Bridging the rural-urban split

Jason Kerr
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Bridging the rural-urban split

The strength of the Saskatchewan Party has traditionally been in rural areas, but if Thursday’s debate in Melfort is any indication, success in the next election will depend on the cities.

Of the five candidates who took part Thursday’s debate, three used their closing statements to emphasize the importance of appealing to voters in the province’s major urban centres.

Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Ken Cheveldayoff and Gord Wyant all raised concerns about the party’s ability to win outside of its traditional strongholds, with some suggesting it was the defining issue of the campaign

“We all remember 2003. Our party won all but one rural seat, and we won three seats in Saskatoon, but we lost to the NDP,” Cheveldayoff said during his closing remarks. “Folks, we have deep rural roots. Farms, villages and towns are still the backbone of our province, but if we are unable to win in Regina and Saskatoon and Moose Jaw and Prince Albert, none of that will matter.”

“Our party success in three consecutive elections has been because of pragmatic policies that appeal to both rural and urban voters,” said Wyant during his own one-minute message. “On January 27th, we need to chose a leader who can keep the coalition strong, who can keep the tent open and keep the base broad.”

Concerns among leadership candidates about the party’s ability to win votes in urban constituencies have only grown after a pair of by-election losses in Saskatoon. NDP leadership candidate Ryan Meili beat Sask. Party nominee Brent Penner by more than 700 votes in the March 14 Saskatoon Meewasin by-election. More recently, the NDP’s Vicki Mowat defeated Sask. Party candidate Cameron Scott by more than 1,000 votes in Saskatoon Fairview on Sept. 19.

For candidates like Beaudry-Mellor, the message was clear.

“It means that some of our supporters in urban Saskatchewan are staying home,” she said during her closing remarks. “Your next premier needs to turn that momentum around, and part of that is maintaining the sort of coalition, or dual values, of economic growth and quality of life issues that our party has been known for.”

However, not all candidates are sold on the rural-urban divide. Alanna Koch used her closing remarks to urge the party to stay the course and build on what was started over the past decade. Afterwards, Koch said she doesn’t see as much of a provincial divide as her colleagues do.

“I see Saskatchewan people as the same,” she said. “We’ve got the same values (and) the same things matter to us: families, jobs, a strong economy (and) a great quality of life. I don’t really see the difference. I do know that I’ve got all kinds of traction in both the cities as well as the rural areas, and I’m not surprised by that because we’re all the same.”

Rosthern-Shellbrook MLA Scott Moe also used his one-minute closing statement to focus on other areas. He spoke about the need for experience and strong leadership in the next general election.

However, after the debate Moe, the only rural MLA in the party’s leadership race, didn’t hesitate to emphasize the importance of staying competitive in Saskatchewan’s cities.

“I think we need to work hard. I think we need to work harder than the NDP, quite frankly,” he said. “That’s precisely what we did in 2007, ’11 and most recently in 2016, and I think all of the candidates, myself included, are very willing to do that as we go into the general election.”

Identifying a problem is one thing, but putting forward a solution is another. While Beaudry-Mellor, Cheveldayoff and Wyant all have similar concerns about the future, their plans for the present are a bit different.

Cheveldayoff said the last 10 years have seen a lot of economic growth, but after a difficult spring budget the party needs to step back and admit some mistakes were made.

Wyant wants the party to focus on the things that unite voters, like improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government, without creating divisions within the province.

Beaudry-Mellor said they need to emphasize how the health of the agricultural and natural resource sector affect the quality of life in all areas of the province, including Saskatchewan cities.

Of the 10 seats not won by the Saskatchewan Party in the 2016 provincial election, eight were in Saskatoon, Regina or Prince Albert. Only two were in rural areas. Both of those rural ridings are in Northern Saskatchewan.

Cabinet minister Joe Hargrave said there has always been talk of an urban-rural divide in Saskatchewan politics. However, the Saskatchewan Party’s lone Prince Albert MLA said he doesn’t believe a significant split exists.

Hargrave, who is one of more than a dozen urban Saskatchewan Party MLAs, said it’s an important issue to talk about, given that the government needs to represent the whole province. Still, he thinks the party is already having lots of success, and just needs to stick to its current plan.

“I don’t think we need any major shift in any policies to continue to be successful in the cities and the urban centres,” he said. “You’ve got to remember, we still have the vast majority of seats, both rural and urban, so we’ve done very, very well in the cities, and I just think we’ve got to continue to listen to those people.”

Changes coming to St. Mary

Jason Kerr
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Changes coming to St. Mary

The Prince Albert Catholic School Division (PACSD) has one of the highest per capita rates of French Immersion students in the province, and that number will soon be reflected in the name of their largest high school.

Starting in January 2018, St. Mary High School will become École St. Mary High School, a decision made to better represent available French programming.

PACSD education director Lorel Trumier said it’s an exciting change that highlights and growing part of the education system.

“Currently when you say St. Mary High School, you think it would only be an English stream of programming,” Trumier explained. “So the (name change) gives a better opportunity for our new students, who are potentially looking at St. Mary, to understand that we have dual-track … where students can finish their high school with a French Immersion certificate and graduate with that honour.”

Roughly 240 of the 1,047 students at St. Mary are enrolled in the French Immersion program, with a total of 871 French Immersion students across the school division.

Trumier said they expect that number to get bigger as more and more families opt for French-language education.

“In our world it’s significant when we have three per cent population growth over a two to three year period,” she explained. “We’re at approximately a third (of students taking French Immersion), whereas a few years ago we were at 25 per cent.”

A new name might not be the only change coming to St. Mary. On Oct. 16, the Catholic trustees voted to apply for provincial funding to add portable classrooms to the school over the next fives years.

Financial details of the project are pending government approval.

Trumier said St. Mary currently has enough space for all enrolled students. The board simply wanted to make sure that continues to be the case.

“In the next five years we are anticipating 100 students, so we would like to be in a position to continue to have that growth to occur,” she said. “It’s just a projection. We’ve grown by 100 this year and we’re very pleased about that, so like I said, we’re just putting ourselves in a position to (continue).”

Trumier added that the request could take a few years to be approved, making it necessary to approve a board motion well in advance.

After falling slightly last school year, enrolment at St. Mary grew by almost 100 students in 2017.

Duo brings “huge sound” to Prince Albert

Jason Kerr
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Duo brings “huge sound” to Prince Albert

You never know what you’ll hear over the speakers when Andrew Sneddon and Matthew Hornell start travelling together.

On some days it’s Fred Eaglesmith and Corb Lund. On others it’s classical music and bebop jazz.

The mix of artists and genres extends to their show, where you’re just as likely to hear an east coast Celtic folk tune as a prairie bluegrass ballad. The song selection echoes the duo’s common theme: just play good music.

“I think it’s the flavour,” Hornell says when asked why the duo has been so successful. “We’re mixing in all of the things that we like: country, folk songs, songs we wrote, instrumentals … our mandate is just to play good music that we enjoy.”

While enjoyable, playing what you like requires a lot of flexibility. In their six years together, Sneddon and Hornell have mastered the art of improvisation. It’s helped keep their show fresh, and each musician on his toes.

“It’s a great musical relationship,” Sneddon explains. “Working in a duo situation like that offers you a lot of leeway in live settings to experiment and try different things.”

Then he chuckles.

“If something happens, you don’t have a whole band that’s going to come to a crashing halt.”

For the rest of this story, please see the Oct. 27 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

125 years of change

Jason Kerr
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125 years of change

Roughly four decades ago, Claude Pelletier knocked on a door in Regina, searching for help.

He was an alcoholic and, in his words, “down on his luck.” The door belonged to the Salvation Army, and the officer who answered it gave an unexpected response.

“He didn’t tell me how good the Salvation Army was,” Pelletier remembered during an interview on Tuesday. “But, he did say to me, ‘we the Salvation Army can’t help you, but we can introduce you to somebody who can, and that someone is the lord Jesus Christ.’ I took that, I bought it and I’ve been following the Lord every since.”

