Saskatoon’s Mayor says the City has been working in co-ordination with the province in the COVID-19 response and he hopes that relationship will carry on once the pandemic is over.

Earlier this month, Saskatoon’s Business Improvement District urged the province to address safety and security at the Lighthouse and that was one of the topics of discussion before the pandemic reached Saskatchewan. Consequently a meeting to discuss community safety took place between the two levels of government and Charlie Clark explains that the City doesn’t have jurisdiction over mental health, corrections or social services.

He says, whatever the solution, it has to be considered the right thing to do for the Lighthouse and the province. One suggestion is to move some of the programs offered by the Lighthouse outside of the downtown core, because right now there are too many programs happening in that facility because of growing need.

Some of the concerns now in light of COVID-19 are how people with addictions are dealing with it, and also how people are dealing with the stress of loss of income and being stuck at home. Mayor Clark says the community safety discussion with the province seems like it happened a lifetime ago, but he hopes working together will be a practice that continues after the pandemic is over.