The Moose Jaw Kinsmen Club and Moose Jaw Chamber of Commerce held their city councillor candidate forum last night, featuring all 15 candidates split up into groups of 5.

Each group of candidates was asked specific questions, with one group being asked what the biggest concern they had personally heard from residents was...and there was a common theme among answers; communication.

Here's Nicholas Styck.

"With business owners, I know it's been roadblocks within city hall. Communication has been awful, but we need to get people to work together."

Earl Swalm echoed that sentiment.

"Communication with city hall from starting businesses. We need to figure out how to develop a culture of saying yes as opposed to hurdles and roadblocks.

Steven White said he's heard lots of concern about the confusion around the pandemic

"I think that if we can get back to communicating reality, letting people get back to their lives, that will help the economy and help out with a lot of the other issues that we're facing."

Doug Schick explains the biggest concern he's heard

"We're losing all our industry, all our good-paying jobs. Now the cities gotta get together and we have to save all the industry that we have right now. When we lost big businesses, they didn't even look at the provincial government or federal government to see what they were going to give us back."

Another question that was posed to a separate group of candidates asked what they would do to keep youth in Moose Jaw, instead of seeing them move away once they are done with school.

"I think a lot of people don't realize how lucky we are with the city we are in," said Kim Robinson, "As far as secondary education, we have Saskatchewan Polytechnic and a very safe community. The proper mayor and council could help stimulate some economic recovery here."

Trevor McPherson had a similar answer.

"Safety, practicality, education, Moose Jaw pretty much checks all of those boxes. I believe with progressive movement forward, we could create some more economic development to create some more jobs to keep people in this city."

Dawn Luhning mentioned safety and education as well.

"I believe that we are in a very safe community. We're welcoming, we have great school systems, great parks and trails, lots of sports fields and activities for children and adults, and we've got a great local business community."

"I also find Moose Jaw very safe," said candidate Jamey Logan, "Saskatchewan Polytechnic and close proximity to the U of R is very attractive. Parks and Recreation facilities like the skate park, skating, the oval, all these great things for families to do. The cost of living is cheap too, Moose Jaw is a cheap place to live."

And Jamaal James.

"I think that we need to work to make this a place where students don't feel like they need to live to find other opportunities. We have post-secondary opportunities, we have a great core business sector, but we need to do more to attract better-paying jobs to this community."

And finally, the third group of candidates was asked what their roadmap for recovery through the ongoing pandemic would look like.

Crystal Froese.

"This next year as we go into budget is very very important. I really believe that if I was elected, I would bring forward a zero increase in taxes and a zero increase in utilities, I think we really need to alleviate stress locally. We also need to work with the provincial government, we know from all of their campaign promises, that they are putting a lot of money into our province and into our projects."

"I do really believe our budget in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 will be very difficult budgets," said Heather Eby, "I don't think it would be possible to keep our tax increase at zero, but hopefully we can stay as low as possible, but I don't think now would be the time to start cutting back. I also think we really need to keep chasing after new business and industry, the new SaskPower plant will also be huge for our city."

Joni Brisbin.

"We have to take into consideration the current budgets. Toeing the line on increased spending may or may not be the answer, but that's a collaborative agreement we have to look at. We need to tap into the federal grants, the provincial grants, and work with the provincial government who developed their pandemic roadmap as part of their platform."

Jody Chel offered a different perspective.

"I don't think that we should come up with a roadmap for recovery once the pandemic is over, I think we should be coming up with a roadmap of how we get through the new normal right now. City planning and construction, I think that there can be cuts for that and our money could be managed better."

Doug Blanc offered a similar idea.

"I don't think this pandemic is going to be over in the next six months or a year, I think this will go on for a period of time. We have to look at our budgets, look at everything we have, and spend it extremely wisely. I don't think that the taxpayers in Moose Jaw would go for a huge tax increase, you just can't do it. We have to make sure that businesses stay working in Moose Jaw because that is our tax base."

You can watch the forum in its entirety below.