Sask. ridings to watch during federal election campaign as party leaders make stops in the province

Saskatchewan appeared to be a hot spot on the federal campaign trail Friday with a rare triple visit of Conservative, Liberal and NDP leaders.

First up, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made a stop at Cowessess First Nation in the morning.

Singh reaffirmed his commitments to Indigenous people in Canada, including a pledge to immediately end legal battles against a pair of rulings involving First Nations children.

"The Canadian government was found to have recklessly and and willfully discriminated against Indigenous children in the child welfare system," Singh said.

"We would ensure that every Indigenous community in this country has clean drinking water. We would respect Indigenous communities as nations and work with them."

Speaking with elders on Cowessess, he said one takeaway was the need for an Indigenous-led housing plan that encompasses both on- and off-reserve First Nations people. 

Singh also visited the unmarked graves found in Cowessess First Nation earlier this year. He toured the site with Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme. 

Singh noted he wanted to visit the site because he felt the discovery drew less attention than the preliminary findings of an estimated 215 children buried at the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation weeks earlier. 

Singh said what happened at residential schools in Canada was criminal, and that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute it as a crime if elected.

Later in the afternoon, Singh met with Tria Donaldson, NDP candidate in Regina–Lewvan at a coffee shop in the Cathedral neighbourhood. 

Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau also made a brief visit to the Queen City on Friday afternoon. 

Trudeau touched down in Regina for a small rally at the city's airport following a campaign stop in Winnipeg that morning.

"We need to get those [COVID-19] vaccines that are going to protect us all," he told the crowd of supporters. "We have to protect our elders."

After his short speech, Trudeau posed for pictures and bumped a few elbows before getting back on the plane to Ottawa.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole spent most of his day in Manitoba, before meeting with supporters in Saskatoon Friday night.

O'Toole gave a speech, mostly focused on affordability and his party's plan to deal with Canada's current deficit.

"Our team will work relentlessly on creating jobs, getting wages up and making life more affordable for families here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and across Canada," he told a cheering crowd.

O'Toole also critiqued Trudeau's calls for an election, saying he was "putting his own narrow political interests first."

The Conservative Party enters the 2021 federal election campaign holding all 14 seats in Saskatchewan, with 13 incumbents seeking re-election.

Here's a look at a few of the new names on the ballot and how the 2019 election shook out in the province:

Southern Sask. and Regina

Southern Saskatchewan has been a stronghold for the Conservatives dating back to the 2004 federal election.

Liberal Ralph Goodale was the only non-Conservative to be elected until 2015, when NDP candidate Erin Weir narrowly won Regina–Lewvan by 132 votes.

In 2019, Conservative Michael Kram knocked off Goodale and cemented a sweep for the Tories in the province.

Kram will not face Goodale, who he lost to in 2015, this time around. Sean McEachern, a longtime Liberal Party member and former staffer for Goodale, will run in the riding. Goodale was the only Liberal candidate to run in the riding in its 33-year history, until now.

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In 2019, Kram beat Goodale by a healthy 7,000 votes and spent $18,000 less in the process. The 7,000 vote margin was the closest of the races south of Saskatoon.

The only riding in Saskatchewan where an incumbent is not running for re-election is Moose Jaw–Lake Centre–Lanigan. Longtime Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski decided not to seek re-election. He is the only MP to ever represent the riding, which was contested for the first time in 2015 after a redistribution of seats in the province. 

Lukiwski's successor is former Moose Jaw Mayor Fraser Tolmie, who officially resigned from his mayoral post on Wednesday.

As of Tuesday, the riding is the only one in the province with candidates from five parties nominated:

• Conservative: Fraser Tolmie.
• Liberal: Katelyn Zimmer.
• Maverick: D. Craig Townsend.
• NDP: Talon Regent.
• People's Party of Canada: Chey Craik.

Regent and Craik ran in 2019. Townsend will run for the Maverick Party, which will be making its federal election debut.

Lukiwski cruised to victory in 2019, nabbing 71 per cent of the vote. Tolmie will look to hold the seat for the CPC, but will have at least four challengers from all sides of the political spectrum hoping to siphon votes.

In the other three southern Saskatchewan ridings (Souris–Moose Mountain, Yorkton–Melville, Cypress Hills–Grasslands), the Conservatives won with more than 70 per cent of the vote.

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Andrew Scheer and Warren Steinley won their Regina ridings by 16,000 and 12,000 votes. Steinley's win gained the Conservatives the seat and increased the party's per cent of the vote in the Regina–Lewvan riding from 34 per cent in 2015 to 52 per cent in 2019.

Saskatoon and central Sask.

The story in Saskatoon and central Saskatchewan in 2019 was similar to Regina and the southern part of the province.

All seven CPC incumbents are running again. In Battlefords–Lloydminster and Carlton Trail–Eagle Creek, the Conservatives took 78 per cent of the vote in 2019. In Prince Albert, the Tories received 67 per cent of the vote last election.

The margin of victory in Saskatoon was not as large, but in Saskatoon–Grasswood and Saskatoon–University, Kevin Waugh and Corey Tochor won by 13,000 and 10,000 votes respectively.

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The closest race in the province in 2019 was Saskatoon–West. NDP incumbent Sheri Benson lost to Brad Redekopp of the CPC by about 2,900 votes.

Redekopp has a new NDP opponent in former Métis Nation–Saskatchewan president Robert Doucette, who now runs the Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre.

Northern riding

The politician with the most experience in office of any candidate running in Saskatchewan is Buckley Belanger.

The longtime NDP MLA resigned earlier this month to run for the Liberal Party in the Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River riding. NDP candidate Harmonie King ran unsuccessfully in the 2020 provincial election in the Meadow Lake constituency.

In 2019, Conservative Gary Vidal defeated incumbent Georgina Jolibois of the NDP and Liberal candidate Tammy Cook-Searson in the northern riding, in what was the closest three-way race of the election in the province.

Vidal received 42 per cent of the vote, while Jolibois and Cook-Searson had 28 and 26 per cent, respectively.