KAMSACK — Kamsack town council voted to join the Central Prairie Development Alliance.
The Town joins 16 other communities in the region who are banding together their resources to attract economic development.
Council heard a presentation on June 22 from Gwen Machnee, Chair of Applied Research at Suncrest College.
Machnee explained that the Central Prairie Development Alliance began in 2023 when the college received a grant for $200,000 with the goal of creating an innovation hub in eastern Saskatchewan. The scope of the project is roughly from Nipawin down to Esterhazy, and Fort Qu’Appelle to the Manitoba border. A key aspect of the project is to facilitate municipalities working together towards economic development.
“When any part of the region has economic development, then it increases activity in the rest of the region, sort of high tide floats all boats” said Machnee. The benefit of working together to do business attraction is it would encourage larger companies to come to smaller communities, something that would be difficult for any municipality to do alone.
The Central Prairie Development Alliance makes it “easy for businesses that want to come in so that they just have to go to one website or contact one person and they’ll have all the information for the whole region”, she noted. “We all have to look at who our competition is. Our competition is not the town down the road. We’re competing with communities all over Canada, with regions all over Canada. And we’re competing internationally with places in the U.S and Europe.”
The communities already in the CPDA are Buchanan, Cote 64, Esterhazy, Foam Lake, Grayson, Hyas, Ituna, RM of Ituna Bon Accord, Langenburg, Melville, RM of Saltcoats, Sheho, Springside, Stockholm, Sturgis and Yorkton.
The Town also voted to accept the recommendations of a 17 page report on the Kamsack swimming pool. Kamsack had asked With By For Community Consulting to audit pool operations, like safety protocols, organizational behaviour and staff management. The Town expects to implement the recommendations over the next few years.
With By For Community Consulting will come back to the pool later this summer to audit programming activities like swimming lessons and staff-public interactions.
