New Municipalities of Saskatchewan president looks to rebuild ‘fragmented’ group

With cracks in the organization that unites them, the new president of Municipalities of Saskatchewan (MOS) is looking to do a little construction work.

Rodger Hayward said his main focus is on rebuilding.

“I saw that our organization was becoming somewhat fragmented,” said the long-serving mayor of Naicam.

Hayward recently defeated former president Gordon Barnhart by a vote of 351 to 115 during a virtual convention.

Hayward said leading up to the vote he heard many members discuss how they felt a change was needed atop MOS, which represents cities and towns across the province. One of the main reasons for that he said was the recent name change away from the previous Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA).

“We’ve heard pretty loud and clear from a lot of members, from our villages to our cities, that maybe the name wasn’t the issue, it was how we went about it,” Hayward said.

That rebranding and what they felt was a lack of consultation was a big sticking point not just for members, but for the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) too, which works closely with MOS.

“They’re not happy with it,” he said, indicating he’s spoken with SARM President Ray Orb about it.

Between the name change and the talk of amalgamation during Barnhart’s presidency, Hayward said they need to have more meaningful talks as an entire group. That includes within MOS, but also with SARM, wanting to rebuild that relationship too.

“It’s a difficult job because we’ve got the largest cities and the smallest villages but there’s so many things that are actually the same in all of our municipalities, it’s just the number of zeroes behind it. Once we recognize that and recognize that we’re representing 82 per cent of the population, we can make a big difference if we work together.”