Thank you for considering my candidacy for one of Saskatchewan’s positions on FCM’s Board of Directors. As elected municipal officials, we have first-hand knowledge of the importance of FCM’s advocacy and programs in vital areas including the municipal growth plan, infrastructure funding, housing, and environment sustainability. Safety and policing, particularly dealing with drugs and gangs, and community health and well-being, especially tackling homelessness, are challenging all Saskatchewan hometowns.
Last year, I served on the FCM Board of Directors as well as on the Regional Caucus, and the Committees on Safety and Crime Prevention, and on Social and Economic Development. I have served on the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association Board of Directors for seven years and sat on its committees including intergovernmental affairs, bylaw and governance, convention planning and resolutions, and environment.
For the past twelve years, through three elections, I have worked with Regina City Council on policies including one that will make our city a net-zero community by 2050. In the spirit of reconciliation, we have recently adopted an ambitious Indigenous procurement policy. Last term, I co-chaired a Council's Catalyst Committee studying how we can activate our downtown through major above ground infrastructure projects such as a new pool, library, arena and walking path. I represent Council on the Regina Public Library Board, and on the Provincial Capital Commission Board, which is charged with preserving Wascana park, one of the continent’s largest urban parks, as a nature habitat.
I grew up in a small town, Dauphin, Manitoba, and earned degrees in law, history and economics from the universities of Manitoba, Toronto, Oxford, Yale and the Panthéon-Sorbonne. My career as a law professor and university administrator has taken me to Kingston, London and North Bay in Ontario, to Antigonish in Nova Scotia, and finally back to my prairie roots when I became President of the University of Regina in 2005. My volunteer service has focused on children. Serving as president of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Hospital Foundations in London, and subsequently in in Saskatchewan, at a time when both foundations were raising funds for new children’s hospitals, has allowed me to give back to my community as has my service over sixteen years as president of my neighbourhood community association.
There has never been a time when FCM’s advocacy has been more important to Saskatchewan’s cities, towns, villages, and to our north. I believe that my experience equips me to make a meaningful contribution to municipal advocacy and to bring a strong Saskatchewan voice to FCM. For that reason, I am asking for your vote. Thank you.