Saskatoon mayor optimistic about what's to come, despite challenges

Saskatoon mayor looks back on challenges of 2024 WATCH: As Saskatoon welcomes 2025, Mayor Cynthia Block begins the year with optimism, reflecting on 2024's accomplishments.

As Saskatoon welcomes 2025, Mayor Cynthia Block begins the year with optimism, reflecting on 2024's accomplishments.

"We have an amazing city. We are growing exponentially, and it's putting pressure on us, and it's creating challenges, for sure, but we definitely have a pathway to get to the other side of this," the mayor said.

In an interview with CTV News, Block discussed challenges facing the city. One of the key issues the city is grappling with is homelessness, which has tripled since 2022.

According to the latest point-in-time (PiT) count conducted by the city and outside partners, nearly 1,500 people in Saskatoon are homeless.

Although the mayor calls this "distressing and heartbreaking,” she says this is not shocking given the scale of the problem.

“For anybody who has been watching what's been happening in our city, whether in every single neighborhood, we have encampments, and it's not shocking that we have a higher count, but it is not super surprising just based on the challenges that we all know are happening in our community,” Block said.

The mayor says the city needs help from the province to address homelessness and provide shelters, particularly with the downtown shelter, which is running $360, 000 over budget.

“I think that our community expects us to move forward with this in whatever ways we possibly can, to make sure that people get safely housed, and so that's what council decided to do, is to make sure that we get the money so that we can begin the process,” Block said.

last year in September, city council approved the former Saskatchewan Transit Company building at 210 Pacific Avenue as the site for a 35-bed shelter. The province has committed $250,000 toward the renovations but a report from city administration in December said the cost to get the building in “usable condition” was more than double that amount.

The mayor also discussed the city's efforts to address snow removal, an ongoing concern for residents.

While the city has increased its budget for snow clearing, the mayor acknowledges that unpredictable weather patterns may require even more resources in the future.

“We start to see more and more unusual types of weather in the winter that will require more resources, perhaps. But I always think that there's that balance between making sure that we're doing the urgent work that we need to do to keep people safe and moving around, but on the other hand, trying not to take more property tax than is absolutely necessary so that we try to, you know, do as much work as we can within the budgets that we have,” she said.

Despite these challenges, the mayor remains encouraged by the new city council, which she described as "deeply committed" to finding solutions.

"Seven of 11 of us are in brand new jobs, and I think that that is, you know, a bit challenging for sure, but also you get a different lens on problems that have existed. And how does that give us an opportunity to think differently and to approach things differently?" she said.

“I think we have a lot of reason, lot of reasons to be very excited about the future of Saskatoon.”

Cynthia Block, the first woman elected mayor in Saskatoon's history, was elected as the city's 29th mayor in the November 2024 Saskatoon civic election.

"I'm the first woman shouldn't be the only reason that people decided to vote for me, but representation matters,” she said.

“The amount of young women and young like girls that are so enthusiastic and excited that they can see a mirror that's a woman in that position of leadership, it just warms my heart.”