By Angela Brown

Sask. NDP Leader visits North Battleford

Jul 3, 2018 | 4:28 PM

The Leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party Ryan Meili visited North Battleford Tuesday to gather feedback from officials on some of the community`s challenges. 

He was joined by Saskatoon-Fairview NDP MLA Vicki Mowat – the opposition critic for Advanced Education, Jobs, Poverty, Housing, Youth, Immigration, Status of Women, and Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority.

Meili said he is traveling across the province to touch base with communities to hear their needs.

“We came here today to meet the mayor, the Chamber of Commerce, and a number of community organizations just to hear what’s on their minds,” Meili said. “Then, we’ll be having a community barbecue with New Democrats from the area to connect with local party members and basically get to work on identifying the issues facing North Battleford.”

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Mowat visited North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater as well as the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce and also planned to meet with the Battlefords and Area Sexual Assault Centre, the Battlefords Immigration Resource Centre as well as the local CUPE.

After speaking to Bater, Meili said he has been hearing about the impact of provincial downloading onto municipalities.

“There were big cuts to grants-in-lieu through Sask Power and Sask Energy last year,” he said. “While some of those funds have returned, basically you are seeing a shortfall of nearly $1 million in the North Battleford budget, which is a pretty sizable chunk of an annual operating budget of a city this size.”   

He said it’s a challenge for many municipalities.

Crime issue 

During his visit with the mayor visit, Meili said they also discussed crime in North Battleford as another concern.

Meili and Mowat appreciated hearing about the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce’s Action Battlefords project to help reduce crime and improve the community’s image.

“Those are concerns that run through society, and in North Battleford we’re really seeing them in a big way,” he said. “There’s a need to come together to try to address some of the root causes of some of those issues to address poverty and inequalities that exist in the province.”

When looking for solutions Meili said “when it comes to the challenges of crime we really need to be looking beyond what we tend to see, which is a reactive approach –  trying to crack down on crime, lock people up sooner, lock them up longer.

“That’s been shown … to actually worsen crime rates,” he said. “We need to be looking further upstream, and figure out how do we prevent that kind of activity.”

Meili said by making sure there are job opportunities available as well as ways to help people “access decent education,” it can help “ make the community safer.”

Replace pipeline 

Another issue that came up during Meili’s visit in North Battleford was the pipeline system in the province.

Meili said he would like to see parts of the pipeline replaced on a regular schedule, both to increase the safety of the pipe itself and also to increase work for people in the steel pipe construction business in Saskatchewan.

He said he would like to see “an evidence-based system that looks at when pipelines should be replaced, looking at the age of the pipeline … and creating a best-before date… so you have the protection of the environment … but at the same time we’re putting people to work replacing those pipelines with locally-made steel,” he said.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW