Regina Mayor Sandra Masters on planning for the future, REAL and the next municipal election
What does Sandra Masters think of the REAL scandal? Will she run again?
Mayor Sandra Masters sat down with CBC Saskatchewan's Alexander Quon for a year-end interview before council's lengthy and contentious budget debate. Here is their conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Quon: First question I want to ask is on the official bird of the City of Regina. Do you have a bird that you would want to see as the official bird?
Masters: I was for the Canada Goose.
You were for the Canada Goose?
What did someone say, that they're called cobra chickens? I just think that's fantastic, and we have them everywhere here. But I also know that we're a bird city, so we have a lot of kind of elegant creatures here. So I'm happy with whatever committee chooses. I think it's it's sweet.
When you look back at these past three years, what do you think your main accomplishments are?
I think a big one is economic opportunity. Whether that's the Viterra land deal that we were able to facilitate, or the AGT Federated Co-op deal that we were able to facilitate, or even the level of co-operation that existed between the RM, the province and industry in terms of everything from roads to rails to water to wastewater. There was something really fulfilling about playing a role there and not having things happen to us, but actually to help facilitate it.
I think the Indigenous procurement and Indigenous framework is significant. If we understand our history and we understand that economic fairness and economic opportunity, we are all going to benefit if everyone fits. If we can lift up and repair some of those systemic barriers that have existed, I think that's pretty important.
We got to an application with our ICIP [Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program] funding for an aquatic centre.
When we can invest in trails and recreational space and aquatic centres and all of that type of stuff, that makes us feel like a little big city. I think that's enormously important.
I think the community safety and well-being plan and that entity that we created is a big deal, and both the province and the federal government have been really responsive to that, because it's by community with community.
To be able to collect the information and that evidence to go back to say, here's where you should create a program, or here's where you have a barrier within your existing systems that is preventing people from accessing, whether it's shelter or services or mental health or whatever it is, I think that is a significant accomplishment.
I think I knew coming in that relationships with the provincial and federal governments were either not the greatest or didn't exist. So, you know, as evidenced by some of the funding we've been able to garner, but also the investment that we've been able to get out of both the province and the federal governments is indicative of the way they're willing to work with us.
That kind of collaboration actually gets infrastructure dollars into our city and and advances us in a way allows us to leapfrog in a way that we could not do on our own.
I wanted to ask about infrastructure, because you and I have spoken a lot about the infrastructure gap, the looming issue in Regina. How do we get rid of that gap and how do we address some of the longer term issues? Can Regina address it on its own?
No, and I think that's important. Cities simply don't have enough money. You've heard me say it. It's 8 to 9 cents of every tax dollar collected in this country goes to municipalities. But we have 60 per cent of the infrastructure that exists within municipalities and so you can't actually ever catch up. So that's where we depend upon those trilateral funding agreements. We depend upon initiatives that allow us to invest in a much bigger way.
What's important from an ownership perspective was getting real about an asset facility management system. And so when we're underfunding it on a continual basis, when we don't like to, as a matter of habit, to speak about really expensive things, we have to break through that.
So why is it coming down to crunch time that it has to be done, versus a bit more of a methodical planning process?
There's a kind of process that I believe needs to be gone through about what's the proper order of that investment, knowing at the same time you still need to repair your roads, you still have park space that needs to be taken care of or developed.
So when we know from an amortization perspective when we go to do funding, we put things on 25 to 35 year amortizations, so at 25 to 35 years, why wasn't this plan for 15 to 25 years ago?
Actually it's something I am very frustrated by on the regular. And so really it's about how are you advancing for growth. At the same time, you're figuring out where the governments are looking to invest because we can't do it on our own. We are at the whim of their initiatives at the same time.
You're just one vote on council. How do you convince your fellow council members that planning long-term is important? I think a lot of councillors focus on how much the mill rate is going to increase this year.
I think it's doing the right thing. I think if every politician is only concerned with one- to four-year terms and what they can accomplish, that clearly will still be a legacy. But it isn't necessarily thinking of the whole city. We all swore an oath to this entire city.
So depending on who you talk to, some folks will understand more the economic argument, which is in order to attract businesses, and then I think everybody understands if you've got kids or grandkids, you understand that in our city and our weather environment, there needs to be things to do in the winter time. There needs to be recreation.
It really kind of depends upon which councillor has sort of which motivation is how you position it.
I think there is that kind of brand new shiny toy feeling for some of the projects that council has discussed. But there is that infrastructure funding gap, which is I think for most people relatively boring things like roads and wastewater maintenance. How do you have the conversations where it's not just about the shiny new toy.
