Today in Question Period, Cathy Sproule, NDP Critic for the Water Security Agency (WSA), pushed for a resolution to Peter and Barbara Onofreychuk’s eight-year fight to save their farm from being flooded by illegal drainage onto their land. In spite of a court order last June upholding the couple’s complaints and finding the WSA in breach of its duty, the WSA has yet to act. The couple now face expropriation of their land by local agencies seeking to flood their land.
“For nearly a decade, Peter and Barbara have been fighting tooth and nail for a resolution to this issue,” Sproule said of the Onofreychuks, who were at the Legislature for Question Period. “After the court ordered the WSA to act, the agency continue to stand by while allowing local entities to take the extraordinary measure of expropriating Peter and Barbara’s land, rather than fixing the drainage mess they’ve created.”
“My family is the victim in this, and those who have broken the law are being allowed to get away with it,” Peter said. “The government should be enforcing the law, but instead they are allowing these people to expropriate my land. That’s not fair and it’s not right.”
The Saskatchewan NDP is calling on the Minister to direct the WSA to comply with the court order, and not to continue to stand by when one farm family’s livelihood is being threatened.