In the 40 years since then, Pelletier has had his ups and downs, but he’s remained committed to his faith, and the organization that helped him find it. When the Salvation Army celebrates their 125th year in Prince Albert on Saturday, he’ll be one of many members honouring the occasion.

“I came to the Salvation Army to quit drinking and I stayed for 40 years,” he chuckled. “It’s incredible.”

For the rest of this story, please see the Oct. 25 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Province confidant Diefenbaker bridge is enough

Jason Kerr
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Province confidant Diefenbaker bridge is enough

Saskatchewan’s Minister of Highways and Infrastructure says Diefenbaker Bridge is more than capable of handling the current traffic load, meaning there’s no urgency to build a second bridge in Prince Albert.

On Tuesday, Minister David Marit took time to respond to a bridge inspection report put out on Monday by independent firm ISL Engineering and Land Services.

The authors of the report said repairs made in 2011 are holding up, but added that additional cracks are appearing beyond naturally occurring wear and tear. The authors attributed the cracks to poor original construction.

Marit said they have short, medium and long-term plans in place to keep the bridge functioning, which should make it capable of handling future loads.

“I don’t think our urgency has changed a bit,” he said. “In fact, I think, what this does for us is give us a pretty good comfort level that the bridge is quite capable of handling the traffic.”

For the rest of this story, please see the Oct. 25 online or print edition of the Daily Herald

Diefenbaker Bridge under the microscope

Jason Kerr
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Diefenbaker Bridge under the microscope

The provincial government says Diefenbaker Bridge is in good shape to handle increasing traffic volumes, provided it is properly maintained in the future.

On Monday, the government released the results of an analysis of the bridge conducted in November 2016 by ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd. The analysis says repairs will have to be made in the near future, but overall the bridge is in working condition.

“While our analysis indicates that the fatigue life of the horizontal bracing connection may be coming to the end of its life, this does not mean the structure cannot continue to serve its purpose,” the report reads. “Its loading capacity is still adequate for the transportation of goods and the Ministry has a number of options to keep the bridge in service.”

The report’s most important item was the state of repairs completed in 2011 to a major fracture known as a Constraint Induced Fracture (CIF). According to the report, the repairs are “functioning as intended and requires no further work.” However, there are other concerns.

For the rest of this story, please see the Oct. 24 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Waste not, want not

Jason Kerr
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Waste not, want not

Nisar Ghani hasn’t been on the job long, but he already has some concerns.

Roughly three months ago, Ghani became the City of Prince Albert’s new sanitation manger. It’s a job that comes with a few challenges, the main one being how quickly Prince Albert’s landfill is, well, filling.

Ghani said it’s a problem that’s not unique to Prince Albert, but the situation here is worse than other communities.

“We do have to do something about that,” he said during an interview on Friday. “Our diversion rate for recycling is very low and we are getting a lot of organic waste in the landfill.”

Ghani estimates that around 40 per cent of Prince Albert’s landfill is full of recyclables like cardboard or compostable materials like food waste from the kitchen. As those materials take up more and more space they increase the spread of pollution and cost the city more money at budget time.

However, it’s not the volume that’s the problem but the lack of programming and education. Ghani said many cities around the province have both of those things in place to help reduce the load. Prince Albert doesn’t, and that’s something Ghani would like to change.

“I’m looking to do more compost (and) more recycling work with the schools because the younger generation, the school students, they can do it better than anybody,” he said.

On Friday, Ghani had part of that wish fulfilled. Residents, city officials, stakeholders and a few rows of local students gathered at John M. Cuelenaere Public Library for a Waste Reduction Week Conference.

The goal was to help people understand both what’s at stake, and what the solutions are.

“I would hope that people understand that reducing the amount of waste we produce is the most important thing to begin with, and once that waste is there, to divert as much as we can from the landfill (by) disposing only what we absolutely need to,” explained Sarah Keith, the Ministry of Environment’s Director of Air and Land Management.

