperator Diane Smith, matching Uray’s lukewarm tone.
“If we weren’t already running freight between Yorkton and Regina, it definitely would not sustain itself. But between the two, we’re making it work.”
Smith said most passengers are seniors, and the company charges about $5 more each way than STC did.
Running a passenger service is very expensive, she said. The cost of liability insurance to take passengers “is the killer.” She added that with passenger service, yearly safety inspections are required.
“Because the government keeps adding more and more requirements to the inspections, the costs just keep going up and up.” While she agrees with the policies because they are about passenger safety, “it’s a huge cost (thousands of dollars).”
The company has experimented with more routes, but so far that has not proven viable.
Even with the existing run, DiCal has days without any passengers.
“There’s a lot of hidden costs and hidden fees that you’re not aware of when you first apply for the operating authority.”
Smith thought it was important for the public to “understand the huge costs behind running a passenger service.
“I completely understand why STC was losing the amount of money they were losing.”
Just this month, another transportation service has surfaced because of the demise of STC, specifically aiming to help Indigenous clients get from Prince Albert to Saskatoon for medical appointments. It was started by Ron Michel, the former grand chief of the Prince Albert Grand Council.
He said patients needing to get from Prince Albert to Saskatoon had to use taxis after STC shut down.
“A lot of the services were cut off when the buses were discontinued,” Michel said. “There should be a more appropriate service for taking these people ... that need (Royal) University Hospital and St. Paul’s Hospital for their appointments.”
Cancer patients who needed to travel for treatment had access to a medical pass system that allowed them unlimited travel on STC buses for $69 per month.
Donna Pasiechnik, manager of media and government relations with the Canadian Cancer Society in Regina, said “we can’t be sure” what effect the STC shutdown had on cancer patients travelling to the cities for treatment.
However, she provided a statistic regarding the society’s Wheels of Hope program that may be an indicator. It provides low-cost transportation to treatment for people with cancer, within both Regina and Saskatoon. Since STC service was discontinued, the number of rural patients using the Wheels of Hope service dropped by 31 per cent.
What this indicates, Pasiechnik said, is that people with cancer in rural Saskatchewan are either finding other ways to get into the major city centres for treatment, or they are ending treatment.
What is certain is that these people are now assuming all the travel, and they face greater accommodation costs, which is a financial and emotional burden that didn’t previously exist, she added.
Some people had expressed concerns that the end of STC would spark a crisis in the transportation of blood and blood products around the province, since the provincial bus service had a role in such deliveries.
However, it was pretty much a blip that was quickly resolved, according to David Krol, director of supply chain for Canadian Blood Services in the Prairies.
Krol said that when the shutdown was announced, “the notice period was short, which was obviously a challenge in the short term,” but Canadian Blood Services quickly adapted.
“We basically went to the marketplace and sourced out various courier options that were out there, and of course there’s no one solution that fits all, so we found various couriers who went to various parts of the province and engaged their services and we really didn’t miss a beat in terms of service. We just carried on with different providers is what happened.”
From the perspective of hospital customers, there was virtually no impact, he added.
Ditto for the library system — which ships books as requested from one branch to another throughout the province — said Jeff Barber, library director and CEO of Regina Public Library.
When items move (from one of the 10 library systems in the province to another) the provincial government courier service moves them, Barber said. At the time of STC’s shutdown, the bus line was the province’s courier service for library materials. However, the province committed to continuing those deliveries.
“The service provider is different, but the province’s courier service continues to move library materials from one library system to the other,” Barber said.
But in another area, STC’s shutdown did hit a rough patch.
Earlier this month, an arbitrator ruled 95 former STC employees must receive more than eight weeks worth of salary because STC violated their collective bargaining agreement with last spring ’s closure.
William Hood upheld the view of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1374 that STC violated two sections of the Canada Labour Code applying to group terminations. He found STC did not give its employees the 16 weeks’ notice required by the code, and did not establish a joint planning committee during the shutdown.
Even now, critics continue to hammer the Saskatchewan Party government for the bus service’s closure and question how it was carried out, demanding to see the accounting. Legislative documents show the government did not ask at least six ministries for input, or conduct a risk assessment or economic impact assessment before shutting STC down.
“I don’t know what the future is ... I don’t see any change,” said Martin Wooldridge, a former transportation consultant and a spokesman for Save STC, a group that sprang up after the closure.
“The government just battened their hatches, buried their head in the sand and didn’t want to listen to anything, and I guess hoped that the issue would blow over,” he charged.
“Well, it’s never really blown over because there are people out there in the population that are still campaigning in one form or another for the return of a provincial bus service. Maybe the only real possibility of that is a change of government.”
In question period in the legislature on May 9, Joe Hargrave — whose ministerial responsibilities include STC — responded to a challenge from NDP Leader Ryan Meili to bring back some version of the provincial bus line.
“The decision to wind down STC was a not an easy one, Mr. Speaker, and it’s one that we did not take lightly,” Hargrave said. “(STC) cost $85 million over the next five years, Mr. Speaker. Our officials estimate it would cost $50 million to restart that.”
Whatever happens, even though the buses and equipment and even some of the terminals are sold off (including the main terminal in Regina, which the City of Regina has purchased to repurpose as the new Regina Police Service headquarters), STC as an entity will live on for one more fiscal year.
In early April, the government said it needs “another fiscal period to complete all transactions and finalize financial reporting responsibilities.”
STC is now scheduled to wind down on March 31, 2019, almost two years after the buses made their last runs.