The official campaign period is on for the 2016 provincial election in Saskatchewan.
Premier Brad Wall met with Lt.-Gov. Vaughn Solomon Schofield Tuesday to officially dissolve the legislature. The election is to be held April 4 as per the province’s existing election dates legislation.
Wall’s Saskatchewan Party and the opposition NDP under Cam Broten are running candidates in every riding in this election. The Greens under Victor Lau are also running a full slate, and the Liberals under Darrin Lamoureux say they will have a full slate nominated as well by the deadline.
The Saskatchewan PCs under Rick Swenson have only a handful of nominated candidates so far.
In the Northwest region, the NDP are looking for a way to break the stranglehold the Saskatchewan Party has on ridings throughout the area. The Sask. Party holds the Battlefords and every surrounding area seat, including Cut Knife-Turtleford, Rosthern-Shellbrook, Biggar-Saskatchewan Valley, Meadow Lake and Lloydminster.
Of those seats, Cut Knife-Turtleford, Rosthern-Shellbrook and Biggar-Sask. Valley are considered traditional Saskatchewan Party seats. Any loss by incumbents Larry Doke, Scott Moe and Randy Weekes, respectively, would be seen as a major upset.
Traditionally more competitive are Meadow Lake, Lloydminster and the Battlefords. In the Battlefords, the race will see a different dynamic from the 2011 race, in which three of the four candidates had run in the previous vote.
Environment Minister Herb Cox is again on the ballot for the Saskatchewan Party, but this time the first-term incumbent faces a brand new field of opponents. They include local lawyer Rob Feist for the NDP, Dexter Gopher for the Liberals and Josh Hunt of the Green Party.
In 2007, Cox lost to the NDP’s Len Taylor by a little over 300 votes but won by over 1,000 votes over Taylor last time.
The Battlefords is considered a “swing” riding — one historically known to change from one party to another. The area has seen Sask. Party, NDP and even Liberal representatives over the previous couple of decades.
For that reason the seat is considered an NDP target, and a must-win if they have any hope of getting to the magic number of 31 seats required for a majority in the legislature. Last time the NDP won nine seats to 49 for the Sask. Party.
There are three additional seats up for grabs this time around the province, for a total of 61 seats, and boundary changes have come into effect for this election. While the changes aren’t major in the Northwest, ridings in this region are impacted by some of the revisions. Check with www.elections.sk.ca for more information.
The campaign got under way in the Battlefords even before the election call was made.
Feist has already opened up a 100th Street campaign office as of Saturday and held a grand-opening event there.
The Liberals have already held a fundraiser in the riding in which leader Lamoureux released the party’s First Nation platform and a number of candidates were introduced. The party has confirmed they will have a North Battleford campaign office open as well.
Premier Brad Wall was also in the area appearing at a ribbon-cutting for the Edam Husky Energy heavy oil thermal plant a week ago.
At least one all-candidates meeting has been announced for the riding. CUPE Local 5111 has set up a candidate’s meeting at the Dekker Centre on March 23 between 7 and 9 p.m. It is not yet confirmed how many candidates have agreed to participate.
