The federal election could change future policy that affects the southeast, even as most of the federal parties seem to be staying in the same place, with a minority Liberal government. For the City of Estevan, those changes could affect funding, regulations, and more.
Mayor Tony Sernick is a little disappointed that there's not a lot new following the election.
"It was a little bit of a surprise, but I think it sounded, you know, obviously out West here, everybody felt like change was needed, and it just kind of proves that the country is clearly divided. The West wanted change, but yet again, the East said 'no thank you' to change."
As the city will be stuck with this federal government, Sernick says they'll make sure to work with the federal government to make sure whatever current funding is here sticks around.
One of the few changes with this federal election has been a new MP for the Souris-Moose Mountain riding, with Steven Bonk filling the seat.
Sernick says that Bonk is likely to be busy.
"Yeah, he's got a lot of work ahead of him. Obviously, he'll be represented by the new government of Canada, but he'll be on the opposition side of things. I just look forward to getting together with him and seeing where the next four years take us."
With a lot of turnout during the election in the southeast, Sernick says that just goes to show how much people would like to see change in the southeast.
"It's good to see, like I said, people are engaged, people want to change. But again, we do have a new leader in the Liberal Party, so there were lots of promises made on the campaign trail. And again, we'll just let them kind of move into their new roles, and we'll identify the decision makers at that time as a city and see what we can do about getting federal funding flowing to Estevan."
Sernick says that we'll at least have stability up until the next election, as he works to improve the city as much as he can.
"Doesn't matter what colour they are, as the mayor of Estevan, like I said, we'll identify the decision makers and do what we can to get federal funding flowing to Estevan for any kind of infrastructure projects we have coming up."
Souris-Moose Mountain saw 41,564 ballots cast in the election, a step up from 2021's numbers, but just a couple hundred ballots down from 2019's total.