2025 February

The Importance of Public Engagement

Likely you’ve heard these comments from your municipal ratepayers:

• You didn’t tell people you were doing that.
• I’m not on Facebook.
• Shouldn’t ratepayers tell council how to spend our tax dollars?
• Council members all have well-maintained roads past their homes.

Considering public engagement opportunities could help get your community in the know and build support for council’s work.

Public engagement is about building trust. You build trust by communicating with your ratepayers in multiple ways to help them understand issues and their impacts. Once you begin communicating more regularly in the ways described below, your residents will become more engaged and invested.

Develop and Maintain Website

A municipal website is essential and expected in today’s digital world. People search first online for information about your municipality. Having both a website and social media site ensures your municipality has a solid online presence.

A website is a low-cost option to create a one-stop shop about your municipality. At a minimum, your website should include the following information, which needs to be updated regularly:

• Office contact information, office hours and a listing of current council members.
• Public notices and announcements.
• Bylaws and council meeting minutes.
• Information or policies about municipal services.
• Audited financial statements.
• Municipal election information.
• Downloadable forms the public may require for various reasons.
• Major project information and updates.
• Tax and assessment information.

There are many local businesses and online website builders to help you develop and maintain your municipality’s website with as little or as much support as required.

Create a Social Media Account

A municipality’s social media channel is to complement, not replace, the need for a municipal website.

You can use your social media account for resident feedback and for posting notices or announcements such as road closures, upcoming meetings and event promotions/cancellations.

Please use social media with caution. Unlike a website, social media accounts are not under a municipality’s complete control. Your channel is owned by the chosen social media platform. How your content is presented, shared and archived is subject to that platform’s terms and conditions.

Distribute Newsletters

Regular newsletters can keep residents informed of the latest municipal happenings. They can be circulated in several ways: by mail, email, inserting it into utility billings or tax notices, displaying copies at local businesses or uploaded to your website.

Appoint a Youth Member

Your municipality may wish to appoint a youth member to sit with council and participate in its deliberations within conditions established by the council. It’s a wonderful way to educate youth and instill an interest in municipal governance.

As the youth member is not an “official” member of council, their presence cannot be used to determine quorum or act as a deciding vote of council.

Encourage Attendance at Council Meetings

Promote that council and council committee meetings are open to the public (both residents and non-residents) in the ways described above and in your municipal office.

When promoting these meetings, remind the public that if they wish to speak, they need to arrange it beforehand following your municipality’s delegation process.

If, during a meeting, your council or council committee must discuss something in a closed session for confidentiality, explain why legislation allows you to do this. Frequent use of closed sessions can create an atmosphere of secrecy and negatively impacts public engagement.

Consult the Public

Public consultation is legislatively required for certain matters. However, you can also reach out for other matters to informally gather insight into the public’s values and ideas.

This type of engagement can occur by:

• Hosting open houses or ratepayers’ meetings;
• Asking for feedback in social media posts;
• Having a public forum as a standing item on council meeting agendas; and/or
• Conducting surveys.

Educate the Public

Explaining your municipality’s roles and responsibilities to your citizens pays off in the long term by reducing misunderstandings. Some ways to encourage this type of engagement include:

• Posting on your municipal office’s bulletin board, website or social media channel items such as fact sheets, brochures and information documents that your municipality created or are available from the Municipal Administration section on the Government of Saskatchewan’s website.
• Inserting a “Fun Facts” section in your municipal newsletter citing interesting elements about your community or about municipal legislation.
• Working with local schools to support any curriculum activities related to municipal government.
• Inviting the public to educational open houses, either at the main office, town hall or at other municipal facilities, such as a water treatment plant, a fire hall or a public works shop. That way, residents can get a first-hand look at the inner workings of various departments in your municipality.

The methods described above allow municipalities to show they are open and transparent to their residents. When you involve the public on a regular basis, they will learn about their local municipality, how municipal government works and how they are able to hold their council accountable. In return, improved public engagement benefits your municipality by gaining support for council decisions, receiving fewer complaints and generating interest for future council members or volunteers for committees and boards.

Once again, the Ministry of Government Relations will have a tradeshow booth at the upcoming Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) Convention and Trade Show in Saskatoon.

If you want information about municipal legislation, community planning or other related topics, visit booth 148 at the trade show being held at Prairieland Park.

The ministry will have staff available from Advisory Services and Municipal Relations, Building and Technical Standards, the Community Planning Branch and other program areas to answer questions.

SARM's convention runs from Tuesday, March 11 to Thursday, March 13 at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon. For more details, visit SARM's 2025 Convention and Trade Show website.

Cyber security is about keeping your devices and electronic data safe. As cybercrime becomes more frequent, it is important to increase your technological literacy and prevent and report scams, phishing and other cyber threats.

