The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association facilitates the gathering of Saskatchewan city mayors in the City Mayors’ Caucus. Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench was one of the sixteen gathered at the meeting designed to allow for discussion of common interests, and to ensure strong messaging on issues of utmost concern.
Mayor Muench said that while each city may have had a focus unique to its own situation, many of the concerns were common ones, revolving around issues of infrastructure and housing, prohibitive costs for civic building projects, and social concerns around illicit drugs, wealth disparity, and economic uncertainty.
On the wish list is a sports facility that would provide a second ice surface for the city of Humboldt, as well as house the Broncos’ Tribute Centre. Muench said he talked to one counterpart in particular whose city sports facility sets a standard in the province.
“I did have the opportunity to talk extensively with the mayor of Martensville (Kent Muench), and we chatted about their new facility and how they went about that,” Rob said.” It did take them 10 years of fundraising, applying for grants, being turned down, but they kept pursuing it, and now they have a wonderful facility with many indoor sports fields, climbing walls, and all kinds of different things.”
Martensville had tremendous grassroots support, the Humboldt mayor confided, but in the end, it was simply perseverance and plugging away that got the mission done in Martensville. Muench the fundraising effort in Humboldt is under way.
“We’ve already started the process in Humboldt. We’ve had a couple of meetings to see how we are going to approach talking with the community and getting them involved, making sure that if we have interested groups in adding to what we have that they are consulted. We’ll have them jump on board and start the process of planning and fundraising.”
Muench hopes to see a community consultation initiative within the next couple of months.
Martensville and its neighbour Warman are no strangers to growth as satellites of Saskatoon. It’s the kind of growth Humboldt anticipates experiencing as the BHP Jansen potash mine comes on stream in the coming months. The caucus members talked about the challenges in securing housing at rates that ensure affordable living.
“The caucus had a discussion on housing and how it’s affecting some of the bigger cities, but those concerns all filter down to the smaller ones as well. Saskatoon was quite concerned with some of the issues there, along with problems of drugs and the overdose situation. One of the key points was trying to find homes for some of the people. Having a roof over their head is the first step in getting some of the people to deal with their addictions.”
Muench says similar issues exist in cities the size of Humboldt albeit on a smaller scale, and sharing experiences breaks down the isolation some smaller communities can feel around their social issues.
The mayors’ group also shared concerns around recent economic turmoil involving the US and the implementation of tariffs by the Trump administration.
“We have concern with a lot of manufacturing in our area. Tariffs are not a good thing when you’re trying to sell product into the US, and the reverse tariffs are also tough to handle when it makes it more expensive for Canadians to purchase those products.”
The tariffs on steel and aluminum can have particular impacts on regional ag and infrastructure manufacturing which forms the platform for much of the region’s production. The seemingly random and day to day nature of the economic decisions coming from the south also produces instability for everyone from farmers, to mining interests, to manufacturers.
“We’ve seen some positive signs toward Canada, so we are hoping a solution may be around the corner.”
Those from the Yorkton area were particularly concerned about Chinese tariffs on canola given the large-scale development of crushing facilities in the Parkland region.
“We should be concerned about those tariffs in our area too given that farming is a big part of our economy here.”
Of course, with the impending startup of the BHP Jansen mine, there is also a hovering concern about tariffs on potash and the American administration’s interest in realigning markets for potash from Belarus.
Along with the Mayors’ conference came a session with many of the province’s MLA, and Muench was sure to bring forth local concerns and asks, not the least of which was the need for a new care facility to replace the aging St. Mary’s Villa.
The Caucus took place in advance of the SUMA Convention and Tradeshow from April 13-16 in Saskatoon, which will see strong representation from Humboldt City Council.