Saskatoon Minute: Issue 115

Saskatoon Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Saskatoon politics

📅 This Week In Saskatoon: 📅

• The Standing Policy Committee on Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services meets tomorrow at 9:30 am, and one of the items on its agenda is the Saskatoon Fire Department's 2025 Year in Review. The department responded to 28,717 calls for service in 2025, up from 25,366 the year before, including 2,512 overdose calls during what the report calls an unprecedented surge that saw 509 overdose responses in March alone and a single-day peak of 34. The report also records 1,859 encampment-related reports and notes that rising homelessness and encampment activity placed significant demands on crews and contributed to backlogs in bylaw inspections. The Fire Chief writes that City Council approved two new fire stations in 2025, with construction beginning this year and both expected to open in early 2027. The department reported a total response time for fire calls of 529 seconds at the 90th percentile, well above the 384-second standard it measures against. The report is an information item rather than a decision point, but it documents the operational cost of the same overdose and homelessness pressures Council has been grappling with fiscally.
  
  
• The Standing Policy Committee on Transportation meets tomorrow at 2:00 pm, and among the items before it is a recommendation to direct the City Solicitor to draft an entirely new Saskatoon Transit Bylaw, framed by Administration as a response to fare evasion and safety concerns for bus operators and riders. The bylaw would let transit officers remove or deny entry to anyone engaging in broadly defined "unacceptable behaviour," issue non-appealable bans of up to 24 hours, and impose longer bans that could be appealed to the Saskatoon Appeal Board. It would create transit-specific offences carrying a $50 fine across the board, require riders to pay their fare and show proof of payment on request, and fold the City's 2004 transit fares rules into one comprehensive bylaw. The new rules follow Council's decision to fund a transit policing program of one sergeant, eight officers and two patrol cars, allocating $600,000 in 2026 and $1 million in 2027. If Council approves, the bylaw is expected to return in July with a planned coming-into-force date of September 1st.
  
  
• The same Committee will also receive Saskatoon Transit's 2025 Annual Report, which reports a service-line operating budget of $65.3 million for the year, split between $57.8 million for fixed-route transit and $7.5 million for Access Transit, and a year-end surplus of $2.4 million on fixed-route operations. The report attributes the surplus to higher-than-projected fare revenue and operational savings, even as overall fare revenue fell 7.6% and annual ridership declined 6.8%. Mobile ticketing adoption climbed from 53% in 2024 to 60% in 2025, while the service delivered 99.8% of planned fixed-route hours and expanded coverage to 92% of developed areas. Transit also received 20 new diesel buses and 5 paratransit vehicles in 2025 as part of a 10-year fleet renewal plan that Council approved $23.5 million toward. The document is an information item, offering a fiscal snapshot of a service that still drew $46.6 million in City funding even after the reported surplus.
  
  
• The City has received 328 pothole-related damage claims so far in 2026, more than double the 137 filed in all of 2025, during a season in which more than 4,000 potholes have been reported. These claims represent a real, and increasing, fiscal exposure that the City - and therefore taxpayers - are having to deal with. Many residents are frustrated not just with the poor road conditions, but also with having to deal with the friction of a poor claims process when trying to recover their costs. Claimants must file within 30 days, supply photos and invoices, and first contact their own insurer before the City will process a claim, and even then, claims generally take six to eight weeks.
  
  
• Unfortunately, we have had to postpone our Pints & Politics event which was scheduled for Thursday, June 11th. Thank you to everyone who RSVP’d and was planning to attend. We really appreciate the support, and we apologize for the disappointment and short notice. Please keep an eye out for an announcement of the new date soon!

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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