Nominees for the position of Souris-Moose Mountain MP have been announcing themselves following the announcement that Dr. Robert Kitchen won't be running in 2025.
Mike Strachan, the mayor of Torquay, recently announced his hope of representing the Conservative Party of Canada during the next election.
Strachan says he's been in the southeast for a while and has seen all the aspects of life in the area.
"I've been living in Torquay for, I would say, all of my life, moved here when I was pretty young, but I've been here all my life, so I understand the agriculture sector. I've worked in that to understand the oil and gas sector, I've worked in that and as of right now, I work at the coal mine in Estevan and I understand the hardship that people are going through."
Strachan says he's worked with Kitchen in the past and is hoping to bring that forward into this campaign.
"Roberts has been a really good advocate for this riding. He's been a bridge builder. It's one of those things you don't see so much in politics, anybody that goes across the aisle and talks to other people and tries to bring the message from their riding. So it's really kind of sad that Robert is leaving."
"On the other hand, I'm excited for my candidacy and I have worked with Robert for the last 10 years. I actually ran his campaign in the last elections. We do have some experience on the federal side of things, with the campaign and I have been working closely with him in the last couple of elections."
"There's lots of things I learned from Robert and I think the biggest thing is, you know, it's the golden rule. Treat everybody like you want to be treated. So I think that's one of the things I will take into this campaign, and just listening to both sides of the issue, that's one of those things that sometimes that gets missed in politics, you don't hear both sides. But Robert was really good at that and I hope to continue that."
Strachan says that what's needed for the energy sector in the southeast is certainty when it comes to jobs and power production.
"Well, first and foremost, I think we need to give energy workers whether they're in coal, oil and gas, or an electrical power plant, the certainty and that's something that's missing from this whole discussion, is people that work in those sectors don't have certainty, that they'll have jobs in 5-10 years. That's something that's missing. The federal government has been really bad at communicating that to this riding, and I think that's something that needs to be talked about."
While Strachan is supportive of the wind projects ongoing in the southeast, he hopes that can be balanced with the area's agricultural needs.
"I really think wind has its place, I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be on good agricultural land. I really think that if we're going to be doing wind and solar. Needs to be on that less desirable land that's not used for agricultural production. We know that the populations are growing and we need food and putting those sorts of things on prime agricultural land is, in my opinion, not feasible."
When it comes to agriculture, Strachan says he'll look to make sure farms can pass from one generation to another comfortably.
"It's all on the capital gains, a new bill that is going in and there's some farmers that are really worried about how they transition their farms to the next generation and what that means for them and there has been not really any explanation out of Ottawa on why they're going this way on capital gains."
"I think that's a concern because a lot of these producers have worked their whole lives to build up these farms and to pass it on to the next generation and if they're going to lose half of it in capital gains, that's not something that they want to see happen."