The editor:
I read with interest your editorial, The local push for the provincial election has begun (July 5, 2023), in the Estevan Mercury.
The paragraph that really caught my eye was when you stated that in 2020, Estevan MLA Lori Carr was re-elected with 62 per cent, the lowest share of the popular vote for a Saskatchewan Party candidate since Doreen Eagles in 2003.
While this is true, there is more to the story as the popular vote share in 2003 was not a decrease.
I was a candidate for the Saskatchewan Party in 1999. You will recall that this was the first general election the newly-formed Saskatchewan Party ran in. For the 1999 election, I received 46.88 per cent of the popular vote. In 2003, this increased to 51.32 per cent, a jump of 4.44 per cent.
In 2007, I had 66.18 per cent, a 14.86 per cent jump, and in 2011, the last election I ran in, it was 79.24 per cent, a 13.06 per cent surge.
The result in 2016 was 77.25 per cent for the Sask. Party, a 1.39 per cent decrease, and in 2020, a 15.42 per cent decline.
I don't think it's fair to make the comparison of results of a newly-formed party to the same party now that it is well-established.
Dorren Eagles
Macoun
Editor's note: Eagles was the Estevan MLA from 1999-2016
