The year 2020 turned out to be quite positive for the City of Moose Jaw, despite facing the COVID-19 pandemic. 

There were a number of large land deals that started to move forward this past year, including the new Canadian Tire store on Thatcher Drive East and the Great Plains Power Station in the south east industrial park. 

SaskPower announced earlier in 2020 that the project would not be delayed due to the pandemic and, in November, Burns & McDonnell were named the developers. 

Over the past few months, Burns & McDonnell have been working closely with the community to hire local contractors for the project. 

Road construction for the site got underway in September. Site preparation is expected to begin next year and construction will get underway in 2022 with the peak at the end of 2022 and early 2023. The plant is expected to go online in 2024. 

On the north end of the city, exciting news came from Canadian Tire in November as conditions were lifted on the sale of 11.95 acres of land near the exhibition grounds worth $3.1 million. 

The deal nearly hit a dead-end when Canadian Tire wanted to pull out because of the pandemic. City council initially wanted to grant a one-year extension with a $200,000 deposit. Canadian Tire did not agree to those terms, but city council came back with the one-year extension without the deposit to salvage the deal. 

Mayor Fraser Tolmie said these developments will have a positive effect on the city. 

“We're going to be seeing good things happening with new development, which is going to impact a lot of our businesses. And I believe we're going to see a lot of opportunities happening in our community with the SaskPower station, Canadian Tire, TransGas, Imperial Distilleries, and the Thunder Creek pork plant expansions happening.” 

Meanwhile, there was also a municipal election in 2020 that saw Tolmie win his second term as the mayor of Moose Jaw. Re-elected to city council were Dawn Luhning, Crystal Froese, and Heather Eby. Newly elected were Kim Robinson, Jamey Logan, and Doug Blanc. 

It also saw the end of an era as Coun. Brian Swanson did not seek re-election after over 24 years on city council. 

Tolmie talked about his election victory. 

“I'm very pleased and very grateful to the community to have the confidence in me being able to serve in this capacity and it's very humbling. But I know that our community is a great community that, even under the pressure, we've rallied.” 

Other highlights included bringing the mill rate increase to zero per cent during the pandemic and finishing the budget because Christmas with a 2.96 per cent mill rate increase.