Saskatoon City Council


Saskatoon City Council is the governing body of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The council consists of the mayor and ten councillors representing wards. The current council sits between 2016 and 2020. The last civic election was held on October 26, 2016. The mayor and councillors were elected to three-year terms until 2012, when the terms were extended to four years.

Mayor

The mayor of Saskatoon is Charlie Clark, who won the 2016 municipal election with 40.7% of the vote. Prior to being elected mayor, Clark served as a city Councillor for ward 6 for ten years.

Councillors

Ward 1

Darren Hill is the councillor for Ward 1, which is located in Saskatoon's downtown core. He was born in 1968. He is the CEO of Junior Achievement of Saskatchewan and sits on the board of directors. Hill was first elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2009, 2012 and 2016.
Hill ran as the Liberal candidate in the district of Saskatoon-Humboldt in the 2011 federal election, but finished a distant third behind Conservative incumbent Brad Trost and the New Democratic Party's Denise Kouri. During the campaign, hundreds of his election signs and several of Kouri's were taken. Some were discovered in a dumpster at a construction site.

Ward 2

Hilary Gough is the councillor for Ward 2, which is located in the south-west corner of the city. She is the operations manager of Upstream, a health policy and education non-profit organization. In a close contest, she defeated the incumbent, Pat Lorje, longtime Ward 2 councillor and former provincial MLA in the riding of Saskatoon Southeast.

Ward 3

Ann Iwanchuk is the councillor for Ward 3, which is in the far south-west side of the city. She was elected to council in a byelection on October 19, 2011. She finished first in a field of six candidates, which included former Ward 3 councillor Rik Steernberg. Iwanchuk is the wife of former Saskatoon Fairview NDP MLA Andy Iwanchuk, whose constituency lay within the ward. The council seat had been vacated unexpectedly when the sitting councillor, Maurice Neault, died of a heart attack on July 13, 2011 at the age of 59. Iwanchuk was re-elected in 2012 in a very close contest with challenger Mike San Miguel, one of the closest votes in the city's history. She was re-elected in 2016 with a decisive 72.9% share of the vote.

Ward 4

Troy Davies is the councillor in Ward 4, which is on the far west side of the city. He was first elected to city council in 2012, in a close contest with one other candidate, Sean Shaw. Davies was re-elected in 2016 by a wide margin.

Ward 5

Randy Donauer was first elected as councillor in Ward 5 in a by-election held on November 29, 2010. He won a tight race over the second-place candidate, Ainsley Robertson. He replaced Gordon Wyant, who resigned from council on October 20, 2010, after being elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in a by-election. Donauer was re-elected in 2012. In 2014 he was chosen as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for Saskatoon West, but the seat was won by Sheri Benson of the New Democratic Party. Donauer was re-elected to council in 2016.

Ward 6

Cynthia Block is the councillor for Ward 6, which is located in the central east side near the South Saskatchewan River, and includes the University of Saskatchewan. She was first elected in 2016. Block is a former news anchor from CTV Saskatoon and was the Liberal candidate in the riding of Saskatoon—University during the 2015 federal election.

Ward 7

Mairin Loewen was elected to council on February 9, 2011, in a by-election. She won the seat with about 33% of the vote, defeating favourite Robin Bellamy, a well-known school board trustee. She was re-elected in 2012 and 2016. At age 27, she became Saskatoon's youngest person ever elected to council at the time, being five months younger than Ward 9 councillor Tiffany Paulsen at her first election. However, Ward 10 councillor Zach Jeffries soon after became the youngest councillor at age 26 during the 2012 election.

Ward 8

Sarina Gersher is the councillor for Ward 8, which is near the central east side at the end of the city. She was first elected in 2016. Gersher is a geographic information systems analyst with the Meewasin Valley Authority. The council seat had been vacant at the time of the election. The former councillor, Eric Olauson, resigned his council seat after being elected to the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly as the Saskatchewan Party candidate in the 28th Saskatchewan general election, in the constituency of Saskatoon University.

Ward 9

Bev Dubois is the councillor for Ward 9, which is in the far south east side of the city. She previously served three terms, from 2003 to 2012, as councillor for Ward 10 before being defeated by Zach Jeffries. Dubois returned to council in 2016, placing first in a field of seven candidates to replace longtime councillor Tiffany Paulsen, who decided not to run again.

Ward 10

Zach Jeffries is the councillor for Ward 10, which is in the northeast side of the city. He was first elected to city council in 2012, defeating three-term incumbent Bev Dubois in a tight race. At the age of 26, Jeffries became the youngest person ever elected to city council. He was re-elected in 2016.