New candidates don’t feel behind; Sask. Liberal, NDP ridings still unfilled

Some candidates for the federal election in Saskatchewan have been campaigning and setting up for more than a year, but other candidates just found out they’ll be running.

The writ dropped early Wednesday morning, but it wasn’t until Thursday evening that Hailey Clark and Raymond Aldinger were officially confirmed to be running.

Both are now candidates for the NDP in Regina: Clark is running in the Regina-Wascana riding against longtime Liberal incumbent Ralph Goodale; Aldinger will be in Regina-Qu’Appelle up against Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer.

The morning after they got their nominations, Clark said she was feeling very positive and excited to get the ball rolling. She said she didn’t feel like she was coming in a little late or that she’s behind the other candidates.

“People are still looking for the person to represent them,” Clark said. “I feel that what I bring to the table is the excitement and the youth and the newness of getting into politics, and whether it be fast-paced or slow-paced, I just want to get out there, listen to the people, see what their concerns are and get those planted in everyone’s head.

“Whether it takes two days or two weeks, I am prepared to take on this battle.”

Clark said on Friday that her team was just planning everything out, but she did say people in her constituency will see her out on doorsteps in the coming campaign just as much as they might have seen her opponents in previous months.

Aldinger wasn’t worried about getting started a little later either. He feels his work and volunteering in the community over many years already have people in the riding knowing his name.

“I’ve been an ear for people who are struggling in that riding for a number of years, and I’ve helped out through my volunteer work as well as through advice, so I guess you could say I’ve been campaigning in that riding for about 14 years now myself,” he said.

Aldinger didn’t explicitly say whether he’d be doing things like door-knocking as many other candidates have planned. He just said he has been active and speaking to people in the riding for a number of years and that he’ll continue to do that.

When asked why it took so long to officially nominate someone for his riding, Aldinger said he hadn’t really thought about it.

As for Clark, though she won the nomination uncontested, she said the hold-up in the nomination in her riding was around the vetting process.

“Being a federal campaign and in this day and age, there’s lots of vetting involved with the process,” she said. “So I do know that we did have to complete the vetting before we were able to nominate our candidates officially just to ensure that we were good, solid people that were prepared to run in these ridings, that we had the drive.”

She said the party also wanted to hold a joint nomination party with the Regina-Qu’Appelle riding, so they had to wait until both ridings were ready.

The NDP has two more ridings in Saskatchewan without a nominee and a meeting hasn’t been posted to its party website — Souris-Moose Mountain and Yorkton-Melville.

The Liberal Party has four ridings in Saskatchewan with no candidate named yet — Cypress Hills-Grasslands, Souris-Moose Mountain, Yorkton-Melville and Saskatoon West.

In an email, a party spokesperson said the remaining nominations are going to be filled soon, but there aren’t yet any dates for nomination meetings for those ridings posted to the party website.