Issue of safety ignored during talks about airport funding, says board chair

The Moose Jaw airport needs upgrades so it is safe for medical personnel to use, a fact lost in the conversation about matching grant funding for the project, according to the airport authority. Fixed-wing air ambulance planes use the airport when delicate patients need to be transferred, such as to the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon, explained Greg Simpson, chairman of the Moose Jaw Municipal Airport Authority. He thought those medical personnel were putting their lives at risk every time they came to Moose Jaw and had to use the runway. “It’s about time we finally addressed that safety concern,” Simpson said on Oct. 28 after the regular city council meeting. “Who wouldn’t want their child to be put on a fast first-class service? Those are the things being missed in this conversation and I think it’s important the public knows about that.” Council voted 5-2 in favour of extending the $500,000 matching grant from the municipal land reserve fund by stretching the deadline to Dec. 31, 2023 so the airport authority could still access those funds. Council also voted in favour to approve an operating agreement with the airport authority.

Signing this agreement is a bold step, Simpson said. There will be a significant gain since the matching grant funding will eventually turn into $3 million, with $1 million coming from both the federal and provincial government, $500,000 from Moose Jaw and $500,000 raised by the authority.

“Who would turn down that increase in dollars?” Simpson asked, noting the matching grant will generate five times as much money. “We’re going to have this thing up and running in the spring.”

The airport authority has heard comments about how inadequate the runway is, said board vice-chair Jarrett Johnson. When Walmart was originally going to be built here, a company executive wondered why the company should build in Moose Jaw when executives couldn’t fly their corporate jets here.

“I know the stigma is it’s just rich people using it, but it’s an economic driver for the city,” said Johnson, adding a manager of a billion-dollar investment fund said he would not invest in Moose Jaw since he couldn’t fly his corporate jet into the airport. “People simply see it as a rich person’s tool and it’s simply not.”

There is a misunderstanding that the federal government denied funding for the renovation project at the airport, said Simpson. This infrastructure project was negotiated last October between the provincial and federal governments over how to allocate federal transit funding.

Once that negotiation occurred, the project was given the green light, he added. The authority submitted an intake application in April and is now weeks away from receiving ministerial approval for the project.