The Yorkton area received a rare visit from Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week in the wake of severe summer flooding.
Harper touched down at Yorkton Municipal Airport for the hastily-scheduled visit on Thursday afternoon at the request of Premier Brad Wall, who joined him on an aerial tour of the region's flooded croplands. The prime minister was on his way to Alberta for the Calgary Stampede.
Early reports indicated that Harper would be touring Yorkton itself to see the devastation left by the Canada Day storm. However, the prime minister never set foot in the city; he instead set off immediately to the north with Wall and the federal and provincial agriculture ministers in a Griffon military helicopter.
A few members of the media, including Yorkton This Week, were invited to follow the tour in a second helicopter.
After a 30-minute flight, the prime minister's aircraft landed for a photo op at the farm of Ron & Brenda Blommaert, who have seen more than 20% of their crop unseeded or washed away this year. Harper met briefly with the couple and other members of the public, but did not speak to the media. He left for Calgary immediately afterward.
"Today I saw first hand the devastation caused by recent flooding on the prairies. Western farmers can rest assured that our government is standing by them and their families during this difficult time," said the PM in a written statement-necessarily vague because it was released before the tour was completed.
It was Premier Brad Wall who later filled in a crowd of unsated reporters with a few of the missing details of Harper's visit. During a second tour of some of the city's hardest-hit areas, he praised the prime minister for
responding quickly to his invitation and for stepping up on the $450 million joint federal/provincial farm aid package announced that day.
"The prime minister understood very clearly," Wall said of Harper's reaction to the flood tour. "We spent a good deal of time on the phone, as well. I was able to tell him that in the last eight weeks we've got a year's worth of rain in Saskatchewan. I was able to tell him that we're at 200 percent of normal rainfall."
Asked whether the federal government would also contribute to disaster relief for afflicted towns and cities, Wall explained that assistance from Ottawa should be automatic once the province has worked out the details of a relief plan with those communities.
"I've raised it with the prime minister-he's aware of it. I sent a letter that basically said we're going to be making a global application. We're going to be saying that all of these events are part of one event. We'll make that case and see where it takes us."
In any event, said Wall, help for citizens and business owners in Yorkton should come quickly.
"We were able to provide an advance to the people of Maple Creek in a week. We don't know if we can get there in terms of a week here in Yorkton, but it will be in short order. People who really need it and they've applied for provincial disaster assistance, they're going to get some money soon and very soon, even if it's only a bit of a deposit."
