REGINA - Today we will do a deep dive into the state of the election race in Saskatchewan’s 14 federal ridings.
It will try and follow the same format as my previous “race to 31” riding profile story during the provincial election. Except here it is far less complicated. Every riding in Saskatchewan counts towards the federal parties getting to their magic number of 172 seats for a majority. The problem is it seems the federal parties are focusing much of their attention elsewhere.
The real battleground areas at the federal level are in southwestern and eastern Ontario and the metro belt surrounding Toronto, the suburban ridings outside of Montreal, the lower mainland ridings in British Columbia, and assorted swing ridings in the Atlantic. That’s it! That’s where the leaders such as Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh have spent the bulk of their time.
The leaders have barely spent any time in Saskatchewan at all. Liberal leader Carney and NDP leader Singh both showed up for rallies on the same day in Saskatoon; Singh also staged a news conference the following day in the same city. Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party showed up in Moose Jaw last week, but their party is cratering and won’t be a factor this time.
This past week Pierre Poilievre also, at last, held a rally in Saskatoon, but it took until the final week of the campaign for him to make an appearance here. That really says it all. It tells me that most of Saskatchewan really isn’t in play in this election campaign.
And it really says it all about how sleepy of a campaign it really has been. Just go look around your various communities and you’ll hardly find much of a “sign war” going on compared to the provincial or municipal elections. There also seems to be fewer election forums being organized or held — or at least, fewer candidates showing up.
The other issue has been the snap nature of Carney’s election call. It has caught the opposition parties flat-footed, with the Greens and PPC unable to field full slates in the province. It has also really hurt the New Democrats. They had to scramble to find candidates when the writ dropped, and in some ridings they didn’t even have candidates lined up until a couple of weeks into the campaign, right before the filing deadline.
This was especially the case in Regina, which normally is a city where you expect the NDP to be well-organized. In fact, I have seen hardly any NDP signs up anywhere.
This is unheard of for this province, and points to the sorry state the party is facing not just in Saskatchewan but right across the country. The national polls put the NDP under ten per cent and I don’t doubt it based on what I have seen.
Frankly, it is hard to believe the NDP could be in this situation when their provincial counterparts basically swept Regina and Saskatoon in the provincial vote last fall. But that seems to be the picture emerging.
The story that seems to be emerging in Saskatchewan is this:
- The polling collapse of the federal New Democrats is changing the election dynamics in many ridings in the province;
- The Liberals are on the rise in the province, with many former NDP voters switching to that side to put the government party in contention in several urban seats as the main challenger to Conservatives; and
- The Conservatives are still in the drivers seat, but can they again pull off a 14-seat sweep for a third election in a row?
The history
You know, it sort of gets to be a broken record in this province every federal election with the Conservatives. It seems like they do well every election, going back to the 2004 merger between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives and the ensuing election that produced Conservative wins in 13 out of 14 seats.
Since then, the range of seats for the Conservatives in Saskatchewan has ranged between 10 and 14, with the low of 10 coming in 2015 when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals beat the Harper government, and the high of 14 coming in 2019 and 2021, in large part in reaction to Trudeau government policies.
In fact, if you go all the way back to 1958 and the John Diefenbaker landslide, Conservative parties of various stripes have typically taken the majority or even vast majority of Saskatchewan seats. Only occasionally since then have the NDP or Liberals broken through. In 1968, the NDP won the most seats in the province under leader Tommy Douglas; in 1980 the NDP and PCs split the seats at seven apiece; in 1988 the NDP took ten, and then 1993 saw another split with the NDP and Liberals winning five apiece, with Reform winning the remaining four.
Then in 1997 Reform took eight seats and from that point on it has been a runaway. The typical Liberal wins from that point on would be Ralph Goodale in Regina-Wascana, and maybe Desnethe-Mississippi-Churchill River. As for the NDP, their typical seat count since 2004 has usually been zero.
What to look for
So history gives you a good guide to what to expect in the 2025 federal election in Saskatchewan, and also gives you a good idea about why your federal election campaign in your local rural ridings might have been such a snooze fest. Rural Saskatchewan promises to be yet another Conservative blowout, as farmers and oil and gas people who hated Trudeau and hated the carbon tax aren’t in the mood to extend any goodwill to Mark Carney. They won’t so easily forgive or forget.
These bedrock Conservative ridings include Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake (Rosemarie Falk), Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek (Kelly Block), Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan (Fraser Tolmie), Prince Albert (Randy Hoback), Souris-Moose Mountain (with new Conservative candidate Steven Bonk), Swift Current-Grasslands-Kindersley (Jeremy Patzer) and Yorkton-Melville (Cathay Wagantall). Yes, there are some boundary changes to take into account but they should not impact the overall result here. Expect all of them to be called early.
Then we look at the races in Regina and Saskatoon, and the dynamics for those are quite different because the Conservatives will need to put in some work — and in some cases work hard to win the seat.
