Charlie Clark, Kelley Moore, Don Atchison and Devon Hein sounded off on a range of topics during a mayoral debate on Monday hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) and the Political Studies Students’ Assocaition (PSSA) for the upcoming Saskatoon civic election
The candidates fielded six prepared questions encompassing three topics: transportation, social issues and infrastructure.
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Moore stated that city hall needs to start making transit a priority.
“We, as a city, seem to have been plagued for many years around struggling to make transit work in Saskatoon,” Moore said.
Moving Canadian Pacific Railway lines out of the city and increasing bus frequency would allow the city to “redo” its transit system, according to Atchison.
“I think we need more buses out there. The buses we have need to be the right size for the right areas,” Atchison said.
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Clark wants the city to stick with its long-term goal of establishing bus rapid transit.
“If we waited to move the rail lines out of this city … it’s a $500,000 study just to get to the next step of that and it’s at least a billion dollars to do it. It’s never going to happen,” Clark said.
He also addressed Moore directly, saying the province’s Ministry of Social Services – where she is on unpaid leave during her campaign – was absent for the homelessness and housing first strategy.
“Why didn’t we get the funding from the provincial government on that? We were showing progress, but there was no funding from the province to do it,” Clark said.
In her rebuttal, Moore stated “one of the partners walked away from the table.”
“And as a collaboration, we need to ensure that it shouldn’t be a surprise when somebody leaves,” Moore said, adding that the last civic administration put too much pressure on social housing in Saskatoon.
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Atchison accused Moore of “bureaucratic inexperience.”
“It’s not the City of Saskatoon that, in fact, deals with this. This is the provincial government that is dealing with this particular situation,” Atchison said.
Candidates will meet again Tuesday for a private forum hosted by the Saskatoon Club.
A public forum hosted by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) is planned for Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. CT at the Saskatoon Travelodge.
Voters in Saskatoon head to the polls on Oct. 26.