March 13, 2023

UPCOMING EVENTS

March 21, 2023

Webinar - Responding to an Attack: Cyber Insurance and Incident Response for Municipalities

April 4, 2023

Webinar - Planning for a Net-Zero Energy Future

April 12, 2023

MuniCast Release - Season 4, Episode 4: Leading from Ordinary to Extraordinary with Joan McCusker

April 16-19, 2023

2023 SUMA Convention and Tradeshow

See all upcoming events.

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE IN A SUMA WEBINAR

As organizations experience a rise in cyber attacks, SUMA is hosting a series of webinars on cybersecurity, from measures focused on preventing attacks to steps to take if your municipality has been compromised. Our next webinar in the series, taking place on March 21, focuses on cyber insurance and incident response.

In May, as part of the webinar series, we will be hosting a webinar focused on municipal experiences. We are looking for municipalities who have experienced a cyber attack and are willing to speak about their experiences: what happened and how did it impact your municipality?

If your municipality is interested in sharing their experience to help other municipalities, please contact Stephanie Bourassa at education@suma.org.

Strengthen Your Municipality - Apply for Targeted Sector Support Funding

From now until May 1, the initiative focused on strengthening municipal governments in Saskatchewan is accepting applications. Municipalities are encouraged to apply.

The Targeted Sector Support (TSS) Initiative provides cost-shared grants of up to 75 per cent of eligible project costs to the maximum of $100,000. Projects are funded under one of the following streams: dispute resolution and relationship building, capacity building, regional co-operation, and municipal transition.

This is the fifth project intake under the TSS Initiative, which is funded through the provincial government's Municipal Revenue Sharing Program.

To apply, municipalities are required to include a quote for project costs and provide a formal letter from council. See the application guide for full details.

Download the Application Guide

Apply for funding

Learn About Cyber Insurance in Our Next Webinar

Dive into the cyber insurance marketplace in the next webinar in our cyber security series.

In Responding to an Attack: Cyber Insurance and Incident Response for Municipalities on Tuesday, March 21 at 10:00 a.m., Bryan Hurd, Managing Director and Chief of the Seattle Office with AON Cyber Solutions, and Ady Sharma, Vice President and Cyber Growth Leader for Canada with AON Cyber Solutions, will share insights from their experiences and guide participants through incident response hygiene, including tips and best practices for effectively responding to a cyber attack.

Share Policies, Procedures, and Templates on SUMA's Wiki

Do you have a policy, procedure, or template that you think would be helpful to other municipalities? Are you looking for a specific policy - maybe one on access to information? Visit SUMA's wiki.

Available through the member portal on SUMA's website, the wiki was designed to help our member municipalities share resources.

This tool allows registered users to upload their own policies, procedures, and templates, and view and download those uploaded by SUMA and other member municipalities. Content is sorted into categories - community and economic development, environment, intergovernmental affairs, public safety and health, and other.

Access the wiki through the SUMA Member Portal

New Tool for Natural Asset Management

Through funding provided by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative has developed a legal primer on natural asset management that explores the powers and responsibilities Canadian local governments have to protect nature as part of infrastructure and service delivery.

The primer includes:

legal authority for natural asset management (NAM);
legal and policy tools to protect and manage natural assets;
types of legal actions against local governments related to NAM; and
legal developments to watch.

Read the media release to learn more.

Download the legal primer

Stakeholder Roundtables on Governing Sustainable Municipalities

The Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy is hosting roundtable discussions on governing sustainable municipalities. The roundtables are an opportunity to work together to better understand the challenges and opportunities that exist when municipalities develop sustainability goals and work towards achieving those goals. Municipal administrators and local leaders are invited to join the session closest to them.

Sessions are taking place in-person and on Zoom.

March 28 - Swift Current
March 31 - Weyburn
April 5 - North Battleford
April 14 - Yorkton
May 3 - Saskatoon
June 15 - Regina

These sessions are not open to the public. Space is limited. For more information and to register please visit http://jsgs-gsm.ca.

Codes Acceleration Fund Deadline - March 27

Natural Resources Canada launched a new Codes Acceleration Fund program which offers $100 million in funding for projects geared toward accelerating the adoption and implementation of the highest feasible tiers of national model energy codes or other high-performance building codes.

