REGINA — Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski is looking to continue conversations for more revenue tools and fiscal fairness around municipalities.
Bachynski and hundreds of municipal leaders will gather in Regina next week for the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) Convention, a time the Mayor will use to set up meetings.
“SUMA is often an opportunity to maybe not corner people but get them while they're there in a casual setting to maybe link up on some of those issues and set up some more formal meetings going forward.”
On SUMA’s behalf, Regina city council in Jan. advocated for changes with the provincial government.
These include:
- Saskatchewan to consider enabling municipalities to access alternative revenue options, including but not limited to new or improved taxation alternatives;
- Saskatchewan to either collect its own education property tax directly or reinstate a grant to municipalities that compensates for the administrative burden of collection;
- Reinstatement of municipal surcharges for electrical and natural gas revenues from Crown corporations, restoring a vital source of municipal revenue;
- Saskatchewan to exempt municipalities from Provincial Sales Tax (PST) on construction projects, thereby reducing costs and supporting infrastructure development.
On construction, Bachynski said, “it’s quite a simple math problem,” back in Jan.
“If we don’t pay PST on construction, we have more money that we can invest in other projects to make up that [infrastructure] deficit faster. Every opportunity we have only helps us accelerate our ability to get out of that deficit.”
Next steps:
At the convention, Bachynski said SUMA will decide the next steps in talks with the province.
“So from there, it's really the openness and willingness of our provincial government to sit down with the municipalities and SUMA to talk about some of those very specific tactical options and what they would be open to.”
Bachynski said he is optimistic for change based on recent decisions and conversations with the provincial and federal governments.
“The municipal revenue sharing increase [is] one reason,” he noted as the province increased it by roughly $30 million in the 2026 budget.
He added, “We had a number of municipalities that went on a joint trip to Ottawa to advocate for a tripartite agreement for infrastructure funding. So in my view, I think there's a willingness and an openness to sit down with municipalities and have these conversations.”
