Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski looks back on 2025

During his first full year in office, Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski has been kept busy.

From two rounds of budget talks in the same calendar year to overseeing the firings of police chief Farooq Sheikh and city manager Niki Anderson, Bachynski said he navigated through quite a bit while learning on the job at the same time.

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The mayor caught up with 980 CJME to reflect on what he considered the most difficult and exciting moments of 2025.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

Editor’s Note: This interview was recorded before the finalization of the City of Regina’s 2026 budget, which included a property tax increase of 10.9 per cent.

980 CJME: What were your highlights for the year? 

BACHYNSKI: Getting to learn all the ins and outs of all the services that the city provides. A lot of learning of procedure, but the highlights were really getting a big chunk of 11th Avenue done and getting Dewdney Avenue done.

I think one of the biggest highlights for me was actually when we talked about the Community Land Trust and the land bank and the social enterprise, where we actually enabled Growing Young Movers – a group of young people in our community – by giving them some startup money to actually help the city maintain our vacant lots around the North Central area as a part of the North Central Revitalization Initiative. Probably one of the biggest highlights was seeing young people who care about our community and seeing our ability as a city to implement a policy and a program that we can come together and do something really good for our city.

What was the most difficult thing for you this year? 

BACHYNSKI: There were a number of challenges this year. A tricky part for me was coming into a different type of role after not having been in politics before. There was a learning curve on the procedure and the process.

Growing up, everyone always talks about how it feels that maybe government moves slowly, and I feel like I’ve experienced firsthand at times how democracy is not built for speed. It’s built to ensure that you get the right feedback from people, from our community and stakeholders, and make sure that that’s all done in a public way.

What about dealing with the firing of Farooq Sheikh and the evictions of residents at Glen Elm Trailer Court? 

BACHYNSKI: Those are great examples of challenges we had to face this year. I would say that there is a number of those unforeseen challenges, and for me it’s no different than challenges I’ve tackled throughout my career. You understand the situation, gather the information that you need to and make a decision. I think the challenge with those types of scenarios is I’m always trying to find a way to start looking forward and see what we’re going to do next, and unfortunately those types of situations make you have to divert your attention to something different.

It’s challenging, especially for the community. These are public things that affect the community. They affect trust in the community. They affect people’s livability in the community, and so they’re challenges we have to face. We can’t control these things, but we just have to make the best decisions we have with the information we have.

Can you speak on the effects of being without a CEO for the Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL) and how it affects what the city is trying to do with that entity? 

BACHYNSKI: Obviously we’d like to get stability there, but I have to say that in light of Trent Fraser coming in as an interim CEO, with his connections in the community, he’s really helped move us forward. I’m actually quite proud of the work that the board and Trent have done this year. Despite a lot of the challenges that they’ve faced, we’ve been able to attract concerts, sell out concerts, host lots of events and have lots of activity on the REAL campus. From a financial perspective, it’s the first time in many years that REAL has actually had a budget reduction as a first step towards financial sustainability.

What’s been the cause of the biggest backlash you’ve received? 

BACHYNSKI: For me, not being someone who’s previously been in the public eye, there are a number of decisions and items that I’ve received lots of feedback on from folks who weren’t in favour of them. What I would say is we’re really trying to do the best we can with the information we have. I wouldn’t go by “backlash.” I would just say that people are passionate and, unfortunately, every decision we make is not going to make everyone happy, but we’re trying to do the best for the largest amount of people in our city.

Was the projected 2026 tax increase one of the areas where people voiced many opinions? 

BACHYNSKI: Absolutely, 100 per cent. I would also categorize that as a surprise when we get those figures in front of us. Once I dug into the numbers and asked lots of questions to administration and we really dove into that process, it became clear why we got there, and that was important. We had been using our reserves, which were really meant for unforeseen circumstances, for city operations, essentially. Those were used to keep mill rates artificially low for years. I think back and I say if we didn’t reduce that mill rate ask over 10 years by half a per cent, we’d be at a starting point five per cent lower than we were this year. Taking a long-term look of how we got there was important. Residents are passionate and they care about the value of their tax dollars. I think the majority of folks that I heard from want to make sure we weren’t cutting a lot of those essential services, as well as things that make our city livable. That was actually the majority of what I heard but, but I also heard from folks who want to make sure we’re maintaining an affordable city for people.

What has been your most memorable moment of 2025? 

BACHYNSKI: Off the top of my head, I think winning the Grey Cup this year was pretty incredible. It’s been a long stretch for us since 2013, and for me that was pretty memorable to be in the position I was in as part of the celebration and seeing what it meant for the community. It’s something that our whole city and whole province really rally behind. In my efforts in wanting to see our city to be proud and to look at the great things that we do have, I think that was a great positive highlight for our community.

–with files from 980 CJME’s Abby Zieverink and Daniel Reech