The final days for the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) are ticking down, but pleas to save it have not stopped.
The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1374 organized a rally on the front steps of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building and were joined by members of CUPE, SEIU West, Students Mobilizing Against Cuts, Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, seniors, STC riders and STC operators to call on the government to rethink its decision to decommission the STC.
Ken Younghans has been an operator for more than 20 years and although he will soon be unemployed, his main concern is about the people who ride the bus.
“I’m not happy I’m losing my job, but in the same respect, I can find another job. But the people in this province are not going to get the same quality of service they have been getting for the past 71 years,” he said after the rally. “As a taxpayer I think what this government is doing is appalling. It’s disrespectful and I think they need to wake up and smell the coffee because they are hurting a lot of people. They are hurting the people who voted them in — the rural people.”
Younghans is worried about what will happen to those who depend on the bus like seniors, the isolated and the sick.