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By Doug Lett
The City of Humboldt is adding its voice to those calling for the province to change municipal election dates. The city has sent a letter to the provincial government, calling for the election date to be moved to the spring of 2024.
Right now elections for cities, towns and villages in the province are slated for November 13, 2024. But that’s just over two weeks after the provincial election, which is set for October 28, 2024.
Humboldt Mayor Michael Behiel said it’s a problem for a couple of reasons. First, he said, voters get confused when the elections are so close together.
“It caused a bit of confusion for the voters as to who they’re voting for, for what purpose,” he said.
The second reason, Behiel said is the weather, pointing to the massive snowfall that nearly paralyzed much of the province during the last municipal election on November 9, 2020.
“As a result, we had record low turnouts for voters in our community,” he said. “Trying to get to the polls was a very big challenge. I got stuck several times trying to get there. So we feel that that’s not an appropriate time of year because we can’t guarantee the weather will be adequate.”
Humboldt is not alone. The provincial organization for cities and towns, the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) sent letters reminding cities and towns that this may be their last chance to get the date moved. The provincial government will be voting on changes to the Local Government Election Act this spring.
SUMA President Randy Goulden said it’s difficult enough to get people out to vote in municipal elections, without the added confusion of it being close to the provincial one.
“You get confusion over who’s running for who, so people just don’t go to vote. They just don’t turn out,” she said.
She added as a result of the blizzard in 2020, some communities saw voter turnout as low as 19 per cent.
“In a democratic society, where we place a great deal of the decisions on our municipal councils, 19 per cent is is not a good number,” Goulden said. In addition, it can be tough to get enough election workers to staff two elections close together.
She said SUMA surveyed the more than 400 municipalities in its membership. The vast majority want the election date moved although there are different opinions as to when. Many towns would prefer a September date and some cities would like the spring.
“The provincial government said, well, they just want one consistent date,” Goulden said, but she argued there are already different dates. For example, resort villages vote in summer.
However, the provincial government insists there needs to be agreement.
“The provincial government’s message to stakeholders was they should agree on one common date before a change in local election dates would be considered. There was no consensus among stakeholders on the timing of local elections,” said a statement from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Government Relations.
“At this time, municipal election dates will remain unchanged to maintain consistency among all municipalities in Saskatchewan,” it added.
Humboldt and other cities are asking for elections to be moved to the spring of 2024 – late enough so it does not conflict with spring seeding, but before summer.
Behiel said the lack of movement from the provincial government is a disappointment.
“It just shows that they’re not really paying a lot of respect to what we’re asking for,” he said. However, he added they have to follow what they are told by the provincial government.