By Brendan Wagner

Sask. construction industry welcomes strong growth forecast

Feb 19, 2011 | 12:13 PM

Saskatchewan is poised to be a bright spot in an otherwise dim outlook from the Conference Board of Canada.

The think-tank has this province leading the way in real GDP growth for the next two years. Saskatchewan is expected to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2011 and a further 4.5 per cent in 2012.

“It's good news when you have this kind of an increase. It shows that Saskatchewan's the place to be,” said Michael Fougere with the Saskatchewan Construction Association.

But he admits it creates some challenges. It's a struggle to keep up with demand for housing, for example.

“These are all problems of growth,” Fougere said.

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“I'm not saying these are good problems to have, but they're issues of growth that we have to deal with because we are in a growth scenario for the next several years.”

Fougere concedes that a lack of housing is holding back our growth. But he's confident the industry will respond to it in partnership with the government, mainly in the form of additional affordable housing initiatives.

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