Swift Current hosted the third of five Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) division meetings yesterday, bringing conscientious RM members to voice their concerns. 

This division brought in multiple speakers to talk about problems that southwest RMs are facing, and how they may be addressed. Multiple Reeves were in attendance, as well as two rural police officers and MLA Doug Steele. 

Ray Orb, the president of SARM, says that the meeting’s key purpose is speaking to RM members about their biggest issues.  

“The attendance here is a little above average, which is good because it's a beautiful sunny day, and I know ranchers and farmers are always busy out in their fields or looking after the livestock,” stated Orb. “Of course, we're always talking about infrastructure and through some of our advocacy efforts, we'll be talking about not only the federal lobby for more infrastructure funding, but we'll be talking about provincial lobby as well.” 

The event culminated in a round table discussion with the presenters, followed by the ‘bear pit’ led by SARM’s executives. 

“We have fairly regular meetings with many of our cabinet ministers provincially, like agriculture, environment, governmental relations and highways are the main ones,” explained Orb. “These district meetings are way to take the feedback back to those ministries, which really helps us in our lobby efforts.” 

Orb stated that there is also plenty of outreach being done in healthcare, public safety and policing, a topic which a local officer spoke on at the meeting.