Mesa seeks NDP nod in Turtle Mountain

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This article was published 31/05/2022 (1594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The provincial constituency of Turtle Mountain has been in existence since 2019, but it has never had an NDP constituency association until now.

Last weekend, the party officially established a constituency association and is trying to build momentum heading into next year’s provincial election.

Turtle Mountain includes Killarney, Carberry and Glenboro among other communities and sits on the border with North Dakota.

It’ll be tough work given that Turtle Mountain and its predecessor constituencies of Arthur-Virden, Arthur and Virden have been represented by the Progressive Conservative party since the 1950s.

However, there’s already one person putting their name forward for the NDP nomination.

Lorna Canada-Vanegas Mesa, a psychiatric nurse who has been both instructor and chair of the department in her field at Brandon University, is hoping to be the choice to unseat incumbent Doyle Piwniuk in 2023.

Piwniuk has been in office since 2014 and currently serves as minister of transportation and infrastructure.

Born in Souris and raised in the Deloraine area, Mesa said she understands the region she seeks to represent in the Manitoba legislature. Having worked in corporate accounting, child care and nursing, she’s looking to change careers once again.

This is her second run at politics, having run for the Brandon School Division board of trustees in the early 2000s.

According to Mesa, her motivation for running originated last year when she was campaigning with federal Brandon-Souris NDP candidate Whitney Hodgins and got to know the concerns and issues that matter to area residents.

“I had always been an NDP supporter and always followed them,” she said. “In this area, we really don’t have much of a spokesperson. The more people I talked to, the more I realized it needed to happen. Somebody really needed to step up to the plate.”

The issues that matter most to people in Turtle Mountain, she said, concern cuts to rural health care, deficiencies in the education system and long wait times for ambulances.

“Those wait times are anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half for an ambulance,” she said.

“If it is an acute medical issue, that wait time could mean the difference between whether somebody survives or they don’t. The other thing is the rotating emergency rooms. People don’t even know where they’re supposed to call or where they’re supposed to go. They post online who’s on call and where, but not everyone in this area has access to that.”

Another issue is that after long wait times for ambulances, patients frequently have to be taken to Brandon, which can add another hour or more before treatment is received.

A key component in improving Manitoba’s health-care system in Mesa’s eyes is to improve working conditions and compensation for workers like nurses so that they don’t leave for other jurisdictions or quit due to burnout.

The procedural and diagnostic backlog that a provincial task force is currently attempting to tackle is something Mesa said existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and the government has failed to meet that challenge.

On top of those issues, Mesa said she believes that mental health resources for rural areas like Turtle Mountain are extremely inadequate.

“You can’t keep cutting a system that’s already broken,” she said about the health-care system.

On education, Mesa believes that the Progressive Conservatives’ cuts to funding have left rural schools and teachers with few resources and students without support from educational assistants.

“It worries me that the education that the kids in this area are going to get might not be extremely well laid out for preparation for post-secondary,” she said. “We’re already starting to see that in our post-secondary environment.”

Despite the extremely unpopular Bill 64 — which would have massively overhauled the education system and removed elected school boards — getting pulled last year, she believes that this year’s budget still shows a similar approach to education and funding for the system.

Mesa isn’t yet sure when a candidate for the constituency will be officially appointed by the party. Piwniuk’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether he’ll be running in the next election by deadline.

The NDP does have one nominated candidate in Westman. Glen Simard won the race to represent Brandon East in the next election earlier this year.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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