Welcome to Cross Border Interviews. Our goal is to create meaningful municipal conversations that inform, connect, educate and strengthen communities from coast to coast to coast in Canada. For this edition of Cross Border Interviews, we sat down at the most recent SUMA Convention in Regina, with City of North Battleford, Saskatchewan Mayor Kelli Hawtin The city of North Battleford is a vibrant community that draws visitors, shoppers, and facility users from all over northw

We’re diving into a piece of legislation that could reshape the relationship between Alberta’s municipalities, homeowners, and the province itself: Bill 28. Framed by the government as a move toward fairness, consistency, and efficiency, this bill touches on some of the most sensitive pressure points in local governance — how communities are run, how development happens, and, perhaps most importantly, how property is taxed. At the heart of the conversation is a promise to sta

There’s a quiet truth that echoes in council chambers from coast to coast: when it comes to stable, predictable municipal funding, not all systems are created equal. In fact, ask almost any municipal leader across Canada, and you’ll hear the same thing—if their province followed Saskatchewan’s lead, their communities would be on much stronger footing. Because in Saskatchewan, they built something different. Something durable. Something that, nearly two decades later, is still

Seven months ago, we brought you the concerns of Mayor Lyle Herman of La Loche, who travelled to Ottawa to sound the alarm on a growing crisis in northern Saskatchewan. At the time, he described a region stretched thin—where limited RCMP resources, rising crime, housing shortages, and gaps in mental health and addictions services were putting entire communities at risk. Today, we return to that story with a simple but critical question: has anything changed? In communities li

Watson Lake is the kind of place you can miss with a blink if you’re in too much of a hurry to get somewhere else. That would be a mistake. Because in Watson Lake, every sign has a story, and every story means something. For those who have never travelled the Alaska Highway — and yes, I know some people still call parts of it Highway 97 or Highway 1 depending on where they are standing — I would highly recommend it. Not because it is flashy. Not because every kilometre has so

Welcome to Cross Border Interviews. Our goal is to create meaningful municipal conversations that inform, connect, educate and strengthen communities from coast to coast to coast in Canada. For this edition of Cross Border Interviews, we sat down at the most recent SUMA Convention in Regina, with Town of Outlook, Saskatchewan Mayor Ryan Husband. Located near the banks of the South Saskatchewan River and home to approximately 2,300 people, the town of Outlook is a safe, affo