Yorkton-Melville: Local candidates on the election trail
September 16, 2021, 10:41 am
We touched base with some of the local candidates last week to see how the election is going so far. Following are some of the interviews.
Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton-Melville
How’s the campaign going for you so far?
Personally I’ve been really pleased. It’s a tight timeline so I’m not getting to spend as much time in all communities but the response has been very good.
There have been some good questions, people are definitely engaged. I have a great team, my signs are out and it’s actually going really, really well.
What sort of comments are you hearing when you talk to voters?
Really two major issues. The first one is a lot of concern around our freedoms, specifically in regard to mandatory vaccines and passports. Then the other thing is the whole issue of the economy and how in debt we are and how desperate they are to see our country restored to its prosperity.
What’s the main message that you’re trying to get across to the voters? What are you telling them?
On the vaccines, I make it very clear that Erin O’Toole and our whole caucus, myself, are against mandatory vaccines, and we’re taking heat for that, but we believe that it’s a Charter right to determine your own health choices and to keep those private as well.
First Trudeau had come up with the idea to have a passport to travel within Canada which to me is contrary to our freedoms as well, to move about within our own nation. Then he dug in his heels and said you have to be able to show that you are double vaccinated to even be able to board a plane or a train, it’s not even a matter of doing the rapid test if you aren’t vaccinated. So there’s a lot of discussion around that. I’m fine with being requested to do a rapid test but does it divide and define those who are vaccinated and those who aren’t? I would like to see that rapid test either not be done at all. I travel back and forth from Ottawa continually on a plane and I was doing that in the midst of the worst of it where they took our temperature, asked us questions and we did mask. So to me, why could we not continue with that?
Otherwise everyone should have a rapid test because the science has shown that you’re double vaccinated but you can still carry or actually get infected even though you’re vaccinated. So for everyone’s protection, it should be carried all the way around, rather than saying you just have to be tested if you are not vaccinated.
What are the other issues that you think are important in this campaign?
We’re making it very clear that we’re committed to getting all sectors of our economy functioning again, that includes oil and gas.
At the same time we are very much championing our environmental plan and around here just making it clear that we have a responsibility within our own country to always be good stewards, especially in Saskatchewan. Seriously, we’re at the top of the food chain when it comes to that type of thing, and our plan has been well received.
I have been able to clarify for a lot of folks who have heard that what we have in our platform is a carbon tax. It’s not. They do respond well once I am able to have that conversation and word sure spreads. That’s one advantage of rural Canada, too. People talk to each other and so it’s been really good to have those conversations around meet-and-greets at the restaurants and door to door, but to have those opportunities to clarify issues, and answer questions has been really good.
How do you go about campaigning in such a large riding? Are you trying to get to every single community? Do you have a few major events or all-candidates meetings that you’re going to or is it more going town to town to town and knocking on doors and going to the coffee shop?
It’s a mixture. I’ve done a lot of travelling around the riding in the past, so I try to build on that.
I literally can’t get to them all and folks are good about that, but at the same time I found having a meet and greet, we’ve tried to advertise it in various ways, and then if they can’t make it to one they will come to another in a neighboring town. Then I do go door knocking. I really enjoyed Main Streeting, up and down where the businesses are and then also going to the town administrative offices and the RM offices. Just having my presence and putting the posters up in the various locations the towns have along with some cards and whatnot. I went up along the west side up to St. Brieux and then was able to work somewhat around the Melville area. We had a bit of a business snag that required me to have to stay in the shop for a bit, so I lost a little bit of time there, but that’s the reality. Then we’ve been up just to Hudson Bay yesterday and now in Porcupine Plain heading across to Bjorkdale and that area. Then I’ll be down more around home, towards next week. I guess I have a week left here to do Churchbridge, Langenburg, a meet and greet in Tantallon Monday at the rink.
I just go day to day quite honestly and just following my schedule but it’s been good. I’ve enjoyed just keeping a presence as well in my local newspapers. Folks read the paper here, and I’m really pleased that our party has said we’re going to be investing far less in advertising as a government the way the Liberals have in those big social media sites and whatnot, and focus instead on our regional newspaper outlets more.
