SUMA convention sparks conversation around regional amalgamation, small centre survival

SUMA has wrapped in Regina as officials raise concerns over urban service pressures while the province rules out forced amalgamations. Donovan Maess reports.

The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association’s (SUMA) annual convention has come to a close.

Over the four-day conference, leaders from across the province promoted collaboration and looked for ways to ensure future success for all communities, big and small.

However, with over 440 urban municipalities and another 296 rural municipal members in the province, one Regina city councillor questioned how efficiently policy decisions are made.

“Saskatchewan has as many politicians as Manitoba, Alberta and B.C. combined,” said Ward 9 Coun. Jason Mancinelli. “All those other provinces have recombined what our rural municipalities are into regions so you can properly finance and plan for investment or for opportunities.”

“But having so many small, distinct districts makes it really hard to do that,” he added.

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Mancinelli pointed to the recently announced AI data centre in the RM of Sherwood, Sask., which is less than a kilometre from Regina city limits.

He welcomed investment to the province but believes the city is not seeing the same benefits as the RM, despite having more than 200 times the population. In his opinion, regionalizing decision making would also regionalize investment and corresponding benefits.

“Last election, 200 people voted in that RM,” Mancinelli said. “When an opportunity comes by like the data centre, all of that input and all of those investments go to a small RM. I believe there should be some type of amalgamation, regional participation or cooperation between the various urban centres in our RMs [to] help fund life assets.”

Mancinelli also says organizations like Economic Development Regina – which is funded by the City of Regina – help bring those types of investment to the area.

“We’re barely keeping these entities alive instead of doing what they need for us all to prosper. And I’m looking for more of that regional cooperation,” he said.

‘No way’

Mancinelli posed the question to provincial ministers as part of a session during the convention Wednesday.

“I’m wondering when we’re going to reorganize our framework in Saskatchewan for success?” he asked.

“We’ve taken a firm position: in no way will we ever force broad based amalgamation across the province of Saskatchewan,” responded Minister of Government Relations Eric Schmalz.

“Whether it be rural areas or urban, the only time we will look at restructuring is when we have issues in areas of noncompliance or a lack of capacity for a small urban municipality that is no longer sustainable and they can’t provide or meet the criteria under the act to function as an independent entity on their own.”

Despite that, the province says it will support any community which must transition from traditional urban governance.

The Communities in Transition (CIT) grant provides financial assistance directly to municipalities that have restructured. This includes municipalities that have merged to form one municipal government.

“[It’s] reinvested to be able to provide for those legacy systems and for those community members to access that funding,” Schmalz said. “Alongside that, we’ve also provided strategic initiative funding to SARM and SUMA so they can help augment their approach and their ability to provide services for their constituent municipalities.”

“But with respect to broad based amalgamation, that’s simply not something that this government will do,” he added.

Mancinelli countered to say each rural and urban municipality must also staff administration, something he felt was ineffective for ratepayers.

“We have way too many politicians and too many entities,” he told reporters. “Maybe we have to realign for health and success. All those places have to be paid for; they all have to have administration and office spaces. These are huge expenses across a small province and population.”

Small centre survival

As Mancinelli called for mergers, smaller centres are struggling to provide similar services to big cities with less of a tax base.

“Big cities received $14 million for infrastructure projects they’re doing. That helps build them, yay on them,” Mayor of Lafleche Joan Corneil told ministers Wednesday. “What is the plan for communities [with a population] between 100 and 5,000?”

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The province says it is capping eligibility for infrastructure grants at $50 million to allow smaller communities access to the program.

“We are finding innovative ways to ensure that money is going further and the projects that are being made, that the money is being felt in the smaller urbans and surrounding communities,” Schmalz said.

Despite 53 per cent of residents living in large cities, just 47.9 per cent of municipal revenue sharing dollars are allocated to them

Sixteen per cent goes to towns, villages and resort villages, 28.5 per cent to rural municipalities and 7.4 per cent to northern communities.

Earlier this week, SUMA president Randy Goulden said provincial revenue sharing models needed to shift as they were no longer keeping up with the demand for civic services.

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Some of that demand has been driven by residents living outside community limits, which may not pay municipal tax rates to assist in the upkeep of some facilities.

However, she says that urban-rural connection is what makes the province what it is.

“We know across this province we do have municipalities that are facing challenges,” Goulden told reporters Wednesday. “We also know the key essential services are that people living in, or perhaps moving and even visiting in our communities, are around education, health services, recreation and cultural services. We need to strengthen those.”

While Goulden is not advocating for amalgamation in all circumstances, she recognized partnership is required moving forward.

“How do we get our smaller communities involved?” she posed. “We want to offer any opportunity for people to stay in or move to our communities, whether they’re in an urban [community] or whether they’re just outside of an urban [community] or whether they’re [rural].”

“We’re seeing active growth in many of our smaller urban centers across this province as well, although there are some cases where we’re seeing some decline in population in some smaller communities,” added Premier Scott Moe. “Across my constituency that I serve, which is largely rural, we have a number of communities that are growing.”

Rural-Urban collective

Moe added the relationship between rural and urban Saskatchewan remains critical to the province’s success.

“[There is] suggestion rural municipalities or municipalities that are smaller in nature or some way are running inefficient,” he said. “I would say they’re running as efficiently as they possibly can in those instances.”

The premier conceded there are options to assist areas dwindling in population run more efficiently, like sharing water treatment operators.

Moe was open to hearing any and all suggestions from municipal leaders to see what could work in individual areas.

“What we would like to do is to encourage collaboration, whether it be through our RMs and RMs, whether it be through communities and communities or whether it be through rural municipalities and communities across this province to find further efficiencies.”

“Everyone is an individual and we all do have some individual needs,” Mancinelli said. “But I think there’s a pretty massive overlay of things like transportation, water, wastewater, environment, or waste. Those conversations relate back to finding those really unique identities because of some type of historic, natural or geography part of the location. But I think it’s just time for conversation.”

Moe pointed back to Mancinelli’s example of the data centre near Regina, which may bring thousands of new residents to the city, reiterating the strong connection between rural and urban Saskatchewan.

“Where are they going to live?” the premier said. “Where do you think the thousands of people who work in our potash mines, which are in rural areas of our province, live? They live in urban centres … Our rural urban relationship is one of great synergy and I would say of great results for Saskatchewan people.”