Mazier eager to represent ‘rural voice’

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This article was published 21/09/2021 (1653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA — Since it was first contested in 2015, the riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa has always been represented by a Conservative member of Parliament. After Monday, that hasn’t changed.

Coming off his first term in office, incumbent Dan Mazier kept the riding in Conservative blue on election day.

“I can’t thank the voters enough for sending me back to Ottawa,” he told the Sun after the results started to become clear. “That rural voice is very important; it’s a clear signal that’s been sent today, and I’ll continue on in Ottawa to keep that rural voice in Ottawa and speak on their behalf.”

To do so, he fended off strong opposition from the right side of the political spectrum, facing off against Manitoba’s only Maverick Party candidate, Lori Falloon-Austin, and Donnan McKenna, a retired RCMP superintendent running for the People’s Party of Canada.

On the left-of-centre side, Mazier beat out three parachute candidates: Shirley Lambrecht, of Vancouver Island, running for the Green Party of Canada; Kevin Carlson, of The Pas, running for the Liberal Party of Canada; and Arthur Holroyd, of Winnipeg, running for the New Democratic Party.

The six candidates in the riding were repeats of the 2019 election, where Mazier received 26,103 votes, representing 64.2 per cent of all ballots cast.

While Mazier beat his next closest opponent by more than 20,000 votes last time, it was a much closer affair this time.

Despite news sources predicting a Liberal victory, Mazier declined to speak about the overall results with several jurisdictions’ results still uncertain.

No matter what parliamentary situation he was returning to, he highlighted rural cellphone and internet connectivity as his major priority upon his return to the House of Commons. In the last session before the election, Mazier had put forward a private member’s bill that would require telecommunications companies to follow more stringent rules about how they can report the speed and strength of their services.

“It was challenging, especially at first,” Mazier said about running a campaign during a pandemic. “Early on in the campaign, people weren’t engaged, they were still on holidays.

“I was very well received at the doors. A lot of people were impressed, especially in this riding, being the size of Nova Scotia with 200-plus communities.”

As of 10 p.m. Monday, Elections Canada listed the results as following:

• Dan Mazier, Conservative: 9,248 votes (60.2 per cent);

• Arthur Holroyd, NDP: 2,159 votes (14 per cent);

• Kevin Carlson, Liberal: 1,770 votes (11.5 per cent);

• Donnan McKenna, PPC: 1,611 votes (10.5 per cent);

• Shirley Lambrecht, Green: 369 votes (2.4 per cent); and

• Lori Falloon-Austin, Maverick: 226 votes (1.4 per cent).

After holding his election night party in Neepawa at Farmery Brewery in 2019, Mazier moved his festivities to the Royal Canadian Legion in Minnedosa this year, with everyone in attendance required to be double-vaccinated as specified by provincial public health orders.

Dignitaries present included Agassiz Progressive Conservative MLA Eileen Clarke and Robert Sopuck, the man Mazier replaced as MP after Sopuck retired in 2019.

The approximately 30 guests snacked off plates of meats, cheeses and vegetables as classic rock blasted out of the venue’s speakers over the CTV election coverage playing on three TVs in different corners of the room.

When CTV anchor Lisa Laflamme announced that the Liberals would again form government around 9:15 p.m., there were a few exclamations of surprise around the room.

Another strong reaction was when the results for Beauce — PPC Leader Maxime Bernier’s riding — came on screen. His loss drew a smattering of applause from those assembled.

The greatest reaction of the night came when Mazier made his victory speech.

“I have probably lived and worked in this riding my entire life,” he told the assembled crowd. “I know what it means to be a rural Canadian … tonight we reap the benefits of a successful harvest that was sown during the 36 days of campaigning. Tonight, all of our hard work paid off.”

Because of those COVID-19 restrictions, it was a relatively quiet campaign.

A debate held last week by the Dauphin & District Chamber of Commerce, the Dauphin Herald, Westman Communications Group and the Brandon Sun featured four of six candidates in a respectful affair with relatively few arguments between candidates.

The only party leader to visit either of Westman’s two political ridings was Bernier, who held rallies with McKenna in Neepawa and Dauphin earlier this month.

Bernier, who was arrested in Manitoba earlier this year for breaking public health orders, entered the province without being vaccinated against COVID-19 and without self-isolating but was not challenged by the police this time around.

Whether it was about recovering economically from the pandemic, managing the pandemic, vaccine or mask mandates or public health orders, COVID-19 was the biggest topic of the election both nationally and locally.

“Definitely I have a little bit of work to do in the area,” Lambrecht said about her campaign. “It takes time to build that trust so it’s going to take some time but that’s OK, I’m willing to. This was dipping my toe in the water. When I look across Canada and some of ridings are such ore established and when I came here there was no electoral district executive, there was no campaign manager, so basically there were two of us that were doing all the work.

“This is my first candidacy so it’s been a huge learning experience and it’s a very, very steep learning curve, but I’ve learned a ton already in terms of what I’ve done so far and strategy for next time around.”

The nascent Maverick Party’s candidate felt good about her party’s first kick at the politician can.

“I had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Falloon-Austin said.

“[The Maverick Party] just turned a year old last week, so for me even to get right now two per cent of the vote, I’m pretty proud of that. It’s a huge area and I did what I could and I’m pretty proud.”

Falloon-Austin said the biggest task for the party going forward is to get more name recognition for the Maverick Party and more publicity.

“People, they’re ready for a change and even though they didn’t get it this election, that doesn’t mean that in the next couple elections that they will not be getting the change they told me they wanted.”

Holroyd said while the results were not what the party hoped for in the riding, “they gave it their all.”

The NDP pushed as hard as they could during the election, he said, and it has been heartening to see the party’s overall results in the nation as a whole. He is excited to see others leading in ridings across Canada and anticipates positive results for the party as a whole as the final numbers roll in.

“People want to be heard and listened to and that’s something that a lot of politicians kind of forget,” Holroyd said, explaining how he appreciated the opportunities he had to sit down and listen with constituents during his campaign. “It’s good for democracy to have people’s voices heard.”

Holroyd is thankful for the support he saw in the election and hopes the party can build off the momentum gained during the 2021 federal election.

“While it was not the results that we had all hoped for, I really do appreciate every single vote. I will work hard for the next candidate, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s someone else, to fight hard in the next election to try and flip that Swan River-Neepawa for the NDP,” Holroyd said.

“I’m a little disappointed in the number,” Carlson told the Sun. “You always go in hoping that the vision that you shared at the doorstep would be embraced by the electorate but it wasn’t the case. I certainly want to congratulate Dan, I’ve met him on a few occasions and I know he’s going to do a tremendous time continuing to be the member of Parliament for our riding.”

While Carlson did not win his seat, the Liberal party appeared poised to form government on Monday night.

“I think it’s a great thing,” he said of the overall results.

“We’ve had that steady hand, that compassionate leadership helping to lead the country through the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring that families had an income they could count on even through times might have been tough with their jobs and now going forward we get to build on that vision coming out of the pandemic,” he said.

» cslark@brandonsun.com, with files from Chelsea Kemp and Drew May

» Twitter: @ColinSlark