Dionne’s State of the City speech draws strong reaction, but no apology for weight ‘joke’
The response to Mayor Greg Dionne’s State of the City Address has been swift and strong against some of the comments he made on Thursday at the Ches Leach Lounge.
When reached for comment on Friday, Dionne did not apologize for the comments he made about Saskatoon Mayor Don Atchison’s weight. Instead, he expressed his disappointment that paNOW’s previous story about his address “made an issue out of a joke I made of my friend of 40 years, the Mayor of Saskatoon, and that there wasn’t anything else to report of the State of the City Address but that, and I’m sad that [the reporter]’s made an issue of it, and I have no further comment.”
In front of an audience of 350 people, mainly members of the business community, Dionne declared he would not be taking part in the mayor’s caucus at this year’s Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention. And in the midst of arguing against the mayors’ support for protecting funding levels from PST transfers as the province is faced with belt-tightening due to falling oil revenues, he called on cities to look at putting their big infrastructure projects on hold.
Specifically, he referenced Saskatoon’s North Commuter Bridge project. He also said Regina’s bypass project could also be put on hold as a way to free up federal infrastructure money.