SASKATCHEWAN — As the country headed into the federal election, it was the riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River that many news outlets would be watching.
It was not long after polls closed that it was announced Liberal candidate Buckley Belanger was projected to win. With 65.2 per cent of the vote, he beat out Conservative candidate Jim Lemaigre, who received 25.6 per cent of the votes, and New Democratic Party candidate Doug Racine, with only 9.2 per cent.
At the time of this report, Elections Canada’s election results website showed 87 of the 88 polls had reported, with only 8,708 of 24,317 (35.81 per cent) registered electors having cast their ballots.
Belanger is the first Liberal candidate in Saskatchewan to hold a seat in Parliament since 2019, when Ralph Goodale was unseated after a long career on the hill.
After the redistribution of the electoral district boundaries, a win for the Liberals was expected since a block of communities that generally voted Conservative were moved into the Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake riding.
Belanger has many years of experience with local radio and television within the northern part of the province, as well as a strong political resume, including time as mayor of Ile-a-la-Crosse and provincially as an MLA with the provincial Liberal party in 1995 and again between 1998 to 2021 with the provincial NDP party.