Keith was one of several speakers at Friday’s event. She said Saskatchewan is behind the times when it comes to waste reduction and diversion. The problem isn’t just throwing recyclables and compost material in the trashcan. There are also too many residents burning garbage or using illegal dumping sites.

She’s concerned leachates, the liquid that drains or “leaches” from landfills, could negatively affect local ground and surface water, including the North Saskatchewan River. The province is already looking at the problem, and plans on releasing a strategy in January 2018.

“Right now, we (Saskatchewan) do generate the second highest disposal rate in the country, and the lowest diversion rate,” Keith explained. “The province is working on developing a solid waste management strategy, which hopefully will provide us with a roadmap of how we improve going into the future.”

On a local level, one of the most effective strategies to combat waste increase could be composting.

Lisa Howse, a compost education coordinator with the Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council (SWRC), attended Friday’s event to give a short presentation on the topic.

She said composting doesn’t just reduce waste, it breaks things down in a more environmentally friendly matter. Food and yard waste create a lot of methane, an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, when sent to the landfill because there’s less available oxygen. Composts have more oxygen, which results in less methane.

“I think a lot of people think that food and yard waste would break down the same, whether they’re mixed into garbage in a landfill or whether they’re in a separate compost pile,” she said. “The idea they break down in a totally different way is surprising to a lot of people.”

Howse said composting is something people typically don’t do unless they had parents who taught them. The SWRC has created a few short videos on YouTube and Vimeo to help people get started.

Ideally, she’d like to see every community in Saskatchewan have a compost education program, and curbside compost pickup. She acknowledges, however, that the most effective tactics are also the most expensive. Starting with something more basic, like a drop-off depot or holding a waste reduction conference, are good first steps.

“It’s really exciting to see an event like this organized in Prince Albert,” she said.

@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca

Focus on reconciliation

Jason Kerr
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Focus on reconciliation

Ashley Peterson didn’t expect to work in the arts after graduation, but she couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

Peterson convocated from First Nations University of Canada with a degree in Indigenous Social Work this past June. Today she’s interning at the Mann Art Gallery, and she couldn’t be more excited.

“When you think about Indigenous Social Work, you don’t really connect that with art,” she said.

“I’m not an artist by any means. I just thought it would be something unique, kind of like a once in a lifetime internship.”

Peterson won’t be picking up a pencil or a paintbrush, and she probably won’t conduct workshops on sculpting or open art shows. Instead she’ll help the gallery meet some of the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For the next six months she’s the gallery’s first Indigenous Gallery Education Intern.

“I’m actually honoured and humbled to have this position, since it’s the first ever position of its kind,” Peterson said. “I think it’s really important.”

Peterson called her position “a step in the right direction” for reconciliation, and she’s not alone in that assessment.

Gallery art educator Lana Wilson, said establishing such a position is long overdue, and she’s just as excited about it as Peterson is.

For the rest of this story, please see the Oct. 21 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Getting your feet wet

Jason Kerr
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Getting your feet wet

Dulcie Charles and her daughter Christina are what you’d call “avid swimmers.”

How avid? Some people visit theme parks or tourist attractions when travelling. The Charles’ will stop for a swim in the local pool and check out the programming.

Given their love of swimming, it’s no surprised to hear they’d like an indoor aquatic centre in Prince Albert. In fact, they’re quite passionate about it.

“This is about the next generation,” Dulcie says. “If you want to retain the next generation in the community, you need places like this.”

However, their passion isn’t just born of a love of swimming. There’s also a professional component.

Dulcie and Christina are both physiotherapists who constantly urge their clients to become more active. Swimming is a great activity they say, especially for children and seniors. Current facilities like Marion Aquatics and the Frank J. Dunn pool, while welcome, are not getting the job done, especially when the weather turns cold.

“My biggest issue is there’s such limited swim times,” Christina says. “The user groups it’s serving are just so limited. What we need out of this is a facility that’s well used, so it isn’t sitting idle.”

