| Summary: | In 1935 the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA)was created by
the Canadian government. The purpose of the PFRA was to provide programs to parts of
the Canadian Prairies to alleviate the result of years of drought and depression. One of
the ways PFRA attempted to do this was the Water Development Program, a part of
which involved the construction of a series of dams and associated irrigation works in
southwest Saskatchewan.
Formulation of sound public policy requires that publicly funded programs are
evaluated to determine social impacts of the program. Such was recommended by the
Auditor General of Canada in 1986, asking for an evaluation of various PFRA programs,
including the infrastructure developed in southwest Saskatchewan under the Water
Development Program.
This study evaluated the PFRA infrastructure in southwest Saskatchewan using an
input-output model. Using this model, the economic impacts on output (sales), GDP
(market prices), income, and employment were determined. Since some of these impacts
are felt by those that are not direct water users, some regional development benefits are
also created. Such benefits become the basis for estimating economic value of water for
regional development. Regional development benefits were measured for three regions,
] )southwest Saskatchewan, 2) Province of Saskatchewan, and 3) the Prairie Provinces.
Since an input-output model specific to the southwest Saskatchewan region had
not been built previous to this study, it was developed using the provincial transactions
table, and non-survey technique of location quotient. Furthermore, since the major focus
of the study was on agriculture, this sector was further disaggregated.
The data used in this study included information about PFRA activities, forage
production using irrigation, cattle production, cattle slaughter and processing, drought
mitigation, recreation, wildlife infrastructure, domestic water use, municipal water use
and industrial water use, and flood control.
The economic activities resulted in a total economic output impact of$108.6
million in southwest Saskatchewan, $136.4 million in Saskatchewan and $367.] million
in the Prairie region. The results of the study show that cattle production has the largest
contribution to the economic activity in southwest Saskatchewan caused by the
southwest Saskatchewan water supply systems. The Prairie region benefits from the
cattle feedlots related activities and slaughter and processing that occurs outside of
southwest Saskatchewan.
Using the indirect and induced impacts of various activities, value of water for
regional economic development was estimated for the three regions. The value of water
for regional development for southwest Saskatchewan was estimated at $65 per dam
(cubic decameters) of water used. When all impacts on the province of Saskatchewan
were included, this value increased to $111 per dam', extending various impacts of these
projects on the Prairie provinces resulted in a value of$394 per dam'.
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