Saskatoon’s Mayor spent Monday with municipal and federal leaders looking for solutions to the economic uncertainty in Western Canada.
Charlie Clark says Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland , Transport Minister Marc Garneau, and Economic Minister Melanie Joly were told that municipal leaders are closest to the ground and understand the local realities the best, so they need to be at the table with the other levels of government.
Some of the topics at the Western Economic Solutions Taskforce were improving market access, the tensions between energy and climate policies, supports for economic diversification and investment in local infrastructure.
More specific recommendations for the upcoming federal budget were also put forward including compensating farmers for the cost of federal carbon pricing on grain drying through a rebate or similar mechanism.