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These are the people that make the actual decisions on many issues that affect cities. With the change of government, they are also the people that almost all of the mayors need to build relationships with to help solve urban issues. After a decade of Tory rule, it was the ideal time to get to know each other.

Of course those relationships are not just built during the meetings, but are built over dinner and drinks after the formal meetings are done. Those relationships are key in getting things like having bridges built or moving rail lines out of the city. They come in useful when cities need help in doing all of the things that make them the economic drivers of the economy. It’s especially true with Saskatoon not having an MP on the government side of the benches to lobby for us.

For the mayors who were there, they had an agenda of their own to share. For Calgary’s Nenshi it was affordable housing, Winnipeg’s Brian Bowman wanted to talk about racism in cities. Tory wanted to talk big infrastructure plans. Saskatoon’s voice was silent because our mayor was here in Saskatoon.

It highlights the question that all of us are going to have to make in this fall’s civic election in Saskatoon and that is what do we expect from our mayor?

Atchison has done an amazing job being at all sorts of events in the city during his tenure of mayor, often times he is at several in a day representing and giving greetings from the city. But is that the primary job of our mayor? Or is the job of the mayor to represent us both nationally and globally and show up for an event such as the Big City Mayors Caucus.