CANORA — By an overwhelming majority, Sean Wilson will be representing Canora–Pelly as its MLA for the next term.
At the end of the second count on Oct. 30, Wilson, who ran for the Saskatchewan Party, received 5,104 votes – 71.4 per cent. His nearest competitor, Wynn Fedorchuk of the New Democrats, got 1,674 votes – 23.4 per cent. Niall Schofield of the Buffalo Party received 220 votes and Casimira Rimando of the Greens received 153.
Wilson said that while he knew that Canora–Pelly has historically been a Saskatchewan Party stronghold, he didn’t take anything for granted.
“We walked, we knocked on doors, we worked very, very hard,” he said.
“My goal was to see everybody in this constituency, regardless of what political stripe they were, and to listen to everybody here.”
Wilson’s journey to becoming the MLA began when he decided to run against incumbent Terry Dennis for the Sask Party nomination. On Oct. 17, he won against the two-term MLA.
“I knew that if we had the right people and we engaged everyone in this constituency, that there would be a positive result,” he said when asked if he’d imagined himself as the newly elected MLA back then.
“We started this campaign basically 18 months ago to get to know everybody in the constituency and we never took one community for granted.”
While campaigning, Wilson said he heard about a lot of concerns in the constituency, including healthcare, the economy and the carbon tax.
“When you knock every door and you have face to face time with people, they tell you their specific issues. I can't drill it down to one thing, because everybody has a concern or has a view of something that should be addressed.”
One issue that did pop out at Wilson was affordability. He said that the Sask Party’s message on that issue resonated on the campaign.
Provincially, the New Democrats made large gains, but the Sask Party had received enough seats to win another majority government. As of Oct. 30, after the second count, the Sask Party led in 34 seats, compared to 42 at dissolution and the NDP led in 27, compared to 14. Thirty-one seats were needed for a majority.
The NDP swept Regina, won the majority of seats in Saskatoon, won the two Northern seats, but was unable to break into the medium-sized cities such as Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Battlefords, Swift Current and Yorkton nor the rural seats.
“I'm looking forward to working with all of my colleagues in the legislature to better not only Saskatchewan, but to look out for No. 1, which is our constituency,” Wilson said.
Wilson had something to say for the residents of Canora–Pelly.
“I want them to know how grateful I am for their support and how humbled I am by the overwhelming support that we received in this campaign,” he said.
“I will do my best to represent this constituency with the same dignity and honour that Ken Krawetz [who was MLA from 1995 to 2016] had for all the years he was here.”
