We asked all the candidates the same 10 questions on a wide range of issues plus one specific to their party. Over the six weeks leading up to Election Day, October 19, we present their answers unedited and in their entirety.
This week’s questions:
9. Yorkton-Melville is physically a very large riding; how will you balance the needs of the main population centres with the rural communities within the area?
10. Many Saskatchewan MPs have had a hard time finding a voice in Ottawa; how do you propose to bring provincial issues to the forefront??
Cathay Wagantall
9. They’re all important. So, when I hear from constituents who are out Hudson Bay area, I’ve been out to St. Brieux, we’ve got wonderful manufacturing going on up there. A lot of the issues are actually very similar as far as earning your income and having stability for your family, those types of dynamics and working with the chambers in the communities is very important to me and having a good understanding of what the issues are here is what will mean I will be able to communicate well to Ottawa representing Yorkton and Melville and a lot of the other communities as well. I see it as a whole picture.
10. I haven’t sensed that. I’ve actually been invited already a couple of times to just sit in on caucus meetings and was part of a roundtable discussion in Saskatoon and Regina to deal with manufacturing and exporting and our MPs, I’m not sensing that from the MPs I interact with. They’re the only ones I can comment on actually, so from what I hear from them and this is important to me, is in caucus meetings there’s excellent discussion. Garry has even said whenever he has needed to speak with the prime minister, he has always had a prompt response and an interview time set up when they could meet him and talk about things, so, from my perspective, I have sense there’s a very good working relationship there. It may be more difficult I suppose if you’re opposition parties to have that same sense of synergy in the province. We have the advantage when you’re in government you have MPs to have a minister’s office and Randy Hoback is the chair of the Saskatchewan caucus so we do a lot of interaction with the province and with the cities through roundtable discussions and such.
Doug Ottenbreit
9. I’m glad you asked that question because one of my difficulties with the previous member and the Conservative representation in this area is that they were never, I never saw them anywhere. I think that what you do as an MP is, you, all it is is planning. An MP is home a significant amount of time, they don’t spend all their time in Ottawa, and it’s my view that when I’m home from Ottawa I will make sure that on those occasions I will plan well ahead and to attend different areas of the riding. You can’t service the riding properly if you don’t go there, if you don’t go up to Hudson Bay, if you don’t go to Canora or Preeceville or any other number of communities. If you’re going to service it, you’ve got to be there. The only way to be there is to be there in person. Mail isn’t enough. Getting a flyer from your MP doesn’t answer your question and it doesn’t help you with a problem. So, I’m going to make sure that I am available, I’m going to make sure that my staff people aren’t just spending their time in Yorkton and Melville. In fact, they will be, if I’m elected, they will be travelling different parts of the riding on a regular basis and we will use satellite offices if necessary to service the people in this riding.
10. I think that the reason Saskatchewan MPs have had a difficult time bringing their message to Ottawa is because Ottawa didn’t want to hear it. Stephen Harper was very clear that his priority was in the east. He, in my view, has taken his MPs for granted and used a significant amount of party discipline to keep them from bringing forth the issues that the people in this province face. Tom Mulcair isn’t like that. My expectation and my belief is that Tom Mulcair will run an open government, that we will be heard. It’s my belief that we’re going to elect a significant number of New Democrats in Saskatchewan and together we will ensure that we’re heard.
Elaine Hughes
9. I can’t. It’s impossible. We used to get, at least, the two dollars per vote, but the Conservatives looked after that one and cut us off at the knee. Any money I spend at the moment is my person fixed-income money going into this campaign and there’s no way I can travel to Cumberland House or down to Moosomin or wherever so it’s impossible.
YTW: If you were elected, though, you would have an MP’s budget.
EH: Well, because it is, I don’t know how many miles from top to bottom, north to south, I would have to visit, maybe divide the area into thirds or something and try to give people advance notice, or I don’t know, maybe rent a motorhome instead of paying rent on an office in these two places, just have a travelling office and I’ll be in town on such-and-such a day because it’s ridiculous, there’s no way that anybody in their right mind can deal with this area. So, if I had the money, if I had a million dollars, maybe I would rent a helicopter, but I couldn’t do that if I were elected, even though I have no illusions that I would be.
10. I don’t know, I guess you’re going to have to scream louder or something. As far as Saskatchewan MPs, yeah, the old boys school is alive and well here and anybody new on the scene obviously they’re disregarded or there’s no time or you don’t holler loud enough or something. I don’t know, you just have to be more aggressive, I guess. If I had a brain like Elizabeth May and being able to answer her questions with the facts and figures, it would be a whole different conversation.
Brooke Malinoski
9. I like to think I’m quite familiar with the entire constituency, so I’m very lucky that way. I’m from Melville, but I’ve also spent a lot of my life in Yorkton. I played sports there and I’m familiar with the community, but I think that it’s important to take note of everyone’s concerns and everyone is important and if the constituents do have things that they bring forward to my attention whether they are from a smaller community or Yorkton/Melville I will listen to their concerns, they’re just as important and I think that in order to focus on Canada as a whole, you need to listen to the voices of those in the rural ridings not just listen to those in the urban centres. In our case it’s Yorkton and Melville, but it’s really important to listen to everyone and I promise I would listen to all of the constituents if I’m elected.
10. I have a huge issue with that as well. I think that it’s really obvious right now that Saskatchewan is playing a huge part in not only the Canadian economy, but Canadian life as well and we’re now being looked at as a really important part of the country and I never want to see Saskatchewan go back to the back of the bus ever again. I think it’s just one of those things of having a strong group of MPs. I think that’s something Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party has done. If you look at the different candidates that they have in Saskatchewan, they’re all very strong leaders in their communities. You have Ralph Goodale in Regina, you have some very, very strong female candidates in Saskatoon right now, as well as some of the other ridings like up north you have strong indigenous leaders in those ridings such as Lawrence Joseph, so I think if you look at the kind of candidates that our party is putting forward, that just demonstrates that they will have a strong voice. Saskatchewan will have a strong voice in Ottawa.
Fact-checking the candidates
By Devin Wilger
N-R Writer
Doug Ottenbreit is correct that Tommy Douglas’ CCF government balanced the budget for 17 years—from 1944 to 1961, specifically. While this was the era where universal medicare was designed, it was actually fully implemented in 1962 under then premier Woodrow Lloyd and that year there was a deficit of $4 million.
While there has been controversy over the accounting practices used, with provincial auditor Bonnie Lysyk arguing that nine of the past ten budgets in the province could be read as a deficit —including the final budgets presented by the provincial NDP—officially the Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert governments did present balanced budgets as Ottenbreit claims.
The unemployment rate among disabled people being double the rest of the population was also mentioned by Ottenbreit. According to Stats Canada, in 2011, the unemployment rate of persons aged 25 to 64 with disabilities was 11 per cent, compared with 6 per cent for people who did not report having a disability.
In terms of relative ages of the party leaders, Malinoski is slightly off, Harper assumed office when he was 46, not 47, however that’s because the 2006 election was in January while he was born in April. She is correct about Justin Trudeau’s age of 43.
Malinoski is correct about the voter turnout among young people in the 2011 election, which according to Elections Canada was 38.8% for voters 18-24.
Wagantall’s reference to NDP regional offices appears to be a reference to controversy about 68 current and former NDP MPs, including Mulcair, setting up satellite offices in Montreal, Quebec City and Toronto, at a cost of $2.7 million. The MPs involved were ordered to repay the cost. She did say they were across the country, which is not accurate, as it was only in Ontario and Quebec, but she is correct that the cost was over $2 million.
