THE YEAR AHEAD: Focus on youth, community safety for Masters in 2022

Sandra Masters thinks there’s a lot of work awaiting the City of Regina in 2022.

The future remains unknown in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If I’m worried about anything, it’s about the people and their ability to stay adaptable and practical and to be hopeful. We know we’re going to come out of this,” Regina’s mayor said.

“Continue to get vaccinated, booster shots, whatever it takes to be safe, but I do worry – and if I was to send out a shout of encouragement to people, it’s that keep enjoying your family, keep enjoying the city, get outdoors and just enjoy what it is what we have before us and don’t let that uncertainty and risk that COVID presents to us all to get them down.”

While the city continues to navigate through the pandemic, there are other challenges facing the Queen City, such as substance abuse and homelessness.

Masters said the approval of the community safety and well-being plan is key.

“(We’re) getting serious about coming up with plans and strategies and collaborations on how to tackle problematic substance use, food insecurity, and just that co-ordinated access to service,” Masters said.

“We’re not Social Services (and) we’re not (the Ministry of) Justice. We’re not that but as a municipality, can we take a lead role in terms of facilitating and collaborating between levels of government and community-based organizations?”

While Masters knows the city and province need to work together when it comes to improving life in the Queen City, the relationship between the two saw some strains in 2021.

A proposal made at the Jan. 20 council meeting would have excluded fossil fuel companies from being able to advertise at city events.

That led to a large amount of opposition, including from Premier Scott Moe. The motion was withdrawn a week later.

Despite that, Masters praised the province for its communication throughout the year.

“I’m never going to believe that everyone is going to agree on everything,” Masters said. “Whether you agree with it or not, the communication has been really good and they were enormously supportive of when we were dealing with Camp Hope in terms of sending social work out, helping and assisting to fund the emergency shelter and making a call out for proposals in support of housing, recognizing that’s where part of the gap is.

“I’m enormously encouraged with the relationship and I’m grateful. Even if I don’t like the information, at least we’re getting the information.”

She also believes a large focus has to be put on the youth of Regina.

“Both from creating hope and opportunities and mentorship and making sure that those opportunities and that hope can be there,” Masters said. “It’s far easier to prevent the problems than it is to address the problems.

“It’s incredibly difficult and requires persistence and a faith that can be trying at times but (it’s important) in terms of getting into schools and developing youth programs so that they know there are opportunities for them, whether it is education or work or skills.”

The mayor is entering 2022 after finishing the year by getting to see the results of an efficiency review she had promised in her election campaign. It identified 53 money-saving opportunities within six city departments.

As she looked ahead to the new year, Masters admitted there was a lot of work to be done to make City Hall and the City of Regina run more efficiently.

Masters said the main thing she wants to take away from the review is that more data needs to be taken into account when it comes to making decisions.

“Better data, better reflection and better decisions get made,” she said. “(Issues include) the absences of telematics from our fleet (and) some of the system that’s in our procurement department where we are not using an appropriate way to collect the information and look at the information in a really manageable way to make better decision and manage procurement dollars.”

She also mentioned that scheduling within departments is another of her focuses.

“It comes down to a data thing for me. If you’re not appropriately scheduling, then you’re potentially either short-shifting certain things and then work isn’t being done and the public isn’t being well-served or you’re over-shifting an event and that’s a waste of resources,” Masters said.

Masters believes the future of Regina is bright if it can continue to land economic opportunities, such as a new Viterra canola crushing plant set to begin operations in 2024.

“I think you’re going to see better collaboration in all directions. I think we’re going to have some of these economic opportunities come to fruition and put more people to work. I think you’re going to see organizations collaborate and get focused on skill development and putting folks to work,” Masters said.

“On the social side, you’re going to see more collaboration in terms of attacking some of these root causes of crime and substance use disorder and homelessness that I think you can start to lay the plan out for how we do move that needle for the next number of years.”