Northgate

[SASKFARMER3]

Trip to Vancouver at beginning of Dec confirmed what was going to happen at north gate.
Why ship oil by pipe when Obamas main man owns BNSF!
Ah American politics.

[oneoff]

And this for those who have jumped 100% to the conclusion that this is good for the area; and good for the province as Brad Wall has just stated and good for the country and world as the media and nearly everyone else will agree.

AND HAVE ALSO CONCLUDED THAT ONLY ONEOFF AND SOME GREEN NUTS ARE TRYING TO MAKE AN ISSUE OF IT.......

I would say that this project has the potential impact on this area beyond most people's level of comprehension. And done within democratic principles would have my wholehearted support.

My concerns are that it was done within the biggest cloak of secrecy that I have ever witnessed. Just like a municipality getting into constructing paved provincial highways when our local garbage collection and municipal road trails are not first not able to surpass third world standards.

And all this done without one opportunity for public input or notification of intent......before the edicts were laid down in stone. And will any legitimate municipal approval be forthcoming; or hasn't it aready effectively been granted in the contract to sell $57000 municipal prperty for less than $500.00 per lot.

Remember the lots were 25 feet wide too. .

So was the Northgate townsite really a long term liability as council members represented; or as I maintained; a stategic asset that should have been developed with the best interests of the area and region in mind.

And again I anticipate the need to raise the argument that the third North South Rail connection in all Western Canada (BC accepted) has been "given" to one entity with no firm idea of their intent or any real protection put in place in case they default on unknown "promises" or impact on other parties access to that stategic former public property.
Maybe the RM priorities are some bridges that are closed or unsafe; controlling tax increases; and actually giving some opportunity for the public to be involved in their "$60,000" community plan that has only gained the input of a couple handfuls of unnamed/unknown basically internet responses. Is that what planning about?

Are not Northgate, airport, commercial development in an RM, coordination with towns nd villages... et al ...what public planning should be about.

But lets just talk about the supposed detractors...eh.

Finally remenber that ABSOLUTELY only the foreign owners, Corus, Ceres, Enniskillen Council, and maybe Brad Wall types decided whatever this project is and will be.


Remember......no real public input is/was allowed. And that is best described by any words other than democracy.

[wd9]

That's awesome oneoff!

[oneoff]

Maybe I'm too sensitive; to the point that deep sarcasm is just seen as cloaked personal attacks. Cotton has brought up a reference to a post that is over a year old. I have reprinted it below.
My comment about what is written below;
is that the real story is not the potential development BUT THE FACT THAT IT HAS BEEN COVERED UP FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. And cotten and wd and most of the rest of you will never apparently ever concede this important fact.


posted Feb 10, 2012 10:35
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Believe me when I report that at least some municipal councils have acted in a secret fashion where at least some important council decisions are deliberately hidden from the general public.
One of the tenants of democracy is that rural municipal business is done in an open public forum (monthly council meetings) ; and represents the needs and aspirations of the ratepayers that the council members represent. Is it then accepable for a council to decide to all but swear themselves to secrecy; and amongst only council members decide to not publicize a potentially important decision in any way; and even make those council decision at a chosen moment when no member of the general public had any chance of observing that decision at the "open" council meeting. It is then buried in the minutes and deleted from the public press release of business conducted.
You may as well know, dear reader that the RM of Enniskillen has chosen the winner of a lottery for perhaps what will be seen as one of the most prime properties in western Canada. There was one ticket available and once some "unknown" non-Canadian company picked it up; it was a council decision that no other competing bids would be allowed. The "facility"; or as I believe "facilities" are not being discussed. A "company" is a also acquiring "all" the substancial public RM property in the hamlet of Northgate; without advertisement; or consultation with the Econonomic Development officer; the ratepayers or any other municipalities or towns; but with the full cooperation of our "elected" representatives.


This mode of council action may be more commonplace than imagined. A couple of years ago; in the adjoining RM of Moose Creek; a couple million dollar obligation to build a provincial highway was reported to the ratepayers in a way that even the most observant person had no idea that the arguably largest ever RM project was underway.
It should be of interest that in that case the RM of Moose Creek lawyers strongly argued to the Court of Queen's Bench judge; that all ratepayers had been adequately informed (though the right to access council minutes).

In the next breath; a substantial amount of taxpayers money is being spent on an "essential" economic development plan. The input is to come from the ratepayers (lol, lol, lol) An "all about the money" decision might as well be that we dispense with the charades; and council simply chose the best "benevalent dictator" that money can acquire.
Pragmatic messengers for democratic principles would also have to agree that in the real world this might as well happen.
After last night's council meeting I did fully stick my neck out before the reeve and almost full council. I give them full credit (as individuals) for hearing me out; and feel that I had the full attention of at least a strong majority present. I think I presented a perspective that had not been seriusly considered before; but am not naive enough to believe that any future council decision will be conducted in any significantly different manner than has been done in the past.
I leave it up to those who never will have any clue or interest about imminent municipal changes to building codes; inspectors; zoning; drainage, bylaw enforcement; policing; fencing; roads and approaches; community planning. Most will remain oblivious to what happened last night, in the past, or will happen in the future.

