He was re-elected with double the amount of votes of his nearest rival, and highways and health care remain at the top of his priority list. Delbert Kirsch was re-elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the Batoche constituency in the November 7 provincial election. The Sask. Party MLA received 4,598 votes, according to the unofficial results - over double those received by Janice Bernier of the NDP, which numbered 2,088.Kirsch was first elected to the new constituency of Batoche in 2003, and re-elected in 2007.He spent election night at his campaign office, with his team, waiting for results to come in, he told the Journal last week."I didn't have to sweat too long," he said, as a Sask. Party landslide in his riding was reported early. Though it was not an edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting election for the general public, it was a very exciting night for their party, Kirsch said. How was it to be re-elected again?"Pretty fantastic," Kirsch laughed. "I think it was a resounding response to what we have accomplished in the past four years," he said. "Our record is what carried us, easily," he said. He believes that record is what won the Saskatchewan Party 49 seats in the Legislature, and is what won him his own seat.In Batoche, "we've worked hard," he said, especially on the highways, which is a key issue in his very rural riding. "Birch Hills and Wakaw.... are the two biggest towns. So roads are very important," he said of his constituency.In their last term, Kirsch and the Sask. Party ensured that roads were at the top of their to-do list, he indicated."Batoche was the highest recipient of Highways dollars of any constituency in the province," Kirsch said. Part of that money was for building the new St. Louis Bridge, which began last year.In the upcoming term, roads and highways will remain a focus for Kirsch."There's a pile of roads I want to fix yet," he said.Health care is also a top issue for him. Though he believes his party has made some big strides, what it boils down to is there just aren't enough doctors, he said. "We were not educating our youth," he said of years past. For 30 years, he said, just 55 young people graduated from medical school in Saskatchewan every year.Now, 100 are graduating every year. But it will take time to fix the lack of doctors in the province right now. "It's not just Batoche. It's right across Saskatchewan, across Canada," he said of the doctor shortage. Though his government has increased the number of doctors by 200 already, he claimed, it still will take a lot of time for the shortage to disappear.Beyond the big issues, Kirsch is happy to get back to the Legislature to deal with smaller problems. "What I find rewarding... is working on a lot of the small cases, one on one," he said. "People trapped in the bureaucracy... I help them out. Those ones really make me feel good."The Sask Party's huge majority will change the dynamics of committee work, Kirsch feels - as with only nine NDP MLAs, their caucus will be stretched pretty thin. However, "for our game plan, it doesn't change anything," he said. "We know what we want to accomplish and we are moving forward with it."The Sask. Party election platform will be their blueprint for the next four years, Kirsch said. That's what they did last time. They've kept 140 promises from their 2007 platform, he said, and some of those promises are still in progress.To the voters, Kirsch had this to say: "Let's keep Saskatchewan going. It's wonderful to no longer be a have-not province."Kirsch is not sure whether he will have a portfolio with the new Sask. Party government. "We'll see what shakes out," he said.
