EDO worried about college campus closure
March 10, 2025, 3:08 pm
Kara Kinna
Moosomin EDO Casey McCormac says she is worried that losing the Southeast College campus in Moosomin could hurt the town.
“It’s definitely disappointing from an economic development perspective. We don’t want to lose that secondary education component in Moosomin,” says McCormac. “We don’t want to lose the people that are using that, and maybe now they will go to school outside of Moosomin and maybe they won’t come back to Moosomin.
“I know we tried to communicate with them, I know that they have gone through a bunch different leadership changes so I don’t know if that’s the issue. We felt like they weren’t listening to us as much and we thought maybe they could be more integrated in the community, finding out what the local businesses are needing and that kind of thing. It just felt like there was kind of a disconnect from Estevan versus Moosomin.”
McCormac says the town and economic development committee have engaged with the college over the years to try to pair them with businesses that would need courses.
“We did reach out them. I think the biggest one that I can think of is Vaderstad wanting a welding program because they were looking for welders, so we talked to the college about doing that and they were never able to do that in Moosomin because Moosomin wasn’t really set up to do welding, but we never really got anywhere with that.”
She says the economic development committee will be exploring other options as well as trying to convince Southeast College Moosomin is worth a permanent home.
“I think we will try meeting with them to see what would change their minds to stay. This morning we talked about if there is an option to work with a different college, say Sask Polytech. or someone like that. I know that the Southeast College does offer Polytech classes but maybe we can take courses straight from Sask Polytch instead of through Southeast College or maybe though the regional college in Yorkton.
Maybe an option is to look at a different college coming into Moosomin, but it’s very early days of that because we just found out about the college leaving.”
McCormac says she feels the college could have been offering more classes in Moosomin.
“It’s just disappointing that we only had the electrical program, I think there are quite a few courses that would do well in Moosomin if they had tried.”
How essential does she think it is to have a post secondary option in Moosomin?
“I think it is essential because these days you need some sort of post secondary training usually to get a job, a degree, or a trade. If anyone has to go out of town to take their post secondary, there is a good chance we could lose them to wherever they go to school. I know people come back but there are a lot of people who you know who go to school in Saskatoon, they fall in love with the city and stay there. We don’t want to lose all of those people, and young people are essential to a growing population.”
She says she feels Moosomin is a busy enough community to support a permanent post-secondary location.
“I definitely think so, especially with our growing population, and the number of young people staying in the community. I definitely think it’s possible. Maybe not to the extent of a school the size of Sask Polytech in Moose Jaw being here, but at least we could be offering a decent amount of courses.”
