Saskatoon mayor hopefuls square off in debate ahead of civic election

Four Saskatoon mayoral candidates had their chance to challenge each other on various issues during a televised debate Wednesday night.

Four Saskatoon mayoral candidates had their chance to challenge each other on various issues during a televised debate Wednesday night.

The debate was hosted by the Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce and featured former city councillor Cynthia Block, former MLA Gord Wyant, former mayor Don Atchison, and Cary Tarasoff.

As per an announcement at the outset of the debate, candidate Mike Harder wasn't invited to participate, because the debate features the top four mayoral candidates who have "engaged the chamber throughout the election process."

The quartet debated topics like city responsibilities, rising taxes, and business attraction before moving on to more specific topics like homelessness, the downtown event and entertainment district, and the housing accelerator fund.

"It would be really great if other orders of government were taking responsibility for their jurisdiction. Unfortunately, I just don't think that the residents of our city want us to squabble about jurisdiction when we're facing very serious issues in our community," Block said at the beginning of the debate.

Wyant said the city is spending too much time and money on federal and provincial responsibilities, and it's time to get back to the core services, like policing, the fire department, and infrastructure.

"Those are the things that we need to spend time concentrating on. Getting back to the basics in this city...and I think that as we stray away from that, we lose the ability to properly fund those core services," Wyant said.