The 50th Anniversary of Gardiner Dam was held on Friday.

Scott Moe, the Minister responsible for the Water Security Agency says Gardiner Dam is the most critical piece of infrastructure we have in this province.

He says looking around at the irrigation pivots working in the area it’s a very important piece for the area’s agriculture sector.

"It not only gives you higher oppourtunities for our traditional crops, but it gives you all the oppourtunities to diversify into other crops including vegatable crops," Moe said. "There's nobody more inovative that our agriculturual community we have right here in the province of Saskatchewan and I think it's an exciting time, not only to celebrate the 56,000 acres we have, but have dicussions where we can go in the future."        

The dam was officially opened in July of 1967, after 9 years of construction at a cost of $120 million; today that price tag would be $1 billion.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety was on hand for the 50th Anniversary of the Gardiner Dam on Friday.

He says the Dam and all the benefits it provides is thanks to the forward thinking of the PFRA and former Premier Jimmy Gardner.

"It's an enormous addition to the acgricultural GDP of the province and to the community life on both sides of the river, it's a huge asset" Goodale stated. "There is significant potenial yet to develop. We have only scratched the surface in terms of the irrigation, water value added economic oppourtunities in agriculture, so there is much more we have the potential to do."     

He notes the biggest disappointment today is the end of the PFRA back in 2012, adding that with the challenges of climate change today we need a PFRA type of institution now as much as we did in the 1930’s.