But rest assured that someone's viewpoint expressed in a letter to the editor about a new housing project's shortcomings will be used to attack the author; and not one of the points raised will beconsidered on its merits.

[DogPatch]

Scoular buying into Prairie grain handling
Will own grain terminal in new SE Sask. commodity hub
Feb 6, 2013 4:13 AM - 0 comments
TEXT SIZE bigger text smaller text
By: Staff
Crops, Machinery, Markets

Omaha's Scoular Co. plans to bankroll and operate a new grain handling facility in Saskatchewan's southeast corner for quick access to U.S. and Mexican processors.

Scoular was announced Tuesday as the funding partner, owner and operator for the grain handling portion of a new, $90 million commodity logistics hub to be built on the North Dakota border at Northgate, Sask., about 60 km southeast of Estevan.

The hub, a project of Toronto-based Ceres Global Ag Corp., is to be built on 1,500 acres connecting to BNSF Railway's U.S. network at Northgate with two rail loops, each with 120-car spots.

One of the two rail loops at Northgate will serve the Scoular grain handling and shipping facility. The second will be devoted to transloading and shipping oil from the province's southeastern oil patch.

Ceres' plan also includes a logistics centre to unload "imported equipment and materials for Saskatchewan's booming resource economy."

The Scoular facility is expected to have capacity to handle up to 40 million bushels of grain per year, while the oil transloading site will have capacity for 70,000 barrels per day, once both facilities are fully built out over a three-year period, Ceres said. The finished facility is expected to employ over 30 people.

Construction is expected to begin this spring, pending permits and approvals, with "initial grain and oil shipments" expected later in the year, Ceres said.

The new hub "will help ease the bottleneck of getting commodities -- especially grain and oil -- out of Saskatchewan and will provide a new and competitive option for shippers and exporters," Ceres Global president Michael Detlefsen said in a release Tuesday.

Ceres, he said, "is delighted to have Scoular as a partner on this project, and to be introducing a new, major buyer of grain to the Canadian market."

Last summer's deregulation of Canada's single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley wasn't specifically mentioned in the release as a motivation for the new grain facility.

However, Scoular's chief operating officer Bob Ludington said in Tuesday's release that "the Saskatchewan farmer is poised for much greater participation in an expanding and highly competitive global market."

The grain facility, he said, "gives high-quality Canadian wheat direct line access to U.S. and Mexican flour millers, and will open extensive new markets for Canadian canola."

The Northgate hub, he added, "will serve to shrink the distance between Canadian supply and global demand, expanding the marketing options for area producers tremendously."

"Procurement"

Privately-held Scoular, which runs 60 grain handling facilities across North America, has been active in Prairie grain merchandising through its Calgary office since 1996.

Scoular also sources crops in Ontario through a third-party terminal at Vanastra, about 70 km north of London.

Publicly-traded Ceres Global owns 14 grain storage facilities in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and New York, plus a 25 per cent stake in the Stewart Southern Railway, a 130-km shortline running mainly oil northwest from Stoughton, Sask. to just outside Regina.

Ceres is also active in Canadian grain handling through its 2.3 million-bushel capacity terminal at Port Colborne, Ont. -- better known as the former Robin Hood Flour mill, which its Riverland Ag grain subsidiary bought from Cargill's Horizon Milling in 2009.

Riverland Ag, Ceres said, will be "a major customer of the (Northgate) grain facility, and will work closely with Scoular on the procurement of certain grains."

[bucket]

SF3

Buffet owns BNSF and gates owns a good portion of CN.

[cottonpicken]

"government corruption at any level is bullshit"

cotton feb 12 2012 10:07

[LEP]

With the amount of taxes that the RM will reap in
perpetuity I think ratepayers should be happy that the
council got anything for the lots. Maybe they should
have given them to Ceres.

This project is of a big enough magnitude that it had to
be done behind closed doors until their ducks were in a
row for the press release.

[boarderbloke]

This announcement all sounds good to me.

Now if they'd only find room to build an oil refinery and fertilizer plant on those 1500 acres, I'd be happy.

oneoff, you've been on this the whole time, kudos to you, you caught on to it and brought the story here first, all credit to you. But how would anything like this be possible now days, if people knew what project would be there in the future? People would want more and more for their little lots and property. Unless you can gather all the land, you don't have a project. If people sold each parcel of their land at a fair price based on it's use at the time, all should be happy. I would hope that the RM has negotiated a tax rate the will make the firesale of some of the town lots seem like chump change. The tax reveune from that project to your RM should be phenomenal, and far exceed the existing amount for that same land many times over. Your RM like ours, likely already operates on a tax base 10% ag & 90% oil.

[boarderbloke]

LEP, seems like we're thinking on the same line.