The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor City council is not ready to put cash on the table as efforts forge ahead to reverse unpopular highway bussing cuts As of last week, Greyhound has eliminated its day runs between Flin Flon and Winnipeg and no longer provides any passenger service between Flin Flon, Snow Lake and Thompson. This comes after the NDP government terminated a subsidy to Greyhound, hopeful that individual communities could launch transportation services of their own. Mayor George Fontaine said the question is whether the city wants to take on another service 'downloaded' onto municipalities by a provincial government with more financial wherewithal. 'We shouldn't have to do that, so it's certainly not going to be any kind of a first move,' he said at last week's council meeting. Mayor Fontaine said council has not offered any funding for highway transportation and is instead working on initiating conversations among other stakeholders. 'I've been in conversations with potential local providers, I've been in conversation with the government and we've been in conversation as well with the health department,' he said. See 'We've...' on pg. 8 Continued from pg. 1 'And we've put people in touch with each other, and that was the biggest part that we can do, is broker those conversations or start those conversations among them to see what can happen. A lot of times it's not what you can provide, but it's who you can get together to have those discussions.' Mayor Fontaine is critical of both the province, which had been subsidizing remote bus routes, and Greyhound, which sought to scale back its service. 'People are not being taken into consideration,' he said. 'The government, I don't think, is taking the right approach or a strong enough approach. None of us (on council) are happy with the approach and we have made that clear to them.' Asked if he would like to see the province again subsidize Greyhound to revive its former schedule, Mayor Fontaine said he would prefer a different carrier receive financial aide. 'They (Greyhound) have shown no interest (in the routes),' he said. 'I'd like to see somebody who could show an interest be subsidized.' While Greyhound has not publicly stated so, Mayor Fontaine said he fears more service reductions are ahead, a sentiment echoed by Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt. 'There are potentially serious consequences to a lot of passengers, especially those involved with health care,' Kolt said. 'The city is going to continue to get into dialogue with anybody who's in a position to improve what we've got now or to maintain any advantages that we have. That's really all that we can do. I don't think we're in a position to completely replace any service.' Still, Kolt said it 'would probably be difficult to exclude any options completely at this point.' Open letter Coun. Skip Martin, a vocal opponent of the diminished bus schedule, is asking residents to sign an open letter he will send to Transportation Minister Steve Ashton. The letter, available at local businesses, calls it 'the responsibility of the provincial government' to 'provide an affordable, convenient link to the rest of the province for people that don't have a driver's license or vehicle and for seniors that are no longer capable of driving long distances.' The day bus to Winnipeg is crucial, Coun. Martin writes, because of convenience and safety as well as the difficulty people may have sleeping on the night bus. Mayor Fontaine urged concerned residents to join council in denouncing the cuts. 'I believe that if we have some people in this community who like to travel, they should be speaking up as well,' he said. 'I don't know where we're going to go from here exactly other than to continue to protest and hope that some local people are going to come up with a better solution for it.' Prior to the cuts, Greyhound buses had left Flin Flon for Winnipeg daily at 9:15 a.m. as well as at 8 p.m. each day except Monday and Saturday. The bus left Winnipeg for Flin Flon at 10 a.m. daily as well as at 8 p.m. each day except Saturday and Sunday. Busses had also run between Flin Flon, Snow Lake and Thompson every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Now the Flin Flon-Snow Lake-Thompson route has been eliminated, and just one bus departs Flin Flon for Winnipeg each day, and vice-versa, at 8 p.m. Greyhound said the routes cut were not profitable. Freight services were not impacted. MLA Clarence Pettersen, whose government had been subsidizing Greyhound since 2010, said he too is disappointed with the reduced service. 'We've got to find a more permanent solution for residents of the North,' he told The Reminder earlier this year. Between March 2010 and last month, the province reportedly subsidized Greyhound to the tune of $8.4 in exchange for a promise not to reduce services. Asked why the subsidy arrangement could not be extended, Pettersen said Greyhound wanted 'even more money' and wants to 'pick and choose the routes.' If other options fail, Pettersen said he would favour the introduction of a government-run bus service like the Saskatchewan Transportation Company. Flin Flon was not the only community impacted by Greyhound reductions. Also cut in northern Manitoba were the Thompson, Nelson House-Lynn Lake, Cross Lake-Norway House and Split Lake-Gillam routes. Several routes in southern Manitoba, including three between Winnipeg and Brandon, were also canned. Claiming it was losing money, Greyhound threatened to end all passenger services in Manitoba in early October of 2009. It later agreed to negotiate with the province.
