North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Proclamations policy

North Battleford lawmakers to develop policy around proclamations

Oct 29, 2019 | 5:06 PM

The City of North Battleford may be looking at creating some policy around the issue of proclamations.

“At the very least the city wants a concrete policy,” Mayor Ryan Bater said following council Monday.

The topic is top of mind as Yorkton city council decided to stop accepting applications and proclamations designated for special days or special weeks, such as pride week or veterans’ week. Lawmakers first exercised the new decision during an Oct. 21 meeting.

Saskatoon city council passed its Flag and Proclamations policy Monday. Flags that are deemed “controversial,” “politically,” or “religiously” motivated will be banned.

Bater said North Battleford has not encountered any controversies but said he knows other municipalities have and he wants the city to get ahead of that.

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But the challenge can be that a municipality can’t just say ‘yes’ to one group and ‘no’ to another arbitrarily, he explained.

“But if you have concrete policies that are approved by council, as long as those are followed then it makes some strategic sense,” Bater said.

Bater said the city will look at the issue in the near future.

“I can say that that is under review, the whole process for proclamations,” Bater said. “Proclamations are useful for organizations to raise awareness of their services of issues that are near and dear to them. But there is a practicality involved when a municipality issues a proclamation, and sometimes those proclamations can be controversial, and municipalities don’t want to get involved with that.”

– with files from 650 CKOM

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow