SASKATOON -- With cities such as Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa imposing mandatory mask bylaws, CTV Morning Live Anchor Stephanie Massicotte sat down with Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark to get his thoughts on following suit, and other major changes happening in Saskatoon.
Will Saskatoon follow other cities in their decisions to make masks mandatory?
We’re at this absolutely crucial time as we head towards the fall, we've heard how much we need to make it a priority for schools to be able to open in the fall. Also, we're seeing other communities in North America and in the U.S. especially, having to go into lockdown, so what can we be doing right now to make sure that we don't have to go and close businesses and have people laid off, and also have schools open successfully.
The Premier said he'd rather have mandatory masks than to do those steps. What we talked about at council yesterday is we want to continue to absolutely work with the province. We're watching this very closely and we realized as we see a rise in cases, how critical it is right now that we that we are taking the right steps.
So the city is not moving to implement a mandatory mask (policy) but we are talking to the province, watching closely, and from point of view as mayor, we really need to be paying attention to what we can do to keep the success of our reopening as sustained as possible into the fall.
What would mandatory masks look like if it did come into effect? How would that be policed?
These are some of the challenges. This is another example of something that there is no real rulebook for a mandatory masks in a city. So, enforcement is challenging. We would much rather be doing it with the Saskatchewan Health Authority because the Public Health Officers are the ones who are enforcing the guidelines. So these are all the things that are being looked at and would need to be worked out. Again, ideally working directly with the provincial government.
Some positive news coming out of council as well, and that's a big infrastructure investment.
That’s right, it’s a program in Saskatoon, and right across the province to help stimulate the economy and keep people working but also improve and fix up our cities. Saskatoon has made a major investment in sidewalks, in curb-cuts, in replacing and putting sidewalks into neighborhoods where they don't exist already and making the existing sidewalks we have safer. Over $8 million total will be going into sidewalks as a result of this, and that will get people working as well, so we're excited about that.
We are also going to be implementing a public Wi-Fi pilot project because we are learning through COVID how important it is that people have access to the internet, wherever they are in terms of accessing services and sometimes if people don't have data plans, that can be a barrier and so we're going to be using some of this money to do that.
We're going to make a safer trail crossing, to get people from the north end into the industrial area, across the train tracks which is another barrier that we've had, that hasn't been there for cyclists and pedestrians, as well as a pathway in the southwest on the CP Rail line in the city to make it safer for people there. So there's some very, very good news coming out of this investment and we're very grateful to the provincial government for being able to improve the city this way, as we keep people working.
Last week, we saw the fire department deem the City Center Inn and Suites uninhabitable. A lot of residents, over 100 residents, having to be relocated. This is something that I think is all too common, people being put onto the streets in Saskatoon. How is the city going to address this issue?
This was a very challenging situation and when the fire department did its inspection and identified that this place was deplorable, uninhabitable and not safe for people to live in, it was not taken lightly to close down a building for people. But what did happen that I think is very positive, is building on the success we've had with a very coordinated effort through COVID, which was the interagency response of dozens of organizations working together to keep people safe, which is building on actually the Safe Community Action Alliance we’ve been working on to try and address crystal meth.
Many agencies came together to work to help to relocate people as safely as possible, and to find them housing and find supports. And while I don't want to downplay at all, how challenging this is for people and there are some very difficult circumstances, I'm very proud of the way the community and these partners have come together to work together to address this. This is a sign to me that we're getting more coordinated, it's something that's so critical to address these safety and well being issues.
We have ongoing work to do when it comes to housing. We need to continue to work with the provincial government to make sure we've got all the right supports in place. But this was a really remarkable effort of many agencies to try and make a very tough situation as manageable as possible.
How does it work when the fire department goes into investigate, because I mean by the time they went in there it was shocking to see some of those photos.
The fire department has a mandate right now, to investigate fire code issues, not the public health related matters. We have a gap in our system right now when it comes to public health inspections of housing. There was funding and a partnership in place previously up till 2016, with the provincial government, to enable the fire department with more capacity to do more of those inspections and that was withdrawn. I think this situation identifies that we need to replace and fill that gap.
I think, as you said, there are likely other situations where people are living in conditions that they absolutely shouldn't be and I am concerned that there aren't enough inspections in place. We are going to continue to work and advocate to make sure that we do have the capacity and the inspections going into these situations, to catch them before they get to the point where you have to shut the building down and to hold the landlords accountable.
