By Michael Raine
Regina, Saskatchewan — May 24, 2011 — Saskatchewan’s auto recyclers are coming together to form their own provincial organization. Like their counterparts in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, and Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan recyclers will have a united voice in the industry.
The organization, which will likely be called the Saskatchewan Automotive Recyclers Association (SARA), is currently in the early organizational stages but is creating a lot of buzz among recyclers across Canada. Cheryl Hoimyer, of SGI Salvage in Regina, is the chairperson of the organizing committee for SARA and says a meeting is planned for late June.
“At the June meeting we’re hoping to formally form the association and have people formally join the association,” she told Collision Repair magazine. “At that time, we’ll have elections for the board. I guess the step after that is to start dealing with some of the issues that we’re facing.”
Hoimyer says there are a number of issues of the new organization needs to address. “Two of the immediate issues are dealing with Ministry of Environment and Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corporation, and it just makes sense to us that we would be able to speak to those issues with a common voice for the industry.”
The other provincial organizations and ARC, have been very supportive and helpful to SARA, says Hoimyer. “They’ve been passing on, for example, copies of their bylaws and their constitutions to help is avoid reinventing the wheel and possibly help avoid some of the initial issues that they faced.”
It is the success of the other provincial associations that has been the inspiration for SARA. “I think the other associations have seen that it’s very helpful to have a voice as professional auto recyclers and it’s very helpful to differentiate themselves from those organizations that are essentially still junkyards.”
Hoimyer also says programs like the federal Retire Your Ride program demonstrated the benefits of auto recyclers working together in a common cause. ARC’s Steve Fletcher, who said he is “delighted” to see a positive program such as Retire Your Ride result in the formation of a new organization, echoed Hoimyer’s sentiments.
“Where there has been no grassroots ability to talk to recyclers, they have now banded together and figured out that they will be better if they cooperate and share with one another,” says Fletcher. “Often time, an external crisis will catalyze that but this is, ‘how do we capitalize on all the good things that are happening.’”
