The Saskatchewan provincial government has confirmed the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) will not be restarted.
Discussions around an STC resurrection heated up again on Oct. 24, when Premier Brad Wall announced the provincial government would repeal Bill 40, which would have allowed for partial sale of Crown corporations.
Provincial political figures said the service was simply too expensive to maintain, estimating the operation costs of the service to be around $17 million per year.
Meanwhile, newly-minted federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh proposed adding federal funding to help restart STC during a visit to Saskatchewan last week.
“The federal government should step in and provide that funding if the province won’t,” he said.
Since STC was shut down, no regular passenger bus service has operated in northern Saskatchewan. Frequent STC users, including many who used the service as transportation for vital medical transport, have been left scrambling for other options.