REGINA - Opposition New Democrats were once again fuming Wednesday upon news that the northern tire recycling contract has been awarded to a California company.
Official Opposition Ethics Critic Meara Conway and Environment Critic Jared Clarke held a news conference at the legislature criticizing the awarding on Monday of the northern contract by Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan to CRM of Newport Beach, California, the same company that was awarded the southern contract.
In their remarks both Conway and Clarke were critical of the Sask Party government, blaming it for running a local Saskatoon-based company Shercom Industries out of the tire processing business.
“The Saskatchewan Party government has now effectively run a local Saskatchewan business out of the tire recycling market, and given a monopoly to a California based company, all under the guise of opening up the market,” said Conway. “Essentially we’ve gone from one Saskatchewan company doing the work to one California-based company doing the work. A loss of between 60 and 70 jobs, a loss of local tire processing. It makes no sense. This was a tire fire of a decision from the beginning and we have a lot of questions about exactly who is benefiting.”
The Opposition demanded the government release the market feasibility study and the procurement review. The NDP pointed to the job losses at Shercom and notes Shercom now imports crumb rubber from other provinces for its operations.
Opposition Critic Jared Clarke added that “local business leaders have had serious concerns that our scrap tire may be being shipped out of province in violation of the Ministry of Environment's own guidelines.”
“We have a real opportunity to make value-added products here at home, cut down on shipping, protect the environment. That’s why Premier Moe needs to be straight with the people of Saskatchewan and release the report,” said Clarke. “We are talking about a copy of the report that is not completely whited out.”
Clarke posted to a post on the X platform from Jason Aebig of the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, in which he stated concerns about Saskatchewan scrap tires being shipped out of CRM‘s plant to Alberta in violation of the ministry’s own guidelines. He pointed to these concerns as more reason for transparency to find out what is happening.
“I would say at this point all we have is allegations that local business leaders have brought forward on this. If folks have more information of this, we would be happy to hear it, but I think what’s really important here is we have a Saskatchewan company that is a success story that has now been squeezed out of the tire recycling business here in Saskatchewan. It doesn’t make any sense why we’re now shipping the tires out of the province to be shredded or to be processed in Alberta, and then Shercom is importing crumb to make sure they can still do the work that they do in the value-added piece. But we’re losing Saskatchewan jobs, we’re losing strong communities, and it doesn’t make any sense from an environmental standpoint why we’re not recycling tires here in Saskatchewan."
The province has provided the following response to the issue:
"Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan (TSS) has selected a provider from the multiple bids submitted through a fair and open request for proposals process facilitated by the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement. This is in alignment with the findings in Cam Swan’s report, the summary of which was provided here: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2023/october/18/tire-recycling-and-processing-review-completed-with-action-plan-underway.
"TSS will now work with the successful proponent to agree upon a contract. We expect a tire processing facility to open in the Saskatoon area in the coming months, resulting in jobs added to the region. Any questions regarding the RFP process should be directed to Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan."
