Crossroads Staff
The 2018 Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention has passed, and the region’s SUMA director says it might have been his favourite one yet.
This year’s convention took place from Feb. 4 to 7 at the Queensbury Convention Centre in Regina. The convention includes educational sessions, a banquet, a trade show, access to various officials such as government cabinet ministers, speakers and resolutions among its features.
Mayor Al Heron of Eston serves as the SUMA director for the west central region. He has been a member of SUMA’s board of directors for several years, but he said he has been attending conventions even longer and the 2018 convention could have been the best one yet.
“It probably was the best convention I’ve been to over the years,” he said. He’s been attending conventions since about 2003 and he believes the 2018 edition stands out for several reasons including the overall engagement with members.
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Delegates from member municipalities vote on resolutions each year and Heron said he believes there was a lot of good discussion about resolutions this year. The bear pit session with government cabinet ministers also went well. He said Premier Scott Moe had just been sworn in days before the convention and every cabinet minister was there, so SUMA members had good access to government.
There were several first-time attendees that were first elected to municipal councils in the fall of 2016 or in byelections since the previous general election, and it was nice to see fresh faces at the convention, he said.
The trade show is a popular aspect of the convention for SUMA members. The trade show has contractors, consultants and other exhibitors that sell services or products to the municipal sector. According to Heron, there were about 215 booths at the trade show and the number of booths is up from previous years.
He noted that renovations were completed to expand the Queensbury Convention Centre, so there was more space for the trade show. Exhibitors came from as far away as Gatineau, Que. Most of the exhibitors were based in the prairie region.
Heron said none of the educational sessions really stood out over the others. There were sessions on solid waste, insurance risks and cannabis legalization among others. Heron said the session on insurance risks covered items such as fireworks safety, but it got people thinking about liabilities.
Resolution voting is an important aspect of the convention because it helps to set the course for SUMA’s lobbying efforts. Member municipalities submit resolutions and delegates either vote to pass or defeat each resolution.
There were 23 resolutions in total and Heron said the number of resolutions was higher than several of the previous conventions. Resolutions have been taken from the floor in the past, but SUMA did not allow resolutions to come from the floor at this year’s convention, he said.
Only five of the 23 resolutions were defeated, so a majority were passed. Heron said the most discussion for any single resolution was for the resolution to expand the provincial sales tax (PST) revenues for municipal revenue sharing.
He noted that municipalities are satisfied with the one per cent of PST they get for revenue sharing, but they want to see the support maintained. He said the municipal sector has time to negotiate with the government.
“We’re at the end of a five-year agreement right now,” he said, recognizing the premier and minister of finance have told municipalities the one per cent of PST for revenue sharing is going to continue for the next two years and municipalities have “two years to get a new agreement in place.”
The five resolutions to be defeated were resolutions for SUMA to provide a one-time $0.50 per capita levy on behalf of each resident from the member municipalities to the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighter’s Association for critical stress management, to lobby government to require all landowners to have a permit from municipalities to do controlled burns, to lobby government to have a single per capita rate for RCMP services for all municipalities, to lobby federal government to reinstate door-to-door postal delivery services and to get SUMA to copy all of its members on all written correspondence it receives.
Heron said there was a close vote regarding the resolution to lobby for a single per capita rate for all municipalities whether they have a police detachment or not. The resolution was defeated by 149 votes to 140 votes.
Resolutions to pass had a focus on first responders, costs of vandalism, motor vehicle collision rates, road closures, urban highway connector program, federal equalization, the Energy East pipeline, electoral funding, infrastructure funding, council in-camera meeting standards, assessment appeals, creation of subclasses in property taxes, LED lighting, environmental code, renewable energy production, public library support, revenue sharing and regional boards of revision.
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