Mayor David Gillan at the last State of the City Address in March. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Look back on 2023

Mayor Gillan reflects on year’s highlights

Dec 27, 2023 | 2:12 PM

As 2023 draws to a close, battlefordsNOW is taking a look back on some of the most important and impactful stories of the year.

Mayor David Gillan said the City of North Battleford had an important year with many achievements.

“We’re always working on trying to improve safety in the city,” he said. “In 2023 we did bring in a couple of unique bylaws this year.”

One bylaw that was passed was the Late Evening Alley Access bylaw to keep people out of back alleys from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. unless they have a legitimate reason to be there. Another bylaw that was adopted to improve safety is the Protective Services Cost Recovery bylaw. Property owners could be fined if emergency services are called to their properties too often. “There are always people calling police about these properties,” Gillan said.

“We took a long time as a council to deliberate on those [bylaws],” Gillan said. “We just felt that those types of bylaws are important to instil responsibility in property owners here, to be fair, and also treat their neighbours properly as well.”

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He noted council wants to have peaceful, “law-abiding neighbourhoods in our city.” That’s why the city continues to look at how to do that.

RCMP Inspector Jesse Gilbert announces new space for Battlefords RCMP at the former SLGA store. (Submitted Photo/City of North Battleford)

One of the big announcements in 2023 was the province’s closing of its liquor stores, including the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) store, located off the corner of 11 Avenue and 101 Street in downtown North Battleford. The building will now be repurposed for the RCMP to house the Crime Reduction Team and used as a central hub for RCMP training. Premier Scott Moe visited North Battleford in September and announced and signed the lease between the province and the RCMP to develop the new office space for the RCMP and the new northern Saskatchewan training centre.

“That’s going to bring a lot of benefit to the community,” Gillan said. “I was very happy to see that come together. Myself and our council, we worked behind the scenes a lot on that as well to try to make that happen.”

The city was also busy in 2023 beginning to make preliminary plans to replace the aging Access Communications Centre arena in North Battleford.

“We had many meetings with interested community groups about getting that program started,” Gillan said. “We’ve been debating this for a lot of years, even back to about 2017… This year we brought it back and said now we have to put the planning behind it. We did some more assessment work for our existing Access Communications Centre, and we don’t have a lot of years left in the building. The time has come for us now to put some more concrete plans together for the new rink. We put in the 2024 budget consulting dollars to now bring the project to a point where we can actually start to plan out the new building. Maybe by 2030, something to that effect, it should be hopefully in place.”

The city also continues to be involved in plans for North West College’s new campus. Gillan noted the city is working with the college and the province on this initiative. “We believe this [will be] a huge, big improvement for the city,” Gillan said. “It’s, in fact, going to be very transformative for the city… We’re hoping the province will make an announcement in this budget for 2024. Our hope is they will announce they are also going to put planning dollars together to more seriously look at this project.”

The Battlefords homeless shelter is now owned and operated by Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

The city was also involved in talks in 2023 with the Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc. (BATC) and the provincial government related to the Emergency Shelter, called Miwasin Kikinaw, located at 962 – 102nd St. BATC leased the spaced and operated the shelter from 2021 to 2023.

“This year in 2023 we were faced with another challenge because the Lighthouse group in Saskatoon wanted to sell the building,” Gillan said. The city wanted to make sure the facility continued to provide the shelter service. “We contacted the provincial government, and we had many meetings with BATC, ourselves and the provincial Social Services Department. The good news that came out of this was the Social Services Department helped BATC buy the building. That was a real success story…Today BATC owns the building because of it…The [Saskatchewan] Ministry of Social Services wanted to help as well. They understand this is part of their mandate as well, how to look after people who are in a vulnerable situation.”

Gillan said the city also continues to work on improving regional partnerships, “so we all can benefit and grow together.” For example, in 2023 the city signed a Fire Department mutual aid agreement with the RM of North Battleford. “That’s something we’ve been working on for a while. This council told administration we want that done in 2023, and we got it done. Between our two councils – the RM of North Battleford and the City – we agreed for a mutual aid agreement,” Gillan said.

Also in 2023, the city signed a Parks and Recreation cost-sharing agreement with the Town of Battleford. The town agreed to provide some funding to facilities in the city, which are regional facilities, like the InnovationPlex Battleford CO-OP Aquatic Centre. “That was something we’ve been discussing with the town for a number of years,” Gillan said. “We made that a priority to get that done in 2023… This is all regional cooperation, everybody helping each other, because they realize it’s very expensive to run a pool, but everybody benefits.”

A significant project the city is glad to see is more development at Red Pheasant Cree Nation’s urban land on the outskirts of North Battleford, near the Centex Gas Station at 15th Avenue and Territorial Drive. The project is to develop a 17-bay mall at the site. “They have confidence with the relations and the region all working together,” Gillan said. “As we get along with our neighbours and we work together, everybody benefits…These are really positive things for our community. We have eight First Nations around us and I always encourage the regionalism, us all working together.”

The mayor also mentioned the Crime Severity Index (CSI) ranking. “Everybody knows the Crime Severity Index. Since its inception in 2009 and this ranking of communities of 10,000 [population] and above, North Battleford has been number 1 or 2 ever since,” he said.

“It’s devastated our community and the image of our community. It’s not true that this is crime town but media tend to only gravitate to a ranking.” The city issued a press release on the matter. “We’re really educating, not just the public, but the media of the dangers of coming to conclusions about something that is very complicated like that, where there is a lot of limitations in the ranking and this Crime Severity Index,” Gillan said.

He noted when he ran for the position of mayor three years ago, the biggest issue facing North Battleford was its image problem.

“I’ve been working on it ever since,” Gillan said. “We are making progress to try to do something about this. That is one of the things I still have on my to-do list, to find a solution that can somehow get us out from underneath this image of a crime town.”

Another issue that was a big topic for the city in 2023 was the proposed VIA Rail service project. According to the city’s release, the proposal involves re-routing VIA Rail’s Canadian passenger train service to the CN Prairie North Line, connecting Yorkton, Canora, Humboldt, Warman, the Saskatoon region, the Battlefords and Lloydminster to the rest of Canada by passenger rail.

Mayor Gillan was one of four Saskatchewan mayors proposing the project. “We worked hard; we hired a consultant.” He noted that the Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc. (BATC) is a regional partner on the project. Gillan is hopeful for a positive outcome on the proposal.

“It can really help North Battleford,” he said. “People can get on the train and go to Saskatoon to a medical appointment…Not everybody has a car, not everybody can drive, or not everybody wants to drive. People would like to have a nice relaxing ride on the train and take an Uber or something at the other end… It also opens up all our tourist attractions in the Battlefords. There’s a lot of pluses.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsnow