Meet Saskatoon mayoral candidate Gordon Wyant

Meet Saskatoon mayoral candidate Gordon Wyant WATCH: After serving as a 14-year MLA and a 12-year cabinet minister, Gord Wyant is back in Saskatoon running for mayor.

Gord Wyant is back.

After serving as a 14-year MLA and a 12-year cabinet minister, handling key portfolios like justice, education and serving as deputy premier, Wyant is back in Saskatoon running for mayor.

“I want my children to continue to live in Saskatoon, I want my grandchildren and my great grandchildren to grow up here, and I think that there are some things that needed to change,” Wyant said from his campaign office.

“And I thought I had the experience to bring to the mayor's chair to effect the changes for the betterment of the City of Saskatoon.”

Like many of his political endeavours, Wyant never imagined running for mayor of Saskatoon.

As a corporate lawyer in 2000, Wyant answered a phone call from a friend asking him to run as a public school board trustee. Then in 2003, he got a call from outgoing city councillor Peter McCann, encouraging him to make a bid for council.

“In a lot of ways, you can call me a reluctant politician because it wasn’t part of my plan,” Wyant said.

Now, the former seven-year councillor is looking to lead Saskatoon the next four years and fix some of the issues he’s identified in need of change: safety, spending and accountability from council.

“I've always maintained that Saskatoon doesn't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, and we need to get back to spending money on the core services of government before we can start thinking about a lot of extraneous issues that are happening in the city,” Wyant said.

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“Get the city back on track, make sure the city is taking responsibility for the things that it's responsible for, and not delving into areas of the responsibility of other levels of government.”

Part of Wyant’s reintroduction to Saskatoon is the reintroduction of his first name in full. By all of Wyant’s campaign material, he is going by Gordon rather than the informal Gord he’s been called for much of the past two decades.

After the Saskatchewan Party was nearly swept out of Saskatoon in last month’s provincial election — winning one of 14 constituencies and trailing in another prior to a final count on Saturday — Wyant isn’t hiding from his political past. He’s leaning into it and all the experience that comes with his years of experience in the legislature.

“Certainly, the relationships that I've had with the provincial government over 14 years will be very, very helpful in terms of rebuilding relationships,” Wyant said. “And I think the fact that the party has lost some significant support in this community creates some great opportunities for me to re-establish some relationships and build on some of the things that the people of the city want from their provincial government.”

The outgoing council has largely been dominated by 6-5 vote splits on many decisions, and every so often, the city been at odds with the provincial government.

This past year alone, city council wasn’t willing to endorse a chunk of a proposed freeway meant to bypass the city, it’s argued with the province over a provincially owned and funded homeless shelter placed in Fairhaven, and council reluctantly approved a land levy for all new single-family home builds intended to pay for the land used for the development of future high schools – a provincial responsibility the government has now shunted to municipalities.

Wyant is hoping his time with the Sask. Party will smooth over the relationship.

“You're always going to have differences of opinion, but I've always built my career — whether it's in my law practice or in my public service — around collaboration, about building relationships with people.” Wyant said.

“That's how you get things done.”

Over the next five to 10 years, Wyant sees Saskatoon strengthening itself as the economic engine of Saskatchewan.

Wyant wants to help small businesses succeed, he wants to see the University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Polytechnic continue to be a global leader and driver of jobs and opportunities, and he plans to accomplish that through his faith in building positive relationships.

But most importantly, he sees a desire for change from the residents of Saskatoon.

“The city wants a new direction. The city wants some more hope when it comes to how we're going to move forward with the City of Saskatoon. And I think I bring that hope based on the experience that I have,” Wyant said.