The City of Estevan is seeking more funds to support its efforts in the Saskatchewan Urban Municipality Association (SUMA) regarding mental health and addictions.
With SUMA's annual convention approaching, the organization is seeking resolutions from local councils so that it can determine its focus for 2025.
To that end, a proposal was put forward to the council, with City Manager Jeff Ward talking about that.
"As you know, the SUMA conventions coming up and they are asking for resolutions from Council, so this was discussed among the councillors to draft something with regard to mental health and services, to go along with community safety and well-being, so that's been drafted and Council just needs to review, amend, or approve it for us to send it to SUMA for resolution for this year's conference."
The original statement from the city was put forward as such:
WHEREAS mental health and social service needs in Saskatchewan communities are increasing at an unprecedented rate, placing significant strain on local resources.
WHEREAS the provincial government is increasingly downloading responsibilities for mental health and social services to municipalities without providing adequate funding.
WHEREAS municipal governments are not equipped with the financial capacity or the specialized expertise to manage these essential services independently.
WHEREAS insufficient provincial support for mental health and social services contributes to worsening social issues, including homelessness, addiction, crime, and strain on public safety resources.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT SUMA advocate to the Government of Saskatchewan to increase provincial funding to support municipalities in delivering mental health and social services; develop a framework that ensures municipalities are adequately resourced for mental health and social service initiatives, in alignment with their respective capacities and needs; as well as commit to ongoing collaboration with municipalities, ensuring that the delivery of these services is both sustainable and effective in addressing community needs.
Councillor Shelly Veroba stated that one phrase would need to be changed, as the city would not look for increased provincial funding, but the start of funding from the province.
"Instead of 'increased provincial funding for mental health and social services', can we remove the word increased and just say 'request for provincial funding for mental health and services' as currently, we don't receive any funding that's actually directed right towards provincial funding for mental health social services."
Veroba says that the funding for mental health services should be coming from the province rather than out of municipal programs.
"This isn't where the municipality of the City of Estevan wants to actually take on any services for mental health or social services, because that is a provincial mandate. However, right now we are funding things like the Youth Centre, which we desperately need in the city and needs to be continued funding, but that is something that in my opinion, the provincial government should fund."
"If they're not going to fund certain things like that for every community that has a need, then they should provide some sort of funding in some sort of fashion where it's aligned specifically for that and that's where we spend the money on."
Veroba says there are other similar situations where she hopes to see more provincial support in the future.
"We just have different things that are popping up and like you said with the PACT team, the city police, that is also increased funding that we have to spend out of our budget, people come all the time and say, you know, you got all of these things happening. But we want, as we see with our safety committee, a safe community and wanting to keep our community safe, for that's making sure that we have the services in place for the most vulnerable people."