There's those core things that we do that make every person's life livable, from providing water, to taking away your sewer water, to picking up your garbage, to mowing the grass in your parks and hopefully pothole filling and road replacement and sidewalk repair. Those things that when they're good, you may not notice them, but when they're broke, you certainly notice them. I'm going to come back to proper planning and proper prioritization.
I can't tell you that we do that very well right now. I can say with a certain degree of certainty council feels disconnected from that.
Treat it no different than you would treat the utility. We've got a pretty reasonable financial model on our water utility. I'm not sure that shouldn't be the way for Facility Asset Management as well.
Something I've noticed about you at council is you always ask pointed questions. I would probably say questions that you already know the answer to. Is it for the purpose of informing your fellow councillors about what is on your mind on that subject?
Sometimes it's in an effort when administration actually hasn't shared information, which I think is actually pretty valuable information for the public to know as well.
I don't always know the answer. Sometimes, there's a certain percentage of the time, I just think I know the answer. And so I'm testing to pull it out. And sometimes it's about I think we lack some policy here, some policy guidance which isn't fair frankly to administration. It's not fair to the public, but until you're in it, you don't know that the policy doesn't exist.
I'm going to turn to Regina Exhibition Association Ltd., or REAL. You have a background in REAL and now you're the mayor of this city. How has your view changed of REAL.
No, what I suspected was happening is in fact what is happening. It's really around that topic again of facility asset management. It felt very much like if we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.
We invested in that Stantec report. I was the board chair when that was invested in, because we were saying we knew the roof of The Co-operators Centre was leaking. It never occurred to us to ask publicly for that during a budget. We should have because it wasn't in our budget. Like you can look at the budget and say well, there is no way you could afford millions of dollars of capital repair with, you know, how revenue was generated on site.
You've previously said you want REAL's capital assets on the City of Regina's books because you want them addressed properly. Do you think it was a mistake to essentially house those repairs on REAL's books rather than the City of Regina's books?
Oh 100 per cent. You can monetize, whether it's 90 per cent, whether it's 100 per cent or 110 per cent, you can monetize those facilities, and they have been monetized to the perspective that you can have a small surplus to invest back. But you're never going to make enough money between recreation and being competitive in that entertainment industry to pay for what I think on-site is a billion dollars worth of infrastructure.
To have put the buildings on [REAL's] books in 2014 has contributed a surplus in some respects that has allowed them to not be thought about.
There was one point in November where REAL had control of Tourism Regina and it had its board, it had a clear goal. Then three weeks later, it didn't have any of those. What do you make of how that has all played out?
I think it's been pretty brutal, to be honest. I think from a tourism perspective, and this is probably a mistake on our part, to ask them to do it at the same time they were doing the catalyst project.
I think in terms of what happened to the board of directors, I think it's incredibly disrespectful. Those volunteers, and some of them I had worked with on the board of directors, those volunteers give hundreds of hours of their time. They're smart people, they're respected business people. And I think there is a level of disrespect shown there which saddens and frankly embarrasses me.
I think another piece in it which was missed is that from a funding perspective, the most significant funder outside of the generated income is the province of Saskatchewan. The province of Saskatchewan has, since REAL's inception, appointed an ex-officio members and they give REAL $2.6 million and the City of Regina gives a whole $400,000. So to disrespect that particular board member without a heads-up, without a conversation, it again is disrespectful.
I would say that to destabilize that organization is silly. I think that the City of Regina has been completely aware that there is not a year that exists in those financial statements where REAL could afford the debt it was given.
Nobody raised the flags and this is not hidden information. This was provided to council and administration knew fully about all of this. And so I think it's a travesty to point a finger at a board of directors who has been managing both the reputation of that site and the reputation of the City of Regina in delivering a world class facility.
Former REAL board chair Wayne Morski released a letter echoing many of the things you have just said. There are also some serious allegations at the end of that letter. What do you make of them or do you have any thoughts on on those allegations?
I think right now, I'm just going to say, "No comment."
And the final question, I think you can probably guess what this one is.
Oh, it's going to be "are you going to run again?"
Yes. There is a municipal election set for Nov. 13. Are you going to run again?
I have a four-year mandate. So it seems I don't want to be distracted by looking too far out.
I will also tell you that one of the things I've learned is everything takes so long. It's sometimes hard to see the progress because you're literally inch-by-inching it with multiple stakeholders, and you're moving things in a way which, I thought this could be faster. It's not. And so things take a long time and I still have things left to do.
How about I just leave it there?
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