Mark Wartman’s goal is to have knocked on every door in the Regina Qu’Appelle Valley constituency by the end of this election campaign.
That doesn’t include the rural portion of his riding, however. He’ll reach those voters by phone.
The man who has been Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister since February 2004 says he isn’t ignoring rural residents.
Rather, the urban part of the constituency in northwestern Regina has grown so much that entire neighbourhoods have been built since the 2003 election and there are simply more doors to knock on.
Read Also
Alberta researcher helps unlock the economics of farming
Lethbridge Polytechnic researcher helping agriculture producers with decision-making tools in economic feasibility
The rural vote makes up just 10 percent of the riding and includes the village of Grand Coulee and the areas known as Tregarva, Brora and Condie.
Wartman said agricultural issues are raised when he knocks on city doors.
“So many people are concerned about agriculture,” he said.
“And, I’ve been agriculture minister for three-and-a-half years. They know that.”
Wartman is seeking re-election for the third time. The former United Church minister was first elected in 1999 and was tapped to develop the government’s blueprint for ethanol development. He became highways minister in 2001, was re-elected in 2003 and moved to agriculture four months later.
Without question, he said, the most frustrating part of his time in that portfolio was dealing with the federal government, even when there was unanimity among the provinces.
He said former federal ministers Andy Mitchell and Chuck Strahl refused to go to their cabinets and ask for more equitable cost-sharing arrangements on programs.
“It wouldn’t matter what government is in, the issues are still going to be there,” he said.
“You have to set aside the partisan stuff and look at the industry.”
Wartman has a long list of positives about the agriculture ministry, including the education he has received from people in the industry and the opportunity to help build the value-added sector through biofuel, research and development.
He also established his own polled Hereford cattle herd over the last few years.
Should he and the NDP be re-elected, Wartman said he’d be happy to return to his post in agriculture.
“I don’t desire to be in opposition,” he said.
But if that happened, “I hope I would be a constructive critic.”
In 2003, Wartman earned 56.9 percent of the vote, compared to runner-up Darlene Hinks of the Saskatchewan Party with 31.7 percent. Voting in the rural polls was an even split.
This time around the Saskatchewan Party candidate is Laura Ross. She ran in Regina Douglas Park in 2003, where she received 1,900 votes or 21.2 percent of the vote. Harry Van Mulligen won that seat for the NDP with nearly 58 percent.
Ross is a realtor who grew up on a grain and dairy farm near Springside, Sask., and was a farmer herself for five years.
“We’ve been working hard door-knocking in the city and in the country on weekends,” she said at the party’s platform launch.
The constituency has grown so significantly that some residents don’t know who their MLA is, she said.
Her reception on the rural doorstep has been positive, she added, particularly when she talks about the party’s plan to double the rebate for education tax on farmland.
Liberal candidate Michael Huber, who grew up on a farm north of Grand Coulee, has been knocking on doors since February.
“I knew I had a lot of work to do,” he said.
Just 875 people voted Liberal in 2003. Huber said the party is far ahead of that figure already.
“The polls are tight,” he said. “We’ve come up a long way.”
Huber, who works in Farm Credit Canada’s treasury department, said he doesn’t understand why people told him not to bother trying to win rural votes. When he went out to Grand Coulee he discovered an entire community that thinks its issues aren’t being addressed.
The Green party is also running a candidate, University of Regina political science student Nicolas Stulberg.