The funding is open to municipalities, and applications are being accepted until March 27. Applications from Indigenous governments and organizations will be accepted on an ongoing basis until March 31, 2025.

Free training on the 2020 National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings (NECB 2020) is available online. For an overview of the building code document, see the online course NECB 2020 - Navigating and Applying the Code. Additional courses are available for contractors and designers.

Provincial Budget Day:

March 22

The Government of Saskatchewan is scheduled to table its 2023-24 provincial budget on March 22 in the afternoon.

You can watch the budget live through SaskTel Max and local cable companies as well as through the Legislative Assembly website.

Documents and news releases about the budget will be posted on the budget page of the provincial website once the Finance Minister rises to table the 2023-24 budget.

Read the Annual Report

from the Saskatchewan Municipal Board

The Saskatchewan Municipal Board (SMB) is an administrative tribunal established for regulatory and quasi-judicial purposes in dealing with issues from local authorities.

It also serves as the Board of Revenue Commissioners and is responsible for hearing and deciding appeals on taxes assessed by the province and considers requests for write-offs and cancellations of debt owing to the province.

The SMB has released their annual report for 2022. Read the report.

ADVOCACY UPDATE

Reduced Access to Health Care, Costs of Landfill Decommissioning Impacting Communities

On March 3, SUMA's Board of Directors met in Saskatoon for a Board of Directors meeting. The meeting included discussions on resolutions being brought forward at Convention 2023.

As SUMA prepares for the 2023 event, the association did not want to miss an opportunity to highlight the role resolutions play in the association and bring focus to resolutions that were passed in 2022. Following the Board of Directors meeting, SUMA sent out a media release focused on health care and the cost of decommissioning landfills. Both were resolutions passed in 2022. See the resolutions database on the SUMA website to track the progress of a specific resolution or to view the resolutions that have been brought forward at previous conventions.

Read the media release

CONVENTION 2023

Education Focused on Indigenous

History and Awareness at Convention

All municipal governments have an important leadership role to play in reconciliation. SUMA recognizes this role. That is why we adopted a Truth and Reconciliation policy and have taken actions to research and support reconciliation in Saskatchewan's hometowns.

Nine of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action apply directly or indirectly to municipal governments, and include a call for Indigenous history and awareness education.

At the 2023 SUMA Convention and Tradeshow, SUMA is providing two educational opportunities focused on Indigenous history and awareness.

Explore Wanuskewin Heritage Park

On Sunday, April 16, delegates have the opportunity to travel to Wanuskewin Heritage Park and take in a dance presentation, enjoy bannock and muskeg tea, and explore the gift shop, galleries, and exhibits. There is also the choice between three guided programs:

Traditional Games
Northern Plains Technology: The Bison
Step Back in Time Walk

Take in the Education Session Be All Ears: Honoring Treaty Responsibilities

In this education session on Monday, April 17, learn about ancestral land in Saskatchewan and our civic and personal duty to work towards reconciliation.

The education session Be All Ears: Honoring Treaty Responsibilities is included in each delegate registration. To participate in the excursion exploring Wanuskewin Heritage Park, there is an additional cost of $50 per person.

If you have already registered for Convention but would like to participate in the excursion, please email registration@suma.org or call 306-525-3727.

Don't Forget to Update Your Hotel Reservations

With Convention just over one month away, we wanted to remind everyone registered for Convention 2023 to review any hotel reservations they have.

We encourage you to cancel any rooms you do not need. If you booked through our hotel reservation system Resiada, you can make all changes and cancellations through Resiada until you receive your hotel confirmation numbers. After you receive your hotel confirmation numbers, all changes and cancellations can be made directly through the hotel.

If you did not book your hotel rooms through Resiada, you will need to contact the hotel directly to make any changes.

Still need to reserve rooms? Click here

Congratulations to Our Early-Bird Winner

A big thank you to all Convention delegates who registered before the early-bird deadline. All those delegates were entered into a draw to win a complimentary Convention registration. We drew a name and congratulations to Councillor Terry Gabel from the Village of Chaplin.

If you're still thinking about attending Convention but aren't sure, check out the Convention brochure to see everything we have planned. And be sure to register on or before April 11, as that's the day our registration system closes. You can still register afterward but there will be a $50 administration fee for late registrations.