REGINA — Provincial cabinet ministers faced municipal leaders Wednesday at the bearpit session at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention.
Premier Scott Moe and provincial ministers were grilled by municipal delegates on a variety of issues ranging from health care to education to infrastructure.
Health care generated the most questions, with Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill fielding questions on wait times, physician contracts and urgent care centres.
Education Minister Everett Hindley was also pressed on familiar topics like classroom complexity and $10-a-day child care, while other ministers faced questions on wildfires, trade, offloading to municipalities and other issues.
One complaint — also raised at the SARM convention weeks earlier — came from a delegate upset about constant ministerial shuffles. Premier Scott Moe responded that sometimes cabinet ministers do not return after elections.
Another hot issue — one that delegates supported during the resolution process — was a call to remove the PST on construction. Regina Coun. David Froh asked if the province would commit to a “pathway to remove the PST on construction for municipalities,” noting that paying the PST made it harder for municipalities to invest in large-scale infrastructure and commercial projects.
Finance Minister Jim Reiter said he was “always happy to sit down and have discussions with municipalities,” but noted inflationary pressures are very real for governments and “we need sources of revenue to pay for health care, education and all those things.”
Mancinelli wants to look at more regional participation
Another Regina councillor, Jason Mancinelli, posed a question expressing his thoughts on regional co-operation and whether there should be more of it. He expanded on his comments in speaking to reporters afterward.
“Regina has a lot of separate regions. That creates a lot of planning silos. Also taxation silos,” Mancinelli said to reporters.
“Like you take Regina, for instance. Evraz, Brandt, some of the biggest corporations in the province all surround Regina in the RM of Sherwood. I think last election, 200 people voted in that RM. But now when an opportunity comes by with a data centre, all of that input, all of those investments, all of those go to a small RM alone.”
Mancinelli told reporters he believed there “should either be some type of amalgamation or regional participation co-operation between the various urban centres and RMs to help fund like-needed assets.”
He noted that the city of Regina, as an example, funds Economic Development Regina out of its ratepayers’ pockets.
“A capital city in a province of Canada definitely needs an economic development municipal entity. But on the other hand, looking at the region as a whole for the large businesses that benefit from it, I believe there should be some type of input of money to help us with doing that from those who prosper from that entity or other entities like that or other assets like that that serve both Regina community and the outliers.”
He also pointed to other provinces having recombined rural municipalities into regions, “so you can properly finance and plan for investment or for opportunity or for needs. Having so many small distinct districts makes it really hard to do that.
It's caused success to happen in other places.”
But in his response on stage, Government Relations Minister Eric Schmalz made clear he would not be in favour of forcing communities to amalgamate. Speaking to reporters afterward, Premier Moe said his preference was for more collaboration.
“Now, what we would like to do is to encourage collaboration, whether it be through RMs and RMs, whether it be through communities and communities, whether it be through rural municipalities and communities across this province, to find some of those, you know, some of those further efficiencies that we might be able to find.”
When asked about the issue of cities not realizing as much economic or property tax spinoff due to businesses locating in surrounding RMs, Moe challenged that view.
“Where do you think the 1,100, 1,200 professionals that work at the AI data centre might live?" Moe said. "Where do you think the thousands of people that work in our potash mines, which are in rural areas of our province, live? They live in our urban centres.”
Moe pointed to the rural-urban relationship in the province as being “one of great synergy and, I would say, of great results for Saskatchewan people.”
“It doesn't say that we need to continue to have conversations, and it doesn't mean, and as I spoke yesterday, that we're going to agree on every point, but we need to find the points of agreement, and we need to move forward.”
