Following another round of discussions among provincial cities at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) mayors’ caucus meeting at the end of October, city heads were left with more questions than answers.
Infrastructure is often the focus of the meetings, and these discussions didn’t disappoint in that regard, said Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig.
For smaller cities in Saskatchewan, those under 100,000 like Estevan, the mayor said there continues to be questions and uncertainty around the federal government’s Building Canada Fund.
“We’re still not sure of the parameters around the Building Canada Fund,” noted Ludwig, who said the City will be continuing discussions with Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki to get a better sense of how Komarnicki’s governing Conservative Party expects municipalities to cash in on the infrastructure program.
“The process has been a very slow one, a long one. We still haven’t found exactly what it means for us, for the City of Estevan,” added Ludwig.
He said their issues generally revolve around the different aspects of the fund, which includes the National Infrastructure Component, $4 billion, and the Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component, which is $10 billion in total with $1 billion committed to cities under 100,000 people. Along with the P3, public-private partnership, portion administered by PPP Canada, and the Community Improvement Fund, there is more than $47 billion the federal government is making available.
“It sounds great, but when you filter all that down, what does it mean to the smaller communities?” asked Ludwig, who said thus far they don’t really know. “We don’t have a hard number on that yet, so that’s what we’re working on. We’re still in waiting mode.”
On the provincial lobbying side, Ludwig said the members of SUMA are continuing to push the province for an affordable, sustainable infrastructure program to be put in place.
“We’re still working on that, because the province tends to infer that we use the revenue sharing for infrastructure, but that was never what it was intended for,” said Ludwig.
Estevan received $2.35 million through the sharing program in the 2013-14 tax year.
“With the infrastructure needs across our growing province, and the fact that we haven’t done as much as we should have for the last 20 to 30 years, the infrastructure deficit is enormous,” said Ludwig. “The communities have to address it so we can continue to facilitate the demands for growth. That’s a great thing but we need more help than what we’ve been getting.”
He said the province has hinted there will be some sort of matching program with the federal Building Canada Fund, but added with some stress that that brings the issue back to the federal fund cities have so many continuing questions about.
“We’re kind of chasing our tail right now, but we’ll be sitting down with Ed,” Ludwig said.
When the questions around infrastructure dollars are ironed out, Ludwig said there are a number of projects Estevan may pursue.
The issue Ludwig first identified, aside from upgrading aging infrastructure, was an upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant.
“We’re getting a biosolids building in place, and then we’re also looking at the needed upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant.”
Ludwig noted the City gives a byproduct to Shand through the lagoons, but because of the product they receive, it costs them a lot of money to convert the effluent to something they are able to use.
“We’re looking at a win-win situation with the Shand Power Plant whereby we can improve our processes as we do our upgrades and at the same time give them a better product, saving them money,” said Ludwig. He said those upgrades may include some split of the project costs through the partnership between Shand and the City.
Another ongoing issue for cities everywhere is that of trash and garbage disposal. Landfills took up a chunk of the conversation as landfills across the province, including Estevan’s, are in need of what Ludwig called “revamping.”
“That’s another stressor on the smaller cities. Where do we get the money to do all these needed improvements?” asked the mayor.
“As we move forward with these new regulations, it’s interesting, because we’ve talked before, lots of times we get provincial regulations updated and federal regulations, but they don’t come with corresponding money. It comes on our plate.”
He noted the landfill in Estevan has a clay base and is a little different from many across the province because of the coal mining in the area. Once the coal is removed, what’s left is that clay base, which Ludwig said is nearly impenetrable. It’s unclear if that clay will meet the new provincial standards or if some other work will be necessary.