We need to recognize them, and that’s something important in our platform. We need to recognize rural Canada and what we contribute through GDP and the quality of life that we have.
Valerie Brooks, Green Party, Yorkton-Melville
How’s the campaigning going so far?
That’s a pretty big question! I’ve been trying to travel to all the corners of our constituency which is big, wide and I feel really bad that I can’t spend more time and see more people and knock on more doors. I’m a small party with a very small budget and a small team, so it’s very different I think campaigning for me than for some of the incumbents.
For the most part I have been very happy with the reception I’ve been getting at doors. I have been warmly greeted in most of the communities, and people that don’t know a lot about the Green Party have asked some really good questions. Some have been open to listening about who we are and what we stand for, so I can be happy about that.
How do you go about campaigning in such a large riding? Do you try to get to as many communities as possible and then go down Main Street and go door knocking? How do you do it?
That’s what I’m doing. I’ve put together an itinerary and I was in Melville yesterday, I’m in Foam Lake today, Monday I’m in Hudson Bay, Tuesday I’m in Sturgis. I’m Zooming with communities like Kinistin First Nation, I’m Zooming with them on Tuesday because I just can’t get all the way up to that corner to talk with them. I have a Facebook campaign but that is limited because only whoever is following me on Facebook gets to see that. I’ve done a little bit of mailing to the smaller communities that I just can’t hit personally. It’s definitely an eye opener for me being a first time candidate in this riding. I realize we need a team, all candidates need a team to really hit it all and get our message out there. I’ve been also really, really happy and thankful for people like you, Kevin, the news media reaching out to me and asking me for information to be printed. So that’s getting the word out to the people.
What are you hearing from people so far? What’s on people’s minds when you start to talk to them about the election?
Something that I’ve heard over and over, sadly is “I don’t even know if I’m going to vote, I don’t normally vote, I don’t know if my vote even matters out here.” Sadly that is one of the biggest things that I’m hearing and to me that’s a tough one to hear. That makes my mission even more important to me because I think electoral reform, which is a big part of my platform and the Green party’s platform, needs to seriously be considered so that we can get back to feeling like our vote matters, feeling like our voice is heard, feeling like the East doesn’t control everything that happens in terms of our electoral systems. The other thing I’m hearing is, “I don’t care what we do but we’ve got to get who’s in there now out!” If I had a dollar for every time somebody said that, my campaign would be funded pretty nicely.
What’s the main message that you’re trying to get across to the voters this election?
What I was just talking about, Kevin, is super important to me. We’re not going to get anywhere on the crises that we’re seeing, like either the environmental crisis or the housing crisis or the opioid crisis or any of these crises that we’re seeing unless we fix our system and make it work better. Make our MPs work collaboratively in parliament to really tackle these big issues when they need to be tackled. In the leaders’ debate, I was really proud of my leader because she kept focusing on that. If we keep fighting, if we keep bickering back and forth, none of this stuff’s going to get worked out in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t cost the taxpayers money. We shouldn’t be having elections every two years just because we have a minority government, we should be working together and have set four-year elections because it’s expensive to have an election.
I know it’s a short election campaign, but what have you learned so far from participating in this campaign?
What have I learned? That’s a good question.
I’ve learned we need to do a better job to increase the amount that people understand about our government and our system because a lot of people I’m talking to don’t know a lot about the system and how the federal, provincial, and municipal levels work.
People are getting it mixed up, they don’t quite get it and so I’m wondering if our system is so complex it’s hard to understand or if it’s not being taught well enough in schools for people to understand it.
That’s a red flag for me.
Our participatory democracy isn’t very participatory if people don’t understand it.
I think that’s what I learned more than anything, is that I think I’ve underestimated that a lot of people maybe don’t quite get it or don’t quite understand enough to make that informed decision.
I’m not blaming them, that is not their fault because we should be doing a better job of explaining how our system works. If people really understand the system, they can participate in it in a meaningful way. Tweet
