THE OLDEST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER IN THE CANADIAN WEST

Vol. 128 No. 13 Friday, June 4, 2010 Minnedosa, Manitoba Canada R0J 1E0 90 cents + tax

Province asks for Catching airtime

public input
on bus service
By DARRYL HOLYK

T he first of five public workshops to gather input to

develop a solution to sustain intercity bus service
in Manitoba was held in Minnedosa last Wednesday
evening. Ten people were in attendance with par-
ticipants from Minnedosa, McCreary, Shoal Lake,
Brookdale, and Rossburn. Locals attending the meet-
ing included Mayor Duane LaCoste, Councillors Bob
Graham and Garry MacDowall as well as resident
Neil Cameron.
The workshop was hosted by Manitoba Infra-
structure and Transportation’s Intercity Bus Project
Team. Also in attendance were representatives from
Greyhound.
Intercity bus service is a user-pay commercial
bus service which transports passengers and freight
across municipal boundaries. Bus service is impor-
tant to the country, province, regions and communi-
ties served. The service is often taken for granted, but
not guaranteed. Last year, Manitoba’s main sched-
uled intercity bus carrier, Greyhound, announced it
would be discontinuing scheduled passenger service
in the province as the service was no longer profitable.
This was a result of operational costs being greater
than the revenue collected from passenger fares and
freight service. Between April 2008 and March 2008,
Photo by Darryl Holyk
Greyhound reportedly lost approximately $4.78 mil-
lion in Manitoba. Thomas Parish (#13) catches the ball in mid air during Tuesday night’s high school rugby semi final.
Currently, Greyhound operates 18 main routes
within Manitoba and travels a total of 3.6 million By DARRYL HOLYK game wise. They won all seven games leading up to the
miles per year. One of those routes is the Minnedosa semi finals. On the injury side however, the team has not
– Russell corridor. Statistics shared at Wednesday’s
meeting show this route as having an average of 1.6
passengers per trip. For passenger service, the rev-
M innedosa Chancellors Boys rugby team hosted the
Westman High School Rugby League semi finals at
the MCI field Tuesday evening.
been so fortunate this year.
“I have seen more injuries this year than I have seen
in the eleven years of coaching rugby,” stated Coach
enue generated on this route, per mile, is $0.39 while The local boys took on the Vincent Massey Vikings Gavin Roche.
the cost, per mile, is $3.41. That’s a loss of $3.02 per and earned their spot in the finals with a win of 55-0. The Westman High School Ruby league includes
mile. For freight service on this route, revenue per Single tries were scored by Jason Galbraith, Matt Cooper, teams from Minnedosa, Crocus Plains, Vincent Massey,
mile is $0.06 while cost per mile is $0.03 for a profit of Dana Burgess and Tyler Curle. Sam Ross scored two tries Swan River, Dauphin, and Souris.
three cents per mile. and five converts and Thomas Parish scored three tries. The Chancellors will host the finals tomorrow
Continued on Page 2 Since their season began in late April, the high (Saturday, June 5th) when they challenge the Swan Val-
school boys have had an extremely successful season ley Tigers. The game is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

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