North Battleford city council indicated Monday they are still looking for the province to address the cost of construction PST applied to their major sanitary sewer trunk main project.
The massive project, which would run from the old sewage treatment plant to the new wastewater treatment plant in the southeast, had been estimated at $13.6 million.
The project is being funded in one-third amounts by the federal, provincial and municipal governments. But last month council learned that the city would likely be on the hook for an additional $1.5 million in overages, about half of which was attributed to PST on construction.
The city has been looking to lobby the province to get the PST removed from the project. Those efforts seemed to be dealt a setback Monday when Premier Scott Moe said at a media scrum that the province would not be introducing changes to construction PST.
“No, not at this time,” Moe said during that virtual scrum at the Municipalities of Saskatchewan convention.
The premier also noted that the PST “would have been part of the planning and construction process of that particular project and others across the province.”
At Monday’s council meeting, Councillor Kent Lindgren suggested the premier might have been under “some misunderstanding or he wasn’t properly informed.”
Lindgren was making the point that the PST on construction had been introduced by the province after the city had submitted the trunk main project for funding approval. “The premier might be under some confusion around the timeline of that, or that he was aware of it at that time but I don’t think cities around the province were, as that was released after we had made these applications,” said Lindgren.
City Manager Randy Patrick responded that the city’s application had gone in in Jan. 2017, but that the tax was applied March 1, 2017 and had been announced a week before. “We were kind of stuck with PST costs,” said Patrick.
Mayor David Gillan indicated work was still ongoing on the issue. He told council he spoke with Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill on the issue and he was “discussing it internally with various departments in the province.”
“When the PST did come into play there were transitional rules. The question will be whether we qualify for one of these transitional rulings,” said Gillan.
At the Municipalities of Saskatchewan convention on Tuesday, minister of government relations Don McMorris was asked in a media scrum about the PST issue facing the trunk main project.
He said he was not familiar with the project but "I certainly will look into it and get back to you on that."
He noted that with the drop in resource revenue, they had to look at broadening the PST. "That is maybe what's caught this project," said McMorris, who reiterated he would check into the issue.
On a related note, Mayor Gillan gave an update to council Monday on the virtual Municipalities of Saskatchewan convention that week, which both he and Patrick were attending.
He said they met with corrections and policing minister Christine Tell. They had a one-hour discussion Monday and Gillan said they had “frank discussions about our gang task force,” and they vowed to come back soon with a decision on that.
“I think there’s good will with Corrections and Policing to work with us,” said Gillan.
There were also plans to meet with the ministries of highways and social services this week on a few local initiatives.
There were also plans for the city to participate next Friday in a Municipalities of Saskatchewan strategic planning session including the city mayors caucus and city managers, to “look at what the next four years will look like,” said Gillan.
