Northern Sask. mayors launching community lobby group

A group of mayors from Saskatchewan's north are planning to launch an association for northern municipalities to influence economic projects and social policies.

It's actually more of a reboot of New North, an association of 35 communities in the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District (NSAD), which includes towns, villages and hamlets scattered across the top half of Saskatchewan.

Mayors and councillors met last weekend in Prince Albert and agreed to establish the new lobby group.

The group wants to ensure communities see the benefits of resource projects and get their fair share of investments in health care and other services, Ile-à-la-Crosse Mayor Buckley Belanger said.

"They have their ambitions and their needs and they're going to start speaking up and demanding to be involved with some of the northern decisions," Belanger said in an interview on Wednesday.

Some communities near resource developments are struggling to keep up with growth, Belanger said.

"Whether it's demanding better services or participating in the decisions around resource development … why are we largely not engaged in a lot of these discussions?" Belanger said.

"I think we're basically sending a message that we're here and we are going to be demanding a spot at the table to talk about northern development."

The NSAD covers almost half of the province, but only has about three per cent of Saskatchewan's population.

Beauval Mayor Rick Laliberte is on board and said northern communities should consider lobbying for their own health authority to better respond to local needs. A nurse shortage recently caused the Beauval Health Centre to reduce some services.

"We need our own health authority, a partnered authority that serves both on-reserve and off-reserve citizens, because we all depend on the same doctors, the same nurses for the same illnesses that we're all sharing," Laliberte said.

"It's time that we design something for the north, by the north, with the people of the north."

Laliberte added that it could be modelled after the Athabasca Health Authority, a federal, provincial and First Nations collaboration that includes only the province's most northern communities like Uranium City and Black Lake Denesuline First Nation.

Belanger has high hopes for the new group, which is now developing policies and bylaws ahead of an official launch.

"There was a vision many years ago that we create this this northern Saskatchewan governance structure and it never materialized for a number of reasons," Belanger said.

"But today, more than ever, we're going to have to form alliances with our First Nations partners, with industry and with the provincial and federal governments to try and build a better and stronger north."