Meadow Lake city council is complete once more, and the final piece of the puzzle is a person with much experience when it comes to municipal politics. Tom Harrison, who was first elected to council 2016 and re-elected in 2020, but was edged out in the 2024 vote, will soon be sworn in once again after winning a by-election held last Wednesday (May 14). City council has been one seat short since early this year when Mike Ferguson – who was first elected last fall – resigned his position. Harrison secured 91 votes in last week’s by-election, overcoming Dwayne Mysko who earned 75 votes and Anne Duriez who garnered 30 votes.

“I’m happy with the result and appreciative of the support I received,” Harrison told Northern Pride. “I will be joining a strong council, but getting up-to-speed a bit on what’s been happening since I’ve been gone. That will be my first job I suppose.” Harrison worked 37 years for the Ministry of Environment in many communities as a conservation officer, park superintendent and senior manager responsible for 250- plus staff and tens of millions of dollars in yearly budgets. After retiring, he spent three years as a management consultant to Mosaic Potash delivering productivity and leadership training and oversight to their middle management groups. He also served on both minor hockey and golf club boards, and chaired the facilities committee for the Saskatchewan Summer Games. He volunteers with other organizations as well, particularly the local Lions Club. As a member of council during his previous tenures, he sat on the local library board and chaired the finance committee on the Lakeland Library Board. Recently, he was presented with a King Charles III Coronation Medal by now former Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River MP Gary Vidal.

“I will try to bring to council a lot of what I brought before,” Harrison continued. “I have experience, whether it’s in human resources, budgeting or management, this experience – along with the experience I gained on council the last eight years – will help move things forward in the city.” While Harrison did admit voter turnout in last week’s by-election could have been better, he said the low number (197 votes were cast overall) is not surprising. “It would have been nice to see more people come out and vote, but I honestly expected – based on my experience when it comes to being involved in both federal and provincial campaigns – for it to be a low number,” he said. “I recognize these by-elections quite often result in a pretty low turnout. That happened again, but it’s not unusual.” Once fully back on the job, Harrison also said there are a number of projects and issues he is excited to be a part of or to have a say in.

“Some of these things were among those I talked about in the last (election) campaign,” he said. “I look forward to moving ahead with some of the stuff around the lagoon issues, and obviously making sure we have an environment for commercial development. There has been some movement on that and good on council for doing that.” Meanwhile, mayor Merlin Seymour said it will be nice to finally have council back to full strength. “It is definitely good we have a full council again, while unfortunate we had to have the by-election after only a short time since the election in the fall,” Seymour said.

“Tom brings a wealth of experience back to the table and his knowledge is appreciated. I would also like to thank Dwayne and Anne for bringing their names forward, as it is a big commitment. The new ideas brought forward are definitely important. Thank you to all of the people who came out to vote. The numbers were quite low for voter turnout. Also, thanks to the polling station workers and our returning officer Kaila (city clerk Kaila Lefort) for all of the hard work.”