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Saskatoon residents have a month to weigh in on what the Bridge City prioritizes for the next four years.
The city launched a survey on the morning of Aug. 18, allowing respondents to answer a series of open and closed-ended questions concerning its drafted 2026-2029 Strategic Plan, which impacts future spending.
“It is up to administration to be referring to that Strategic Plan on a regular basis, making sure that the projects that we’re proposing and bringing forward to city council are actually aligned… with the strategic plan as part of our budget discussions,” Public Engagement and Communications Director Carla Blumers said.
Public Engagement and Communications Director Carla Blumers said a lot of the work that’s been done on the drafted Strategic Plan is based on feedback received from the community over time. “So, hopefully we’re fairly close in reflecting some of the survey information and the conversations that I think all of our city council have had with their residents,” she said. (Marija Robinson/650 CKOM)
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Depending on the survey’s feedback, Blumers said there is room for tweaking or even revisiting areas that require more significant changes, but it’s unlikely that’ll be necessary.
According to Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block, a lot of research and community engagement have been done to ensure the draft reflects people’s priorities.
“For city council in particular, we’ve just come off an election, and we’ve heard what people are saying to us on the doors. I would be surprised if there was a dramatic shift in terms of what residents are asking in terms of a strategic plan,” Block said.
Change in priorities
Ten files comprise the city council’s priorities within the drafted plan, including housing and homelessness, economic development and core services.
While according to Block, homelessness was previously under the umbrella of the community safety and well-being file, that’s been changed to ensure the issue has an independent strategic file led by the mayor herself.
Even though it’s set to have its own file, she acknowledged how Saskatoon doesn’t “have all the tools to solve [homelessness] alone,” saying other levels of government will need to honour their “core responsibilities.”
Another change compared to the current Strategic Plan is the core services file.
While the file used to be included within the plan before 2022, Block said it was dropped because people thought it was just “what we do.”
By excluding it, though, the city missed the opportunity to let people know how foundational core services are, according to Block.
“Unless we are delivering at a high level the services that residents expect, then we are not doing our core business,” she said, hence why it’s included in the new plan.
Coming off of last week’s committee meeting, where dozens of businesses sat in council chambers to oppose tax increases, Block also spoke about the economic development file, which has a strong focus on making Saskatoon “business friendly.”
All the files and priorities within them can be found on the City of Saskatoon’s website.
The survey is open until Sept. 19, 2025.
Once the Strategic Plan is complete, it will be presented to city council, who will then review and adopt the new plan for city administration and the community.