“It just gives people more opportunity to be physically active and promotes healthy living,” adds Dulcie, who also worries about Frank Dunn’s lack of accessibility and family change rooms.

The Charles’ aren’t alone in their passion, at least, according to results from the city’s Community Service Master Plan Survey.

The official data was presented at Monday’s executive committee meeting and made available to the public at a pair of open house presentations. A total of 442 residents responded to the survey, with roughly two-thirds of those respondents listing a new indoor aquatics facility as a top five priority. By comparison, new indoor playground facilities and a new youth drop-in centre tied for a distant second at 29 per cent each.

For outdoor facilities, 38 per cent of responders identified adding another spray park as a top five need.

The results of the survey came as no surprise to the Charles’, or to some of Prince Albert’s city councillors.

Ward 7 Coun. Dennis Nowoselsky has long championed the building of a new indoor aquatic centre, which he believes will help boost local tourism. He’s hoping the results of the survey will spur some action.

“You’ve got to start looking at avenues for funding,” he says. “It’s got to be a whole community project that’s going to take a lot of money. When we planned the Rawlinson it took 10 years, by the time we did a feasibility study and raised some of the money. It wasn’t done overnight, but it was done and this is, I think, a similar project.”

Nowoselsky says Prince Albert residents need only look down the highway to Melfort to see how successful a well-maintained indoor aquatic facility can be. He plans on bringing a motion before council before the end of the calendar year to get people thinking about a plan, but he’s not the only one who wants to see action.

Mayor Greg Dionne says the city has had a new indoor aquatics facility on its radar for roughly a year. Once the upcoming budget deliberations are done, he says council plans to meet and hammer out a plan.

“Yes, it’s on our radar and it’s been on our radar for the last year or so, and we soon hope to make an announcement on what our plans are for the new aquatic centre.”

@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca

The results are in

Jason Kerr
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The results are in

City administrators have come up with 25 recommendations spanning seven different areas after seeing results from the recent Community Services Master Plan survey.

A total of 442 residents and 80 community groups responded to the survey. Another 68 interviews were conducted with various stakeholders in the city.

The majority of the recommendations fall under support for community clubs and groups, and the building and maintenance of city recreational facilities.

Community Services Director Jodi Boulet called the list a “well-rounded group of recommendations,” but reminded residents they will take time to implement.

“We are looking at this in a long-term sense, so some of (the recommendations) are geared in a way to generate more conversation and research that we need to do some further work on,” he said.

According to the survey data, satisfaction with community programs and services remains high, but there is some room for improvement. While only 13 per cent of residents said they were “dissatisfied” with those programs and services, the findings did note a need for “a more proactive approach to facility maintenance” and “enhanced promotion of services and opportunities.”

Although Boulet said there weren’t many surprises in the survey response, that desire for more information did raise some eyebrows.

He said there appears to be a significant demographic that isn’t aware of what city programs and services are available. They plan on improving those lines of communication right away.

“We’re always trying to find different ways to inform the public and make sure that they’re well aware of what is available,” Boulet said. “Hearing that through the process, I think there’s going to be some immediate action we can take.”

Another recommendation that could see action soon is the Facility Prioritization Framework. The city uses the framework to rank whether city facilities should be repaired or replaced.

Boulet said the framework will provide a more consistent approach, and help decrease confusion about new projects.

“It’s going to allow us to put the facts in front of members or council, facts in front of the public, and also facts in front of our department that are going to allow us to make, I think, more informed decisions when we undertake some of those reviews in our department.”

The framework will also apply to park spaces, like spray parks, playground equipment and paddling pools.

The list of findings from stakeholder and discussion groups also included an acknowledgement that volunteer groups were experiencing challenges and would benefit from some assistance.

The list of recommendations included one idea to develop a “partnership framework” which would help guide how the city works with organizations delivering community services. “Enhancing support for volunteer community organizations to ensure their stability,” was another recommendation.

A complete list of findings and recommendations are available at www.letstalkprincealbert.ca until Nov. 6. A link is also available on the City of Prince Albert website.

@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca

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