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...essentially questions that were addressed Saskatchewan's Task Force on Municipal Legislative Renewal in its final report titled Options 2000: A Framework for Municipal Renewal (Northern Sector). The Task Force was created in 1998 by the provincial government to examine the need for and nature of municipal reform in northern as well as in southern Saskatchewan. The Task Force decided to examine and make recommendation on the need for and nature of municipal reforms in northern and southern Saskatchewan in separate review processes and reports. The central objectives of this paper are threefold: first, to explain the nature of the Task Force's review process in northern Saskatchewan; second, to explain its observations on the need for municipal renewal, and third, to explain its recommendations for municipal renewal. A full appreciation of those three sets of explanations requires an understanding of the evolution of the municipal system in northern Saskatchewan and the factors that led to the creation of the Task Force on Municipal Legislative Renewal.
Evolution of the Municipal System in Northern Saskatchewan
The municipal system in northern Saskatchewan is essentially a product of various developments in the post-World War II era. It is during this era that the bulk of the municipal units were established or at least incorporated as municipalities or quasi-municipalities. Moreover, it is during this era that there has been a gradual progression from total provincial control toward greater, though generally by no means extensive, local control. The progression has consisted of five major stages (Saskatchewan, 2000: 2-4). The first stage occurred during the late 1940s with the enactment of the Northern Administration Act in 1948, which empowered the Department of Natural Resources to provide local services and community planning and growth for the entire provincial North. The second stage occurred in the 1950s when the larger population centres such as LaRonge, Creighton, and Uranium City became self-governing villages and towns. The third stage occurred during the 1960s when the Northern Administration Act was amended to allow for the creation of Local Community Authorities and Local Advisory Councils as a means of engendering some limited community input into the local governance process. The fourth stage was the creation of the Department of Northern Saskatchewan in the 1970s. The Department, created by the New Democratic Party government headed by Premier Allan Blakeney, was responsible both for delivering all services and programs in the North and also for supporting the creation and development of local governments. Toward that end, the provincial government created the Northern Municipal Council whose core mandate was to provide advice and resources to the existing local government councils in the North, and administrative services to the smaller communities that did not have local government councils (Saskatchewan, 1977). The fifth stage occurred in the 1980s when the Department of Northern Saskatchewan undertook extensive consultations with northern community leaders to provide more autonomous and accountable local government (Saskatchewan, 1980a). To facilitate those consultations, the Department of Northern Saskatchewan prepared an issues and options paper titled Options 80 (Saskatchewan, 1980b: 1-8), which outlined the following six options for local government:
1. The retention of the existing local government framework under the Northern Administration Act and the Northern Municipal Council. That framework included four types of municipal governing or advisory entities: Urban Municipalities, Local Community Authorities, Local Advisory Committees, and the Northern Municipal Council.
2. The elimination of the Northern Municipal Council from the existing local government framework and the addition of two types of local governing councils for small communities.
3. The creation of a one-tier regional municipal government responsible for all municipal functions at the local and regional levels.
4. The creation of a two-tier municipal regional governance system comprised...
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