Sask Party - Greg Brkich
Greg Brkich is the Saskatchewan Party candidate for the Arm River constituency.
Brkich was born in raised in Bladworth and served as a council member in that community for six years.
In 1999, Brkich was elected as the MLA for the constituency and has remained the MLA ever since.
He says he first got into politics to try and help bring Saskatchewan forward.
“I’ve always known the great potential of this province. You should not have people leaving it should be a place where people want to come.”
Brkich feels he is the right choice to continue to serve as the MLA for the Arm River constituency because he brings a wealth of known having served in his position for the past 16 years. He says he has the experience dealing with the issues that hamper Arm River including health care, agriculture and growth.
“I think I have a very good working knowledge of the legislature.”
Despite his long time serving in the constituency Brkich has not gotten complacent and says there is more work that needs to be done.
“There is still way more growth in this province…we need to keep growing, we need to keep this economy strong. What we need is good paying jobs in Saskatchewan.”
Brkich mentions the industries in Saskatchewan as vital to the overall growth of the province including, mining, lumber, oil and manufacturing.
“We need to keep this province competitive and that is my goal as an MLA.”
Moving the province forward is Brkich’s main objective, which he says was not happening in the province when he began serving as an MLA.
“My goal is to keep moving forward… we haven’t reached our potential of this province. We need to keep the economy strong, we need to keep people here and we need to bring in more people and we need to bring in more jobs.”
NDP Saskatchewan - Denise Leduc
Denise Leduc is the New Democratic Party candidate for the Arm River Constituency. Leduc grew up in southwestern Ontario before moving to Saskatchewan in 2011. She now lives in Aylesbury and is the branch librarian at the library in Imperial.
Leduc says she got into political politics after growing up during the heyday of Jack Layton. She says she was really inspired by Layton because he showed her that government can be caring and could work to benefit all citizens.
“I’ve always been engaged politically, interested in following what’s going on and it was just recently that I decided that I wanted to take that engagement to the next level.”
She says she chose to run as an NDP because she really believes in Cam Broten.
“He’s engaged, he’s listening to the people of the province and I wanted to help out in whatever way I could.”
Leduc believes she would make a great MLA for the Arm River constituency because she intends on listening and serving the constituents to the best of her ability.
“The best way to serve the public is by listening to what matters to the people of your constituency…I will listen and I will serve.”
She says that her best trait as the next MLA is her work ethic and says that her constituents will find her one of the hardest working MLA’s in the province.
MLA’s are only required to sit in the legislature for a part of the year and Leduc says she plans on using the rest of her time to get out into the communities several times a year to talk and listen to her constituents. The information that she gathers from these conversations will be taken back to the legislature and the premier, she says.
Leduc says she loves the term public servant to describe elected officials because their job is to be there to serve the public, which is what she intends on doing.
“I’m committed to working hard and listening to the people of my riding and serving them,” she says.
Saskatchewan Liberals - Russ Collicott
Russ Collicott is the Liberal candidate in the Arm River constituency.
Collicott is originally from Moose Jaw before moving to Alberta as a child. He returned to Saskatchewan in the early 2000’s when he took a job working in Regina.
Collicott brings a wealth of political experience to the table having run federally in the 2011 election and has run provincially in the province of Alberta as well.
Collicott said he decided to run in the election because it was important to him that the Liberal message be presented to the residents of the province and wanted to help make sure as many ridings as possible were represented by a Liberal candidate.
Collicott feels there are three important issues that face the constituents of Arm River including the transportation of both agricultural goods and potash, the second is access and leadership in the health care industry and third is the access to old age housing.
Collicott says he does not buy into the fact that every community needs a health center or a hospital but feels that there should be one within a short drive because limiting the number of facilities will improve the ones that are available as they will be better staffed and will have better funding.
“Some people will feel left out. Their community will not end up with one but the idea is within reaching distance or driving distance, emergency distance of them they’ll have a good, high care, high class facility that’s fully staffed and available.”
He feels he is the best candidate to help bring change and upgrades to the constituency of Arm River due to his vast experience and willingness to listen to the people.
“I’m not what you would call a standard politician…I’m very blunt, I’m open and I’m fair. I’m not always going to agree with the people that come to me…but I’ll listen to what they have to say and I’ll give them a fair hearing.”
When canvassing the area Dewar says she noticed four main issues that kept popping up among the constituents of Arm River including water, health care, education and roads.
Health care is a big problem says Dewar who feels that there is not enough sufficient support within a close enough range.
“The distances are huge and the availability of clinics, hospitals or trained personnel is also spread out over the area.”
She says there is too much focus on the urban areas for the Arm River constituency especially considering it is mostly a rural area.
Another problem, says Dewar are roads. Some of the roads meet standard but other are “absolutely terrible” she says.
“Highway 15, the first 43km are worse than some of the roads in developing countries that I’ve worked in.”
Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan - Raymond Carrick
Raymond Carrick is the Progressive Conservative candidate in the Arm River constituency.
Carrick was born in Moose Jaw and grew up on a farm just west of the Rural Municipality of Eyebrow where he served 26 years in municipal politics. He was a councilor for four years and a reeve for 22.
He decided to run in the provincial election because he has become very discouraged with the state of health care in the province.
Carrick says that 43 percent of the general revenue is going towards health care and he says it is not working.
“The health care regions are failing, we’ve got too much bureaucracy.”
He says if elected he would work towards better health care and reestablishing the health care in rural areas.
“There’s several places where you do not have emergency care and you start looking at the size of Arm River you’re too far away to get any place.”
Carrick mentions a heart attack victim as a perfect example of someone who would need some health assistance and might not get it in time. He says the victim needs to get to a doctor to be stabilized quickly.
“You still need to get somebody that’s having a heart attack to a local physician to be able to stabilize him before you move him off to some other institution.”
In addition to health care Carrick would like to see changes crop insurance be looked at very carefully and corrected. He mentions the fact that crop insurance was originally intended to help the farmer out and was not intended to be a money making asset, which it currently is and he hopes that he can help usher in change if he was elected.
Green Party of Saskatchewan - Dale Dewar
Dale Dewar is the Green Party candidate for the Arm River constituency. Dewar was born and raised on a farm south of Dauphin, Manitoba.
She received her medical degree and has been working as a doctor, mainly in Saskatchewan, her whole career.
Dewar and her husband were awarded the 2009 Saskatchewan Global Citizen award for decades of work in environmental activism and health.
This election is Dewar’s first running for provincial politics. Dewar was approaches by both the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the past to run for their parties but she decided on the Green Party because of their international position on a number of issues that are very close to her.
Dewar and her husband began canvassing the area in the summer of last year to gather information regarding the issues concerning the constituents in the Arm River riding. In the fall Dewar’s husband unfortunately passed and she says she is now carrying on with her candidacy on her own in honour of him.
