A couple Kamsack residents took it upon themselves to fight against the government’s plan to discontinue the STC bus service and began Saturday by circulating a petition in the community.

The petition arose from the provincial government’s decision released during last month’s budget that calls for the discontinuation of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC).

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“In the petition we are requesting the government to take steps to continue to provide safe, affordable and accessible bus service,” said Cecelia Cazakoff, who is working on the project with Ev Banks.

“In my case I need to go once a month to the city for injections in my eye, which is the only thing that is keeping me from going blind,” Cazakoff said. “With this condition I cannot drive on the highways in winter, so from the first snowfall, I need to take the bus for the injections or I will go blind.”

Every month at least 300 people go for radiation therapy several times a week, many need to go to the city for dialysis several times a week, many children from broken homes use the bus to go from one parent’s home to the other, some travel for employment, students take the bus and many First Nations people who are taking courses or classes in the city use the bus to travel to their homes for the weekends, she said.

So many people don’t have vehicles or don’t drive, she said. It will be like they are imprisoned in their small towns.

“Does Premier Brad Wall want everyone in rural Saskatchewan to be shut ins? That’s ignorant.”

Cazakoff and Banks have distributed copies of the petition at many locations in Kamsack and are asking residents to consider adding their names and addresses to it.

“We’ll be checking the responses to the petition in about 10 days and the plan is to forward the results to Terry Dennis, the Canora-Pelly MLA,” she said.