The province is considering rescheduling the next round of municipal elections to prevent overlap with a provincial election slated for the same year.
Municipal elections across the province are currently scheduled for Oct. 28, 2020. The provincial polls would open Nov. 2, 2020. Now, the province is looking at the option of moving all municipal elections to the fall of 2021.
Municipal elections are fixed, designed to run at the same time every four years. The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association is lobbying against the scheduling change. Instead, the group wants the province to reschedule its election.
In the spring of 2017, the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Saskatchewan published a discussion paper forecasting the issue. He suggests a short-term resolution, such as moving one election forward and the other back by a few weeks, will make this a continuous issue every four years.
Regina Mayor Michael Fougere says he’d like to see the province add a year to its term.
“We’re elected on a four-year mandate and to extend it beyond four years needs to be extraordinary,” he said. “The province can move its election easier than all the municipalities across the province.”
There seems to be an agreement that at least one of the elections will need to be moved.
“There is a number of challenges first of all when we look at the voter, it makes it more difficult for individual citizens to work through the issues at the different levels,” said Michael Boda with Elections Saskatchewan. “At the provincial level there are a lot of important issues that need to be considered during a campaign period and same at the municipal level. So, if you’re conducting elections at the same time, that’s a starting point.”
The province is currently looking for municipal input into how best to move forward with the next elections. It will ultimately be up to the province to decide how to move forward.
With files from CTV Regina's Joey Slattery
