Val Marie's Alex McPhee is bringing a small town perspective to the NDP as their Swift Current--Grasslands--Kindersley candidate in the federal election.
It's his second election as the NDP candidate in southwest Saskatchewan.
He realizes the riding has been voting one form or conservative or another for a long time.
"Under 70 consecutive years of Conservative MPs," McPhee noted. "Mostly those small towns have gotten smaller. Businesses have gone under and gotten more centralized, and services have consistently been moved out of Swift Current and to other larger cities. There are certainly things that are not things right now are not going in a direction that I'm entirely pleased about."
As someone who has studied the history of the NDP, he feels he is carrying the right banner.
"I see in the history of our region is I think people in Southwest Asia actually have historically been very willing to band together when the world looks scary and things start going wrong," McPhee said. "We were the most innovative province in Canada. We created the crowns. Swift current had the first public Hospital district in all of Canada and I think that's inspiring. I think that couldn't be more local. We have a lot of historical firsts to our name right here and that history of people working together to stand up to a turbulent world where it suddenly seems like we don't have as many friends as we thought we did... that history is what I personally think the NDP has pretty much always represented, and I think it's what it continues to represent in 2025."
After running in 2021, McPhee noted there are more NDP supporters around than people realize.
"We have a strong, tight-knit local riding association," he said. "We have a few true believers who still remember having Tommy Douglas on their farm."
The historical timing isn't lost on him either.
"Canada's existence is under threat in a way not seen since 1945," McPhee said. "The last time we had had an NDP (CCF) MP in Swift Current was in (1945)."
Swift Current elected Co-operative Commonwealth Federation candidate Thomas Bentley in 1945. The riding has been Conservative on some level since 1958.
"What matters the most to me though a federal campaign like this one is talking to the faithful and talking to the skeptical," McPhee said. "There are other people all over the riding as well who have never had a politician come to their door. They've never had the chance to think like. What can these people actually do for me? My personal goal is to get outside, stay on my feet and stay healthy because I ran myself pretty ragged in 2021, driving to as many towns as I could."
McPhee is running to unseat incumbent Conservative MP Jeremy Patzer.
Voting day is April 28th.