Some of the most common ways to spot a cyber-threat:

• Check domain names (email address).
  Phishing emails often use imitation domain names to deceive you. For example, they might use muuninf0@gov.sk.ca with a digit in place of a letter instead of the legitimate domain name, muninfo@gov.sk.ca.
• Check for generic greetings or inconsistencies.
  Look for greetings like “dear valued customer” or consistent spelling errors in the body of the email. These are indicators of mass phishing emails sent by scammers targeting large audiences.
• Check communication attachments.
  If the communication you have received contains attachments you do not recognize or links containing suspicious information, do not open these attachments. Hover over the link with your mouse to ensure they are going to where they say they are going.

Here are some things you can do right now to up your cyber-safety:

• Trust, but verify.
  If you think the sender of a message is suspicious, phone them to confirm that they really sent it.
• Be cautious of unexpected emails.
  Think twice before you open attachments or click links in emails that urge you to respond immediately or play on your emotions like fear, or curiosity.
• Check first before giving out information.
  Never give out confidential or personal information without checking the source first.

If you receive an email from the Ministry of Government Relations that seems suspicious or varies from our usual communications, please pause and contact us directly by phone using our online phone directory.

By following these tips and remaining alert to the threat of cyber-attacks and other phishing scams, we can protect ourselves from cyber security threats.

For more information on protecting your data and devices, visit getcybersafe.gc.ca.

As announced in August 2024, the Ministry of Government Relations signed a new bilateral Agreement to continue administering the Canada Community-Building Fund (CCBF) on behalf of Canada.

Introduced in 2005, the program transferred federal gas tax revenues under the New Deal for Cities and Communities program. It was rebranded the Gas Tax Fund a short time later and then to the CCBF in 2021. Since its inception, Saskatchewan municipalities have received more than $1.13 billion in funding to support community infrastructure projects.

The funding is paid to eligible municipalities twice per year. With the next semi-annual payment expected in March 2025, municipalities are required to confirm their participation in the next 10 years of the program by signing the new 2024-2034 Municipal Funding Agreement (MFA). The CCBF team emailed eligible municipalities a copy of the MFA to sign in August 2024. As of February 1, 2025, 743 of the 767 municipalities have signed the new MFA.

Program information, including an updated Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP) form for municipalities to submit projects under CCBF, can be found in the Canada Community-Building Fund section of Saskatchewan.ca.

Saskatchewan looks forward to administering the renewed CCBF program on behalf of the federal government and working with your municipality on this priority.

For more information, please contact the CCBF team at ccbfprogram@gov.sk.ca.

The Construction Codes Act requires local authorities to advise the Chief Codes Administrator of the status of their building official appointments at year-end.

Within 60 days of the end of the year (by the end of February), every local authority must provide the Chief Codes Administrator with the name and licence number of every building official who, in the previous fiscal year:

• Was appointed;
• Had their appointment cancelled; or
• Had their appointment suspended.

Local authorities can now use the convenient online Reporting of Building Official Appointments form to submit this information. They can also submit their year-end report to the Chief Codes Administrator by emailing btstandards@gov.sk.ca or mailing the report to:

Building and Technical Standards
Saskatchewan Ministry of Government Relations
1430 – 1855 Victoria Avenue
Regina, SK S4P 3T2

If you have already submitted your year-end report by email or mail, there is no need to resubmit it using the online form.

Please contact Building and Technical Standards at btstandards@gov.sk.ca or 306-787-4113 if you have any questions.

Two streams were launched last year under the federally-delivered program called the Canada Public Transit Fund.

Active Transportation Fund

The Active Transportation Fund supports the development and enhancement of active transportation networks to provide Canadians with the opportunity to safely and affordably reach destinations by active modes of transportation.

Applications are currently being accepted through Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada’s Applicant Portal until February 26, 2025 (7 p.m. EST), while applications from eligible Indigenous applicants will continue to be accepted until April 9, 2025 (7 p.m. EST).

Applicants are encouraged to review information provided on the Active Transportation Fund website, Applicant Guide and Step-by-Step Guide prior to creating an application. More information can also be found on the Active Transportation Online Hub.

For additional support in completing an application, please contact the Active Transportation Fund team at ATF-FTA@infc.gc.ca.

Rural Transit Solutions Fund

The Rural Transit Solutions Fund (RTSF) helps cover the cost of capital assets, which includes purchasing vehicles and supporting infrastructure (e.g. bus stops and charging stations) for a transit system.

Applications for the Capital Projects stream will be accepted through the Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada’s Applicant Portal. Applications will be accepted from all applicants until March 4, 2025 (3 p.m. EST), while applications from Indigenous recipients will be accepted until April 8, 2025 (3 p.m. EST).

Before applying, applicants are encouraged to review the information in the Capital Projects Stream Application Guide and follow the Capital Projects Stream Step-by-Step Guide. The RTSF webpage includes all program information.

For any inquiries about the RTSF or the application process, please contact RTSF-FSTCR@infc.gc.ca or call toll free at 1-833-699-2280.