Representatives from across Northern Saskatchewan were in attendance at the summit. (Buckley Belanger MP/Facebook)

By Derek Cornet

dialogue

Northern MP hosts leadership summit in La Ronge

Aug 21, 2025 | 1:59 PM

A leadership summit hosted by MP Buckley Belanger was held in La Ronge on Tuesday, which attracted mayors and chiefs from across Northern Saskatchewan with common concerns and gave the newly elected MP some information to take back to Ottawa.

The summit aimed to bring together elected leaders to talk about critical issues affecting communities and industries in the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District.

Participants discussed common solutions to problems and other ground they share, worked on building partnerships, had a roundtable discussion on rural development, which is expected to help with Belanger’s work as the Secretary of State.

Some of the issues raised at the summit were the impact of wildfires and evacuations, homelessness, mental health and addictions, gang violence, intergenerational trauma from residential schools, systemic racism, improving economic development and training opportunities, health care, affordable housing and highways.

“There’s a lot of strong leadership there, but it continues being those social programs and being part of Northern Saskatchewan’s economy. Those are two of the issues that came up steady,” Belanger explained.

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“[I am] trying [my] darndest as the MP to do justice to some of the presentations that they made, but we have a general idea of what some of the issues are in Northern Saskatchewan and these leaders have been very consistent in terms of the themes and type of problems we have, and they have also been very supportive with some of the concepts and ideas that they wanted to share as well.”

Belanger noted there is currently a lot of work going into the creation of an action plan for rural Canada.

“As we grapple with our rural development strategy as a secretary of state for rural development, we want to incorporate what Northern Saskatchewan has told us, we want to incorporate what Saskatchewan has told us because … we have three jobs,” he remarked.

“One is being the MP for this riding, which is primary in my thoughts. The second thing is representing Saskatchewan at the national table because I’m the only Liberal MP in Saskatchewan, and of course the third one is being very effective at the job of being secretary of state for rural development.”

Some of the communities represented at the leadership summit held at the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre included Air Ronge, Black Lake, Creighton, Cumberland House, La Ronge, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) Montreal Lake, Weyakwin and Wollaston Lake.

LLRIB Chief Tammy Cook-Searson was at the meeting and she thought it was a good opportunity for Belanger to hear what northern leaders had to say.

“I think it went really well. They gave everyone a chance to speak,” she said.

“Overall, it was good to have that dialogue and discussion and just talking about the different issues that impact us in Northern Saskatchewan.”

Belanger also hosted a town hall meeting in Creighton last week and is hosting a second leadership summit in Buffalo Narrows on Thursday.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com