Election activities are in full swing in Battlefords-Lloydminster as Marcella Pedersen has now officially opened her NDP campaign office.
The campaign office is located at 1462 - 100th Street. The event brought out a number of NDP volunteers as well as media, with plenty of food including carrot cake brought in for the occasion.
Pedersen said her focus in this campaign has not been on going door-to-door. Instead, she has been going to as many events as she possibly can to meet as many potential voters as possible directly.
“Everything’s moving along smoothly and we’re out and about getting what we need to do, talking to people,” said Pedersen. She said she is “pretty much on the road” every day doing something for the campaign.
What Pedersen doesn’t seem to be finding on the campaign trail is a lot of excitement normally associated with an election. She said one “die-hard Conservative” supporter remarked to her that “elections are sure run differently these days,” with no signs seen and nothing in the newspapers.
“He’s wondering what’s going on? We had a good discussion,” Pedersen said.
Without question, the campaign in Battlefords-Lloydminster seems off to a low-key start. Contributing to the malaise is the lack of visits by party leaders to the riding during the campaign. One national leader who visited the riding in 2019 was Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party, but that event was during the summer.
Saskatoon, considered an electoral battleground area, has been the preferred destination in the province for party leaders. The latest to show up there was the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, who held a town hall event there on the weekend. His visit follows on the heels of visits by the Liberals’ Justin Trudeau and Conservatives’ Andrew Scheer to that city.
Meanwhile, back in Battlefords-Lloydminster various campaigns have been active on the campaign trail. Rosemarie Falk of the Conservatives had been in Handel, Ruthilda and Kerrobert this week campaigning, and the previous week made stops in Cut Knife, Unity, St. Walburg and North Battleford.
Larry Ingram was also in North Battleford last week as he was one of the candidates who stopped at the offices of the News-Optimist to participate in the paper’s all-candidates interviews.
Election forums have been scheduled. An election forum was held in Unity last Oct. 1, attended by four of the five candidates: incumbent Rosemarie Falk of the Conservatives, Larry Ingram of the Liberals, Jason MacInnis of the People’s Party, and Pedersen from the NDP.
The latest all-candidates forum took Oct. 10 in Lloydminster, hosted by the Lloydminster Chamber of Commerce at the Prairie Room, Lloydminster Exhibition.
Once again, Falk, Ingram, MacInnis and Pedersen took part at the event, which was open to the public.
The next all-candidates forum is next Thursday, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Western Development Museum. That event is hosted by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce and it, too, will be open to the public.
