Regina councillor responds to residents’ concerns over planned canola plant

The positive outweighs the negative.

That is the message Ward 7 Coun. Terina Shaw is pushing after residents expressed their concern about the possibility of Viterra’s canola crushing facility being built too close to their homes in the Uplands area of the city.

Shaw says people are jumping the gun when it comes to being frustrated with the location of the future facility.

“What’s in place at the moment is nothing,” Shaw said. “Viterra has one year to do their due diligence to figure out if this land is even anything that they can use.

“We have no idea what’s going on. We have nearly a year before we will even have the yes or no (on if) Viterra (is) planning on building there.”

Shaw says despite some residents being against the project, plenty have responded with their support.

“There are many people super excited about this development being built and the potential to put Regina on the map — Regina as having the largest canola crushing plant in the world,” she said. “We can’t overshadow people that are positive and happy about this being built in Regina, with the few people that are negative about this.

“I understand the concerns. We all have concerns over certain topics and certain things that are going to be in our neighbourhoods. Everything will be taken into account.”

Shaw stood by the city council’s decision in April to hold the private sale and not disclose the buyer.

“We weren’t the only municipality that was approached for building this plant,” she said. “We can’t discuss in an open forum a company’s potential to do something like this. The city had advertised the land on the third of April.

“You cannot let everybody know the secret of the dealings with large companies like that.”

The land purchased by Viterra included 630 acres. It sold for $4 million, more than $2 million less than what it was valued at.