City hall and U of S pact touted as first in Canada

City council unanimously endorsed a pact with the University of Saskatchewan that U of S president Peter Stoicheff said marks the first such agreement in Canada.

Council’s governance and priorities committee voted Monday in favour of pursuing a memorandum of understanding between the U of S and city hall. The memorandum outlines several areas of collaboration between the city and the university.

“We can’t have a great university without access to a great city,” Stoicheff told the committee. “The university is a talent magnet, which will draw innovation here.”

He cited areas like land development and the city’s $4-million contribution to the university’s new twin-pad rink as examples of co-operation.

City council must still officially endorse the memorandum before the city solicitor writes it all down.

Coun. Bev Dubois asked how the pact will substantially change the relationship between the city and the university. City manager Murray Totland said the memorandum amounts to strengthening the “already great relationship” between the two.

Totland said the city can benefit from the university’s expertise, and vice versa. “I’d say it’s a twoway street,” he said. “I think this gate swings both ways.”

Stoicheff said the university population — about 17,000, or nearly 25,000 if you include graduate students — accounts for a large percentage of the city’s total population.

The U of S also owns about 18 per cent of the land within a fivekilometre radius of the city centre, Stoicheff noted. Land development is expected to play a key role in the future relationship between the university and the city.

The university plans to convert much of its land within the city from agricultural research to development.

“A good partnership here could transform what the future of the

We can’t have a great university without access to a great city. The university is a talent magnet, which will draw innovation here.

city looks like,” Mayor Charlie

Clark said.

Clark gave Stoicheff and university leadership credit for continuing to develop the memorandum in a year when provincial budget cuts presented a challenge.

“Instead of it being narrow in focus, I was pleased to see how broad it was,” Donauer said of the document. He admitted the partnership to help fund the university’s new ice surfaces divided council.

The university signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations earlier this year.