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The Battle River-Crowfoot by-election is in full swing with candidates out door-knocking and putting up signs.
Currently, over 150 candidates have put their names on the ballot, and independent candidate Bonnie Critchley is just one of those names.
Critchley has a background serving in the military for 22 years. She moved to Beaver County during COVID, and during that time, she got married and bought a house.
"My family's been in this area for almost 20 years now. The whole family is military. I'm fifth generation, that I know of."
Critchley felt angry when former MP Damien Kurek resigned, and she decided to do something about it.
"The riding overwhelmingly voted in the local guy that we liked, and then he turned around and sold us out. I mean, I didn't know that at the time. I had my suspicions. Then, the news of his recent job has broken. So now we know what he got for selling us out. The angry guy from Ottawa just wants to use us as a stepping stone for his career. He's got no intention of doing anything," explained Critchley on why she is in the race for MP.
For weeks, she has been knocking on doors in the riding, and as Critchley explains, people are angry.
"It turns out there's a lot more of my neighbours upset about this than I thought. My initial intention had literally just been to give everybody a voice to express their discontent," said Critchley. "Now my goal is to give my neighbours a voice in Ottawa because, as I went door to door, everybody is mad. Pierre Poilievre most certainly has his fans, and he has his very loud fans. But there is a very quiet anger that I am hearing from door to door. It is surprising how many people are upset."
She believes that being an independent voice for the riding will give her the power to sway legislation.
"The government has to work with me if they want me to support or want my support on something that's palatable, like increased defence spending."
One of the biggest issues Critchley is hearing about is farming equipment repairs.
"Farmers aren't allowed to touch their own tractors. They're so full of computers that you have to pay for updates, pay for your subscriptions. You're not even allowed to change your own air filter, and that was the one comment that blew my mind," said the candidate. "You have to pay to get a tech to come all the way out to your farm to change your air filter, so right to repair is the by far the most pressing issue. If we can manage that, we start bringing the cost of living down."
She is also focusing on rolling back gun laws that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals passed into law in 2024.
"I'm not saying free guns for all. No, just rollback the haphazard, slapdash performative policies that were applied and that are changed so often that people can't keep up and can't keep in compliance with. We don't need to punish law-abiding citizens for the actions of criminals."
If elected, Critchley is looking into proposing a change to Canada's electoral system, but won't speak much on it right now.
Voters will head to the polls on August 18.