Clark, Masters react to Saskatchewan budget

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark is disappointed Wednesday’s provincial budget only included $8 million in targeted funding for mental health and addictions programs.

He said there’s a mental health and addictions crisis in Saskatoon and across the province.

“I was hoping to see a pretty bold move here in terms of making some investments that signal there’s significant change underway and a strategy to really affect and address the parts of the system that are causing people to fall through the cracks,” Clark said.

He also said it’s unfortunate that the Prairie Harm Reduction safe injection site didn’t get any provincial budget money for the third year in a row.

As well, Clark is concerned about the addition of the Provincial Sales Tax to tickets for sporting and entertainment events.

“These are industries that have been quite decimated as a result of COVID-19 … and adding extra cost for people to go out and buy tickets to these industries, it’s a real puzzle to me,” he said.

Regina Mayor Sandra Masters said the expansion of the PST is a reflection of how difficult the pandemic was for governments.

“To come out of it and try to reduce the deficit, you’ve got to look at all options,” Masters told the Greg Morgan Morning Show.

“We’ve got to pay for this deficit that we’ve incurred over the last couple of years and so if there’s going to be enormous demand — we hope — coming out of the last couple of years for events and conventions and concerts and all of these things, it may be a place people are willing to spend disposal money that they haven’t been able to spend in the last couple of years.”

Another concern for Clark included the reduction in provincial revenue-sharing, which would see Saskatoon get $2.2 million less this year to help maintain things like a transit system that has 17,000 regular daily riders.

On the positive side, Clark liked the $8-million addition to the Creative Saskatchewan Production Grant Program.

“We’ve got great sets in our city (and) we’ve got talented people,” he said. “This is a multimillion-dollar industry that we should be a part of in Saskatchewan.”

Masters said that addition definitely could help Regina.

“The increase in the media production grant, which means our sound stage may be utilized, is pretty fantastic news,” Masters said. “And then the renaming of it to the John Hopkins Sound Stage is a pretty nice touch. I know John was working on it.”

Hopkins, the former CEO of the Regina Chamber of Commerce, died Feb. 2.

Masters also was pleased to see there was money in the budget for the urgent care centres that are to be constructed in Regina and Saskatoon.