Mayor disappointed in Southeast College decision
March 10, 2025, 2:06 pm
Kara Kinna
Moosomin Mayor Murray Gray says he is disappointed in Southeast College’s announcement that they are closing their Moosomin campus and that it doesn’t fit with everything else that has been happening in Moosomin over the last few years.
“I’m very disappointed. I think we’ve worked well with the campus in order to give them ideas and opportunities as we grow, and I really feel like all of that effort has been thrown out the window in one fell swoop,” he said last week.
“I can admit that maybe they have run the gauntlet on the electrical program and there are only so many people who need to be trained for jobs in electrical, but that’s why we have been working with them in the past few years in order to give them different ideas in order to use the campus here.
You have to pivot. If you are done training a certain segment of workers, then a council or economic development committee that’s willing to help you find ideas in order to work with is what you want in a community, not crickets.
“Our community has done lots of different investigating and want to work with Southeast Regional College in order to ensure that it is part of our community, and it does feel like a slap in the face that they are closing.
“We have reached out several times to them. About a year ago we had given them lots of ideas and tried to match them up with other stakeholders in the area as far as the mines and Vaderstad and manufacturing organizations in the area. We have worked with them and tried to suggest lots of ideas over the years, knowing that we would like to see the programs expand in Moosomin, certainly not detract.”
Gray says he doesn’t know why those ideas have not led to courses.
“I can’t say that I’ve been in the room for any of those discussions that the college has afterwards. I’m unsure of what happens behind closed doors with that. We know from a community standpoint that we need skilled workers in lots of different areas, especially in health care. We have a shortage of health care workers in our hospital and we’re training resident doctors in our community. We think we are a good fit for that and we have told them that in the past, that Moosomin is a good fit for that with our health care facilities and our physicians that are willing to help train.
“So I think there have been lots of ideas talked about. As far as what they do with those ideas after, I can’t tell you what happens once they get back to their board.”
He says there is an overall sense of disappointment in the community on the way the college has failed to serve Moosomin and on the campus closure.
“People are disappointed. I think it’s been brought up several times in the last five years that we have no representation on that board from here, and we never have had representation from that board here. That has always kind of bothered me. Why does it feel like we are not part of the planning? Why are they not looking for a board member from our area if they have a campus here and if they have plans for Moosomin to be part of those plans moving forward?
“As to how we got to this point, I don’t know. I know that the leadership has changed many times in the last five years in that organization and every time it seems like when there’s a new leader we are starting the conversation all over, there’s no flow, there is no consistency to who you talk to and what’s going to get done, so it’s hard to plan for the future with a new face every time you reach out.”
Gray says looking at the course loads being offered at the Weyburn and Estevan campuses, he doesn’t understand why some or all of those courses are being offered in Moosomin as well.
“Obviously there is interest in Weyburn or Estevan. There would have been interest in Moosomin. When they had a campus here they say in their call last week that is underutilized, but I just don’t feel as if they have tried to utilize that space. It was a one and done, the electrical program doesn’t work so we are going to close up the campus and we’ll try to get programming there in the future, but it’s going to be a lot harder without a campus.
“I’ve talked to different people at the mine and Vaderstad for sure that like the idea of it (courses here), but as far as putting pen to paper on it, that’s not my profession by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not sure how that works to get that from an idea to a classroom. I think that’s why you count on a regional college to put the idea to fruition and implement it. So as far as why there is a breakdown between an idea and the implementation, I don’t know. It disappoints me greatly.”
Gray says the campus closure will knock the community back.
“We’re starting over,” he says. “It’s like it was 25 years ago where people had to travel out of our community for all the courses that they offer and we are back to square one.
“How we went backwards in a community that is moving forward in every other aspect, I don’t know. It’s growing in population, our economy is growing here, we have so many good things happening, we have economic development, we are recognized throughout the province as leaders in economic development, and on the same basis we have a regional college that’s pulling out of our community, so something just doesn’t add up.
“I think economic development needs to have a conversation about it at our next meeting. The lease is not up until June so hopefully some communication with the leadership in Weyburn and Estevan will allow them to consider what plans they have for Moosomin in the near future and keep working with them.
We have to work with them and try to provide the best education in our community that we can for our residents and our young people. We talk about how we want to keep the young people here working in the jobs that we have, so we have to work with the college in order to hopefully supply some of that training in the future.
“I hope this isn’t permanent and I’ll do everything in my power to try to bring some programming to Moosomin sooner rather than later.”
