REGINA - The federal election is now on in Saskatchewan, but not all of the campaigns are fully up and running yet.
Many ridings still do not have their full complement of candidates in place and the parties are busy scrambling to nominate candidates to fill full slates to run in the April 28 election.
So far, only the Conservatives have filled their full slate of candidates running in all 14 ridings, most of them returning incumbents.
Their latest and last candidate to be nominated is in the northern riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, where former Saskatchewan Party MLA Jim Lemaigre has been nominated to seek the seat currently held by the departing Gary Vidal.
Lemaigre will try to hold the seat for the Conservatives against Liberal candidate Buckley Belanger, a longtime former MLA who is making his second bid for the seat after losing in 2021. Meanwhile the New Democrats will run Doug Racine, who was a former provincial candidate in Saskatchewan Rivers in the last election, while Jackie Hanson is running for the Green Party.
Another riding where the main parties have candidates in place is Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake. There, Conservative incumbent Rosemarie Falk is facing the NDP’s William Petryk, Liberal Larry Ingram, Green Phoenix Neault, and the PPC’s Dean Gilmour.
There are also four candidates in the running in Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan where Conservative incumbent Fraser Tolmie faces Britt Baumann of the NDP, Tabitha Mukamusoni of the Liberals and Chev Craik of the PPC.
While the Conservatives have a full slate in the province, other parties are still scrambling. Both the NDP and the Liberals had less than half of their candidates in place as of Sunday’s election call and the NDP still had only about half of their slots filled by midweek.
The Liberals had only confirmed about a half dozen candidates in Saskatchewan by midweek, but did have candidates in both of their prime targeted ridings of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River as well as Regina-Wascana.
On Monday, former provincial Liberal leader Jeff Walters opened his campaign office in Regina-Wascana where he hopes to upset Conservative incumbent Michael Kram who is seeking a third term in the House. The Greens have nominated Kimberly Epp and the PPC Peter Bruce.
Meanwhile, in Regina-Lewvan and Regina-Qu’Appelle, both Conservative incumbents Warren Steinley and Andrew Scheer were still waiting midweek to find out who their Liberal and NDP challengers would be. Meanwhile the Greens have Kendra Anderson and the PPC Dionne Fehler in place to run against Scheer.
Conservative candidates were also still waiting to find out who their Liberal and NDP competitors would be in several other ridings including Souris-Moose Mountain, Swift Current-Grasslands-Kindersley, Yorkton-Melville and Prince Albert. But announcements have been coming from the main parties at a fast clip about candidates being nominated across the country, and we expect to know within days who will be running.
The Conservative incumbents in Saskatoon already know who they will be facing, for the most part. In Saskatoon Â鶹ÊÓƵ, Kevin Waugh is being challenged by Jacob Gadzella of the NDP, Rokhan Sarwar of the Liberals and Hamish Graham of the Green Party. In Saskatoon-University, Corey Tochor faces Liberal Greg Poelzer, the NDP’s Melissa McGillivray and Green Isaiah Hunter.
As for the normally competitive Saskatoon West seat, Conservative Brad Redekopp is seeking to hold on against the NDP Rachel Loewen Walker, the PPC’s Curtis McManus, and the provincial Green leader Naomi Hunter.
Of the smaller parties, the Greens have 11 candidates in place throughout the province so far while the PPC has seven. There is also one Libertarian candidate running.
