EAST CENTRAL — Fred Bradshaw will once again hold the Saskatchewan Party's banner in Carrot River Valley in the 2020 provincial election.
The nomination meeting, held in Arborfield on June 20, saw Bradshaw compete against Terry Youwza.
Bradshaw is the current elected MLA, having been elected in 2016. He was previously elected in 2007 and in 2011.
He said he was delighted to win.
“You always go into these things trying to win, and I will say one thing – it was a very good competition and I think it was good for the party. It brought lots of people out,” Bradshaw said.
“I’m just very happy the people still have faith in me to be able to work for them for the next year and a half until we get to the next election. I hope that we can win the next election and I can continue on.”
More than 500 Saskatchewan Party members voted.
Bradshaw said throughout the nomination process he wasn’t sure he was going to win “because nothing is for sure in politics.”
“Nominations are a lot of work,” Bradshaw said. “They’re actually harder work than the actual election… Obviously our opponents have a lot of the same ideals that you do, so consequently it’s tough. When you’re in a general election you can always talk about what you’re going to do compared to the other party. The nominations are far different.”
On his Twitter account, Youwza congratulated Bradshaw on his victory. Youwza is a councillor for the Resort Village of Tobin Lake, and is or has been a director of the Canola Council of Canada, SaskCanola and Cereals Canada.
Bradshaw said he will continue to work towards construction on Highway 55.
“We’re getting a good portion done – it’s going to be done… Not only does it affect our agriculture sector, it also affects our forestry sector which is very important to this constituency.”
Bradshaw said he’s interested in shale oil exploration and development near Hudson Bay, “but unfortunately without a pipeline at the present time I don’t know where that would go”.
“Something I would like to see happen is maybe the Manitoba government and the Saskatchewan government get together and work more on making Churchill a more viable line, because that’s also very important to our agriculture community.”
