The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association annual conference was held last week, and while SUMA is often thought of primarily as a lobby group for urban centres in the province, the real strength of the conference might come from the networking which takes place.
That is certainly the view of Yorkton Mayor James Wilson in a Yorkton This Week story (see Page A1 this issue).
Wilson told YTW that the SUMA meeting has become an important event for the City, not so much for the business of the organization itself, but because it allows for direct meetings with both SUMA members and with representatives of the province.
"We made a point of meeting with ministers one-on-one," said Wilson. " SUMA gives us the opportunity to sit down and have these dialogues."
Certainly having direct conservations on issues of importance with those at the controls to actually make the changes is important.
In some cases those discussions have paid off. If we look at the efforts of SUMA, and individual municipalities, efforts in working out a more equitable transfer of provincial dollars worked out very well.
There has been some solid success in getting the province on-side, at least at some level, in terms of providing programming geared to stimulate affordable home construction, although there remains plenty of room about what is affordable when the new homes are eclipsing the $200,000 mark in a city such as Yorkton.
Of course not all the lobbying has met with success.
One example of almost complete failure is in the area of infrastructure renewal. The infrastructure in Canada in general is becoming antiquated, whether we look at sewer and water lines, sidewalks, street pavement, or bridges in rural areas, much of it is decades old and frankly operating on borrowed time.
Discussions, whether one-on-one, or at the organizational level, have fallen on deaf ears with Ottawa, where a government struggling to keep their budget in line are not about to open the can of worms fixing the infrastructure deficit across Canada will require.
The response from the province hasn't exactly resulted in programming to deal with the issue.
At last week's SUMA convention Wilson, and Yorkton Council did meet with both the Minister of Health, Saskatchewan's Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration to discuss a new hospital and a trade and technology education centre for the city.
Both are vital to Yorkton's future, but will require significant provincial dollars, as well as local contributions to come to fruition.
Only time will tell if the direct lobbying carried out by Wilson and Council has the impact needed to see both projects move forward. If they do the benefit of such meetings will certainly be reinforced.
If the province does drag its heels on either project though, Wilson and Council need to be ready to take the failure to the court of public opinion where sometimes voters hold more influence than what can be applied in a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors.
