Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
The brakes on Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) will be hit on Wednesday, the last day for passenger service. The provincial bus company has provided the service since 1946.
The government announced in the provincial budget this March that it would wind down the Crown.
The provincial bus company needed $85 million in subsidies over the next five years to keep it operating.
The last ever bus on the highways will be the Prince Albert to Hudson Bay route, arriving at 11:30 p.m.
But the well-known green and yellow buses will still be on the road on Thursday. Sixteen of the 41 coaches in the STC fleet will return, without passengers or parcels, to the bus barns in Regina and Saskatoon.
From there they will be prepped for sale.
“Our mechanics will go through them and make sure that they are ready and they will be checked over and inventoried properly and then listed,” STC’s Candace Caswell explained.
That same Thursday, 98 people, mostly drivers and some admin staff, will be without a job. There have been nine who voluntarily resigned.
The remaining 117 staff will remain to either deal with the dissolution of the Crown or maintain the Regina and Saskatoon bus depots which will still serve Greyhound customers until the contract expires in September.
“People that are using Greyhound will be coming into the terminal and will be shipping through our terminals in Regina and Saskatoon,” Caswell confirmed. “When someone walks by the terminal and sees the doors open and people in here, I think it is good they understand why that is happening.”
It has been determined by government through KPMG, a certified public accountant in Regina, that the assets of STC must be sold and the dissolution complete by March 2018.
But that is a long way to go for the STC staff who remain focused on the immediate day-to-day job of serving customers.
“Most of the staff have been worried about the customers and that has been the focus so far more than their own personal situation,” Caswell said.
