GTH minister says there are no talks to sell Hub to Regina, but synergies exist

Minister responsible for the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) says there has been no direction given to explore a partnership or sale of the property to the City of Regina.

Morgan did acknowledge that there are synergies between the city and inland port.

“If you look at where the roads are and you look at where the people that work there live and would commute to, there has to be synergies that would be there,” Morgan said.

When further asked about what exactly those synergies are, Morgan said the following:

“Every small town wants to have an industrial park, so here you have a large facility, more than 1,000 acres right on the outskirts of Regina, highways going in and out of Regina, the utilities are coming from the City of Regina, whether that fits their long term plan or not you have to ask Mayor Fougere,” Morgan said.

READ MORE: GTH minister says it’s too early to talk about selling the project as debt grows

Regina Mayor Michael Fougere says the city does not have a lot of available industrial land, but is not suggesting the GTH is part of the city’s future strategy.

Fougere says there have been no talks about a GTH sale or partnership, formal or informal, however, if the province did come forward with an offer, the mayor says that it would be considered.

“If there’s a proposal, we would look at that proposal and look at it on its merits. Is it viable? What exactly is it? So what is it? I don’t know exactly what that is yet,” Fougere said.

Opposition GTH critic Cathy Sproule doesn’t know what the province has to sell, aside from a debt-load of $37 million associated with the GTH.

“They haven’t met their budget targets at all, so sales are not going as planned. They now have a $37 million deficit,” Sproule said.

“So when you look at the GTH as something to sell, all they have to sell is $37 million in debt. So I’m not too sure where you’re going to find a purchaser for that.”

$37.3 million debt

Debt at the GTH is growing. The hub has not sold land to new clients in two years, adding $11 million in debt as of the province’s third quarter fiscal update at the start of March. The original debt projection in the spring budget was $26 million.

On March 19, the opposition NDP put forward questions about divesting the project during question period. Morgan said it’s too early to have that conversation, and that work on the project needs to be completed before sales talks begin.

“To put it in simple terms, the GTH has been there for a number of years. It has served us very well in regard to the jobs that are at Loblaw’s and some of the other employers that are there. We support that. We want to see that continued,” Morgan said.

The City of Regina services the land as buyers enter the GTH. Currently, around 700 of 1,800 acres have been sold.

As for the GTH’s $37.3 million debt load, Fougere said that would be part of the city’s evaluation of a hypothetical deal. However, Fougere deferred further comment to if an offer is made.

“It’s way too early to comment, but those numbers speak for themselves,” Fougere said.

Future GTH direction

Morgan became GTH minister on February 2. In that time, he had a discussion with GTH Board Chair Doug Moen about the future direction of the project. Morgan says talk of a partnership with the City of Regina did not take place in that meeting.

“For a government and for the province we want to see what it should be like two or five years from now. What should happen with the rest of the land, and of course it’s concerning for everybody that no land has been sold in the last 24 months,” Morgan said.

Currently, there are around 1,000 people working at the GTH.

The minister is calling on the GTH to develop an “aggressive marketing strategy to start moving unsold parcels of land.”

Sproule is skeptical of the province’s ability to get land selling at the GTH.

“They’ve already had to buy back two parcels as well, and SaskPower, 140 acres out there, a very large part of that footprint is not being used at all by SaskPower and they may want to sell their part as well,” Sproule said.

GTH communications and marketing director Kelly Brossart told Global News earlier this week that slower-than-anticipated land development is impacting sales at the GTH, and is a persistent issue across the Prairies.