Field set for federal election

The field has been set in Souris-Moose Mountain for the upcoming federal election.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Liberal Party revealed their candidates late last week. Ashlee Hicks, a member of the Cowessess First Nation who used to live in Broadview but now resides in Saskatoon, will be the NDP candidate.

Javin Ames-Sinclair of Regina will be the Liberal candidate.

The deadline to be declared a candidate was Monday afternoon.

Hicks said she decided to run because there are a lot of people who might be more likely to vote if the NDP had a candidate that they knew.

“I feel like me being from the riding is probably very beneficial … if you want to connect with the people who live in the riding,” said Hicks.

She believes some rural residents don’t feel like they’re important. Some people running family farms are having a hard time making ends meet. But she believes there are other issues in the riding besides agriculture.

“As a kid, I did feel like politics did not mean anything to us out there. It never really seemed to make a difference who got in or who got in for the rest of us,” she said. “Everything stayed the same.”

She still returns to the constituency often, as her family still resides in Souris-Moose Mountain.

While she believes it will take a lot of hard work to win the riding in this election, and she wants to get out and talk to people, she’s not sure how much she will be able to in the remaining weeks of the campaign, since she lives several hours away.

She plans to attend at least one of the candidates’ forums, and do some door-knocking during the Thanksgiving long weekend.

This is not the first time she has run for the NDP in an election. She was a candidate for the party in the 2016 provincial election in the Moosomin constituency. She finished second behind Steven Bonk.

“I won’t be so nervous. It was my first time running, so I had no feel for the area or anything like that. I haven’t lived in a rural setting for a while, so I thought it would be very neat to go out and connect with some rural residents.”

Ames-Sinclair could not be reached for comment. No information on him was posted on the Liberal Party’s website as of Tuesday morning.

The other candidates in the riding are Robert Kitchen of the Conservative Party, Judy  of the Green Party, Travis Patron of the Canadian Nationalist Party and Philip Zajac of the People’s Party of Canada.

A candidates’ forum, hosted by the Estevan Chamber of Commerce, will take place on Oct. 10 at the Royal Canadian Legion’s Estevan branch.

The federal election will be Oct. 21.