Mr. Speaker, this year's federal and provincial budgets threw Saskatchewan under the bus. The provincial budget proposes to eliminate the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, STC, depriving communities of needed bus service with less notice than required by the Canada Labour Code.
The federal budget allocates transit funding mostly based on existing ridership, which favours large centres that already have extensive transit systems. Saskatchewan's share of federal transit funding is less than half our share of Canada's population, shortchanging our province by far more than the Saskatchewan Party says axing STC will save.
I invite all Saskatchewan's elected representatives to join me in pushing for an equal per capita allocation of federal funding to improve transit in Regina and Saskatoon and to save STC.