Municipal elections in Regina and Moose Jaw are moving ahead Monday despite the provincial government giving municipalities the option to delay the elections due to the snow storm sweeping through Saskatchewan.
Chief Returning Officer for Regina Jim Nicol says the city remains hopeful people will get out and vote before 8:00 PM Monday night.
“Every station I left, there were certainly people there still walking in, nobody’s complaining, everybody’s bundled up for the weather,” Nicol said. “The roads have been cleared very well by our road crews, the sidewalks are open, there’s people with snow blowers out, people are coming out and they’re not stopping.”
Chief Returning Officer Jim Nicol says the election will go on as planned, saying despite the storm, people are heading to the polls and casting their ballot.
Nicol says as many as 40 people were in line at the 10 polling locations he visited this morning. #yqr #yqrcc #yqrvotes pic.twitter.com/sUQLJJQkFk— Ryan McNally (@RyanE_McNally) November 9, 2020
Nicol says city crews have made sure the roadways are more than passable to ensure people can get out and vote.
“They’ve made sure that the schools, the civic centres and the churches where polling is underway have been cleared, there’s a great response out there (and) people are happy,” Nicol said. “I’ve been to 10 polling stations already (Monday) morning, they’re all fairly busy, and people are basically positive.”
Nicol says they would have considered delaying the election if the storm hit the Queen City harder.
“We would have had contingencies in place, and that is absolute worst-case scenario,” Nicol said. “We were monitoring the weather all weekend, we were in touch with road crews and they were out immediately starting (Sunday) night, so we’re in great shape.”
Swift Current has delayed their election until Thursday, while Saskatoon has had to close two polls due to their snow fall amounts.
Snow crews double-down on snow clearing efforts
Crews remain hard at work removing snow from Regina’s major roadways and near polling stations around the city.
Roadways spokesperson Tyler Bien says the city put a program they call ‘Storm Response Mode’ into practice Sunday night and Monday.
“In ‘Storm Response Mode,’ we focus on our high-speed roadway as well as our major volume traffic roadway,” Bien said. “This pattern continues throughout the rest of the storm.”
Bien says this storm response was altered slightly due to the election.
“We focused over the Sunday night shift on the polling station, the roads in front of the polling stations, and the major roadways leading up to those polling stations.”
Bien says snow routes were not in effect during the ‘Storm Response Mode.’ They have since been declared by the City of Regina.
Bien estimated 12 to 14 centimeters of snow fell in Regina overnight Sunday and Monday morning.
