More cuts and clawbacks in store for other Saskatchewan urban parks
Due to a lack of funding in the provincial budget, the Meewasin Valley Authority announced today that its Interpretive Centre will shut down on July 1 and with it three full time jobs will be lost as well as public programs.
“This is devastating news,” said NDP Parks, Culture and Sport Critic Warren McCall. “The Interpretive Centre has been beloved by the thousands of tourists and school groups that would visit it each year. It’s truly a shame that the mismanagement of nearly a decade of record revenues by the Sask. Party has led to its closure and has put the Authority, in its entirety, in jeopardy.”
In the provincial budget, it was announced that five urban parks, including Wakamow in Moose Jaw, Chinook Parkway in Swift Current, Pehonan in Prince Albert, River Valley in Battlefords and Tatagwa in Weyburn, were getting their grants cut by the Saskatchewan Party.
Funding for Meewasin and Wascana Park in Regina are under review by the government, but McCall said it’s clear today, with the news of the Interpretive Centre closure, that the budget is already having a negative effect on all of the province’s urban parks.
“As someone who has the privilege to work at the Legislature Building – within Wascana Park – it really worries me to think about what the government’s cut and clawbacks will mean for Saskatchewan’s urban parks,” McCall said. “It’s unacceptable for this government to pin their mistakes on the people of Saskatchewan and the parks they love.”