One riding that is not expected to be in play is Regina-Qu'Appelle, where former federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is the longtime incumbent. He benefits greatly from this being a split urban-rural riding, with a significant rural portion to the east of Regina. That batch of rural votes makes his path for victory a lot easier.
That also used to be the case for Kevin Waugh in his old Saskatoon Grasswood riding, but a lot of the rural portion is gone now and the new "Saskatoon 麻豆传媒AV" consists mainly of the urban areas of south and southeast Saskatoon. In other words, Waugh will need to put in an effort. And something else to think about: during the provincial election, almost all of this area swung to the NDP.
Looking at Regina-Lewvan and Regina-Wascana now, both those ridings are held by Conservative incumbents Warren Steinley and Michael Kram, respectively. But both ridings have been held by other parties in recent memory.
In 2015 Regina-Lewvan went to the NDP, and the NDP have typically been the main challenger to the Conservatives for this seat. You would think that might bode well for Ray Aldinger, the NDP candidate up against Steinley.
But the Liberals have been touting polling figures that put their candidate Mac Hird in second place, within striking distance of Steinley. The sign war seems to confirm it; you see a number of Hird signs up, in the Cathedral area especially. Keep an eye on the Liberal vote in this and other Saskatchewan ridings on election night as there is a real possibility they could emerge with more votes in Saskatchewan than the NDP, which is usually unheard of.
Then you have Regina-Wascana, which was held for over 25 years by the Liberals’ Ralph Goodale. Even in the last two elections it has been the Liberals who have been the main challenger to the Conservatives.
Liberal candidate Jeffrey Walters, former provincial Liberal leader, is likely to keep that streak going of two-way fights between Liberals and Conservatives, but the question is whether he can get over the line and take the seat for the Liberals. The Liberals say they are confident, but so are the Conservatives: the Kram campaign told me last week they had 500 more sign requests than last election.
Then we go to battleground Saskatoon where some leaked polls have suggested the Liberals are in the fight there against Conservative incumbents Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West) and Corey Tochor (Saskatoon-University).
Again, this explains why Mark Carney staged his Saskatchewan rally in Saskatoon in the middle of the campaign. It also explains why Jagmeet Singh showed up, likely because the NDP are in a panic.
Typically, it is the NDP who are the main challenger to Conservatives in every riding in Saskatoon. Saskatoon West has usually been the NDP’s number one target seat in the province, and more often than not it would be a photo-finish in the vote count there. So if the Liberals are gaining support, it’s major trouble for the NDP and something to watch on election night.
My suspicion is that a split Liberal-NDP vote could emerge in Saskatoon West. That could actually help Redekopp win his seat by a bigger margin than previously. The Liberals have high hopes but they have a steeper hill to climb here.
As for Saskatoon-University, I would definitely keep an eye on the vote count to see how the Liberals’ Greg Poelzer does, because that is one part of Saskatoon that has a Liberal history to it. Federal minister Otto Lang used to represent that area back in the 60s and 70s, and it swung Liberal again in the 90s. But I still see Tochor as the favourite here.
That leaves just one riding: Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. And we need to talk at length about this one for a lot of reasons.
Among other things, it has swung often between the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats over the years. For the last five years, it has been held by Gary Vidal, the former mayor of Meadow Lake.
But boundary redistribution has heavily impacted this riding. The Meadow Lake portion was completely cut out and now is part of Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake. Even worse for the Conservatives, it was this portion of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River that always handed the Tories their victory there. Without it, it would surely go to the opposition.
What’s worse, Vidal himself lives in Meadow Lake. My understanding was that the party was hoping he would run again in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, despite the fact he now lived in a different riding. But Vidal said nope, he did not live in the riding anymore, and he decided to bow out.
This time the Liberals are running Buckley Belanger, the former longtime MLA for the area who finished second to Vidal last time.
Based on the highly Liberal-favourable redistribution, the predictions on several election aggregators is that Belanger is the favourite to win the seat and break the Conservative shutout in Saskatchewan, and be in prime position to join the Carney cabinet.
But a couple of things to caution you about before you automatically give this seat to the Liberals:
- This seat hasn’t gone Liberal in years! The last time it was Gary Merasty in 2006, who served only briefly and resigned in 2007. Since then, this riding has either been Conservative or NDP.
- The Conservatives are not giving this up without a fight. They have nominated Jim Lemaigre, former Sask Party MLA, to run for the seat. Interestingly, Lemaigre won his provincial seat after Belanger resigned it to run federally the last time. This is a battle of the “two former Athabasca MLAs,” for sure.
The way things are going nationally, it could well be that Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River could play a major role in who might form the next government of Canada. We shall see.
To sum up:
- Expect Conservatives to clean up in rural Saskatchewan again
- Watch closely the urban ridings to see if the Liberals make inroads or even take seats
- All eyes are on Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River.
See you on election night, as we will be livestreaming the federal election results on April 28 on , bringing you real-time updates, analysis and coverage as the votes come in.
