A win for constituents will see a portion of PR 432 South of Morden get restored, thanks to concerned citizens writing letters to MLA for Morden-Winkler Carrie Hiebert and the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Lisa Naylor.
Olyvia Loutchan and her husband Evan farm on Evan's family land and hope to carry on farming for many years to come.
"I've been driving it for 15 years now myself, and it's one of those things I think that we all just accepted how bad it was. It came to the point, though, where we could no longer travel. If you did not have a vehicle, or really a truck that could be in four-wheel drive, you were not going to be able to make it to town. And that's one thing, to not make it in town in winter. That's normal for us. We can go 2-3 days without being able to make it to town. That was normal. But now that it's happening in spring and in summer, we're like, maybe we need to really push to do something."
They sent out a series of text messages to their neighbours who travel the road, and many had experienced the same thing. Contact information for MLA Hiebert and Minister Naylor were shared and approximately 30 emails were sent.
This isn't the first time letters have been written.
"In the past, we have contacted our local MLA where we were told, 'We'll look into it. We'll see if we can have somebody out' and nothing further went on. We didn't really follow up with it. We accepted the grader came out. (thinking) 'Ok, it's good for a couple more days.' But this was to the point where there was no gravel left for even the grader to push, to fix holes, or do anything. It was actually just mud and both my husband, and I drive 4-wheel drive vehicles. He drives a one-ton truck and that morning he had to go to town to pick up parts and he was right in the ditch."
When asked if a response was received this time, she had good news.
"Yes, I did get a letter from Carrie Hiebert's office saying they had someone out to inspect the road, and it is on their spot for the summer to get it fixed. So that is very exciting for us."
In fact, Hiebert told Pembina Valley Online she had gone out to drive the road herself, went to Minister Naylor's office to follow up with the correspondence, sent over the pictures and letters, and went back to work out a solution. That is when she was told it would be restored later this summer.
Loutchan had this to say about it.
"From what I've seen, what Carrie Hiebert has done is amazing. It's further than anyone else has ever gone for us, so we are very thankful."
When asked what Loutchan would say to others who have written before and not been successful, she had this to say,
"I would say try again and it's one of those things. Don't give up and in numbers it works. I've sent letters singly myself, where it didn't come through. And if you can get your whole community together, all that took was a few text messages and within 24 hours, we had all those emails sent."
She has sent an email thanking MLA Hiebert.
"But I would like to say thank you to her because this is big for us. It's gonna change a lot of how we drive, and we may be even able to drive something different to town other than a truck for a little while, which would be nice."
Hiebert said she is grateful for this group who reached out to her and that she could work together with the government to get this important road restored. She encourages all constituents to reach out to her office with their concerns. She stated it's her job to bring the needs of her constituents forward to get the job done.
The full conversation with MLA Hiebert can be heard below.
Thu, Jul 4, 9:03 PM
Full-time, Permanent, Agriculture
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