REGINA – Rural infrastructure is getting a funding boost in 2026 from the Ministry of Highways and Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
Under the Rural Integrated Roads for Growth, the province announced it will invest over $16.9 million from the 2025-26 budget, towards 41 projects in the province. Rural municipalities will fund the remaining amount of over $29.1 million.
The projects will include roads, culverts and bridge repair in rural municipalities. The announcement was made at the SARM office in Regina on Thursday afternoon, with the province seeing benefit from providing their share of funding.
"This helps rural municipalities develop roads that are connecting economies to the provincial to the provincial grid," Highways Minister Kim Gartner said to reporters.
"They’re an economic development tool that we’re using to help promote economic growth in the province along with SARM."
SARM officials say the commitment from the province is sorely needed.
"This program has been going on for years now, it’s a great program," said SARM President Bill Huber.
“The only thing is we keep lobbying for more money because, you know, our roads are really heavily used. We’re producing more grains, more industry, more mining and forestry activity in the province, and we need infrastructure to get our products to market whether it’s agriculture or industrial.”
Huber said the program was beneficial to getting projects done, because "I don’t think we could afford all of them on our own.”
“You know I know this program had more money in it years ago and it’s been depleting a little bit every year, it seems, and we keep pushing ‘we need more.' And we’re very thankful for what we do have because without that it’d be a lot of projects that wouldn’t be approved at all or even considered."
The projects include $2.5 million to the RM of Weyburn for North Weyburn – Airport Road; over $2 million to the RM of Lomond for the base and subbase of Road 401; just under $2 million to the RM of Reford for Grid 657; and over $8.2 million to the RM of Senlac for Grid 675/787.
Several bridge projects are getting approximately $2 million each and those include the RM of White Valley for Farewell Creek Bridge, RM of Barrier Valley for Barrier Lake Bridge, and RM of Bjorkdale for Utke Bridge. Over $2 million is going to Big River and to Moose Range for bridge construction as well.
Of the remaining projects, six are costing in excess of $1 million.
The Rural Integrated Roads for Growth program is funded by the Government of Saskatchewan and administered by SARM, and invests in RM road infrastructure. According to the province’s news release, the program contributes up to 50 per cent per project, to a maximum of $500,000 for a road and to a maximum $1 million for a large culvert or a bridge. RMs will fund the remainder and also be responsible for managing the approved projects as well as any additional costs.
