YORKTON-MELVILLE - The Yorkton-Melville riding will remain under Conservative leadership once again as Cathay Wagantall won the September 20 election.
Wagantall received over 22,900 votes or just over 69 per cent of the votes.
"It's even more honouring to be able to continue to serve the riding of Yorkton-Melville," she said, "I've never had so much engagement directly calling, emailing, asking so many questions and having so many concerns. The results show that they had the confidence in me with the answers I was able to give them and that trust, and that means more than I can imagine to be able to go to the hill and to represent Yorkton-Melville and continue to do my best to represent them and see more done for rural Canada."
Wagantall beat five other candidates with Halsten David Rust (NDP) coming in second with 3,957 votes (12 per cent), Braden Robertson (PPC) followed up with 3,150 votes (9.5 per cent), then Jordan Ames-Sinclair (Liberal), who received 1,949 (5.9 per cent), then Denise Loucks (Maverick Party), and Valerie Brooks (Green Party) receiving less than 2 per vent of the vote with Loucks getting 583 votes, and Brooks 560 votes.
Federally, Wagantall said it wasn't what they wanted, but it just means there is more work to do.
"It's been tough, and COVID-19 has really complicated that and their (Liberal government) approach to it and shutting down the House of Commons. I certainly hope we get back to business the way it should be done in the house and take advantage of our opportunities because we are an essential service, every other country has their Government operating in full swing, and I will push hard that we have that opportunity to do that. There are a lot of things that are important to me, but the divisiveness has been really difficult, so I want to see us come together in ways that have not been possible because of the approach that the Federal Government has taken, so certainly hoping we can make a change there."
Wagantall said that she feels Canada is once again divided.
"There is a challenge there with even way the election went again, where our decisions are not reflected in the broader pictures," she said. "I do want to take a look that the PPC played a role in this. There are many seats where they caused that vote to divide and to split up the middle and the Liberals to come through. There were opportunities there if we had worked together that there was a potential to form Government, so we have to look at ourselves as well, and there is no question that our freedoms are at stake in Canada now, and we need to work together to see those things dealt with in a way that pleases us out here in the West. I can tell you it's not just rural Canada in the West, the things that impact us here impact rural Ontario as well, so I am looking forward to working with other folks from that area to really push the influence of rural Canada and our impact on the GDP of this country and the prosperity of this country."
Wagantall added that her campaign would not have been successful without the amazing team of volunteers that she had this year.
