Chauntel Baudu grew up in rural Saskatchewan and has taught in rural Saskatchewan.
Now the NDP candidate for Lumsden-Morse is trying to break through a Saskatchewan Party hold on rural Saskatchewan ridings ahead of Monday's provincial election.
"I'm from rural Sask so I grew up on a farm," Baudu said. "My dad is still on the farm where I grew up. Rural development and agriculture, these are my roots. This is exactly where it came from. I taught and I moved away from the farm to go to university in Regina and then I ended up teaching in Regina for 18 years. It was when I decided to start my family that I really wanted to get back to rural Saskatchewan and I at that point applied into rural Saskatchewan to switch my career into a rural school division so that I could contribute to rural Saskatchewan.
"Agriculture is so important and it's such a part of Saskatchewan's history and it's a critical to our economic future. We need to invest in having those opportunities be key components of our economic sectors and we can't sell out our rural jobs to out of province donors. We have so many people want to live in rural areas and so many people want to raise their families in small communities. We have to make sure there's opportunities for people to put their roots down in small communities, and that includes for them to be able to receive healthcare there and to get an education there and to be able to have permanent employment there."
As a teacher and later a principal, Baudu is concerned about how the Saskatchewan Party government has handled education.
"There's so many students needs not being met," she said. "Our voice as educators, like the professions in the field, is not being heard, not being listened to. Worse than that... they've actually vilified us, and they've been malicious to us. You know, teachers are on the front lines every single day with children. To just be malicious to someone who's with your children all day and caring for them and doing everything in their power to have served them in the best ways possible seems like a really counteractive approach. It demonstrates that education isn't the priority. Our classrooms are very, very complex. Students are coming to us with needs that are at higher levels. The percentage of students with needs has skyrocketed over my career."
Baudu didn't buy the Sask Party's push for decisions on class sizes and complexities to remain in the hands of school boards.
"That was just a cop out," she added. "School boards have been made their scapegoat right now and their handlers in a way because school boards are cuffed by the provincial government with the funding that they get. For the province to say that about school boards doesn't make sense because they're on the same side of the bargaining table."
Lumsden-Morse is a large riding which stretches from outside Swift Current all the way to the edge of Regina.
"The conversations are consistent across the communities I've visited throughout my constituency," Baudu said. "The conversations from door to door to door in every community has been that things aren't going well. People aren't doing well. People have worked their lives contributing to this province and now when they maybe do need health care, it's not there for them. People are angry and feeling a sense of betrayal that the province left them behind. Something has to change. We need change and something's gotta give."
Baudu is running against incumbent Saskatchewan Party MLA Blaine McLeod, Saskatchewan United Party leader Jon Hromek, Isaiah Hunter from the Green Party and Progressive Conservative candidate Megan Torrie.
Early voting runs until 7pm on Friday and Saturday. The official election day is Monday, October 28th.