Mayor Rick Lang says the City of Melfort approves all proclamations. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

Discussing Proclamations

Local communities weigh in on issuing proclamations

Oct 31, 2019 | 5:00 PM

The city of Yorkton has raised some eyebrows after recently announcing that they will no longer be approving proclamations of any kind.

The decision was made, according to the city, due to divisions in the community about what some of the groups represent.

Now, days or weeks recognizing all groups or causes are rejected, whether it be LGBTQ+, both sides of the abortion issue, or various charities and community organizations.

northeastNOW has reached out to a number of local communities about their current policies on proclamations, and whether their policies could be amended in the future.

Currently, Melfort takes the exact opposite stance that Yorkton is now adopting – it approves all proclamations.

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Mayor Rick Lang said their policy is that if someone asks the city to make a proclamation, it is put before council and ratified regardless of subject matter.

“I have talked about this in the past with administration, and the response that I got is that we aren’t trying to be the moral compass to the community to that degree,” said Lang. “So we really don’t discriminate against any proclamations, or never have at this point.”

Lang said that two opposing sides of an issue – for example, abortion – can come to the city with a request for a proclamation, and it will be approved, because it’s recognizing the basic rights of those groups to ask for and receive a proclamation.

There has been no talk about altering the proclamation policy in Melfort at this point, though Lang said the city could look at changing what they normally do should a proclamation be something of a racist or other extreme nature.

Both Nipawin mayor Rennie Harper and Tisdale chief administrative officer Brad Hvidston told northeastNOW that the proclamation issue has not been addressed by council.

Harper said they will have an initial conversation about proclamations in an upcoming standing committee meeting, while Hvidston said it may come up in conversation now that the issue has been talked about in other locations.

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974