By Thia James

POLL: P.A. calling on province to make bike helmets mandatory

Nov 18, 2014 | 5:45 AM

Prince Albert plans to put pressure on the Saskatchewan government to enact mandatory bicycle helmet laws, with the help of a provincial association.

On Monday, the executive committee recommended a draft resolution that would see the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) ask the province – and Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) in particular – to change the Highway Traffic Act to make it mandatory for all cyclists to wear a helmet. City council is expected to approve the draft resolution at next week’s meeting.

The City is turning to the Saskatchewan government to make it a provincewide requirement because, as Mayor Greg Dionne explained it on Monday, it’s hard for a city to enforce a law like this one when it hosts tourists.

“A tourist comes, he’s riding his bike here, we stop and give him a bike helmet? Where, it’s hard to advertise, ‘if you’re coming to Prince Albert, you got a bike, you got to buy a helmet.’ You know, it has to be a provincial-led program.”

The vote on the draft SUMA resolution comes one week after fourth-year nursing students from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Nursing asked the City to review its own bicycle bylaw.

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“The lack of a governing bicycle-helmet law is potentially problematic for the City of Prince Albert, as the lack of such governing laws places the population at risk for acquired brain injuries,” the students told members of council on Nov. 10.

In their presentation, the students pointed out that the City’s current bylaw, created in 2001, doesn’t include provisions for personal safety equipment, such as helmets.

At that meeting, Dionne said that council has been “very active” in pressing the province to enact a bicycle law.

The province, however, has placed the responsibility for such regulations on cities.

In 2012, the City asked the ministry of health to consider adopting rules that require anyone operating a bicycle or “wheeled-sport device” to wear a helmet, according to background notes attached to the SUMA resolution. The then minister of health, Don McMorris, wrote a letter to the City in February 2012, encouraging it to work with SGI.

The minister responsible for SGI at the time, Tim McMillan, wrote in a January 2012 letter to the City, that the agency had no plans to propose provincial helmet legislation. He cited a response from SGI’s president to a previous request that “after consultation with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association and the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, municipalities have been entrusted with the authority to enact their own bylaws pertaining to their respective jurisdictions.”

With the province and the City’s mayor placing the responsibility at the other level of government’s feet, Coun. Martin Ring suggested at the Nov. 10 meeting that Prince Albert be the major city that takes the lead on mandatory helmets.

“I think at times, that’s what we have to do. We have to be the city that’s going to stand out there and take the lead. And why shouldn’t it be Prince Albert that takes the lead?”

Two cities with smaller populations, Yorkton and North Battleford, have enacted mandatory helmet use rules.

But Prince Albert will review all of its bylaws in the meantime. On Monday, Dionne said they are in the process of looking at which ones may need to be “tweaked,” or removed entirely.

Where the bicycle bylaw is concerned, he said the City is waiting for the province.

“To me, as you can tell by council, we want it, but it’s up to the province to lead. You can’t do it in isolation.”

The mayor will lead Prince Albert’s delegation to the 2015 SUMA convention in Regina, with the bicycle helmet resolution in tow. The convention will be held Feb. 1-4.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames