Local mayors looking for stability in wake of federal election
April 21, 2025, 10:29 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
With voters going to the polls in the federal election on April 28, there’s looming uncertainty over how the next government and prime minister will handle key issues facing the country.
Local mayors say stability is needed for the country and their communities.
Moosomin Mayor Murray Gray says that the ongoing trade war has impacted the country, and to some extent the local economy as well.
“Whether it be the trade wars, or the inability to get our gas and oil to market, those would be the biggest things that would affect us—not necessarily just Moosomin, but our area, for sure,” he said.
He would like to see a renewed focus on the energy sector from the federal level.
“Energy seems to be a little bit of a conversation that they are having amongst the federal leaders,” Gray said. “But 10 years ago, when we talked about Energy East, when we had a rally, and we wanted to see that move forward, you can really see how that hurts us that it didn’t. So it would be really good if they could get some conversation going on that again. When your only customer that you can sell your oil to suddenly slaps a large tariff on that product, not having a world market is definitely detrimental.”
Gray is also concerned with how the current tariff situation will affect businesses, echoing others in noting some stability from the nation’s capital is required.
“What businesses need in order to make decisions and to plan for the future is stability,” he said. “We haven’t had that for quite some time, so that’s definitely the case—we need some stability whether it be in Ottawa or how Ottawa deals with Washington.”
Despite that insecurity, Gray says it will have no impact on the municipal budget.
“We have our infrastructure projects that we build our budget around,” he said. “We’ve already ordered our material that we need in order to do those infrastructure projects, so we won’t be affected by the tariffs. It’s not going to really change our budgeting.”
Redvers Mayor Brad Bulbuck is concerned about the unstable situation currently felt across the country.
“Everything’s a moving target,” he said, noting how on the day the World-Spectator spoke with him, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs affecting Canada. “We don’t know what that means, and one of the unfortunate things is the unpredictability that we’re dealing with on two levels. We’re dealing with unpredictability in the U.S. leader, and we’re dealing in unpredictability in the fact that we’re in the middle of an election campaign here right now.”
Bulbuck thinks it would be advisable for the federal government to remind Trump that we are in the middle of a federal election, to pause the back and forth trade dispute until after the election.
In Kipling, Mayor Pat Jackson touched on how feelings of Western alienation are once again rising, especially in our neighbor to the west.
“Once the count is done at the Manitoba/Ontario border, it’s over,” she began.
“We are taken along for the ride. I’ve been listening to more and more people saying, ‘what is Alberta is threatening to do’? They’re making all kinds of noises if Liberals get in. They’re saying, ‘it’s not our Canada anymore, it hasn’t been for the last 10 years.’ Is it time to be looking at a different kind of arrangement? There’s a lot of uncertainty, but people around here, they’ve been so used to voting a certain way.”
As for what’s happening south of the border, Jackson has heard comments from people around Kipling.
“We’re close enough to the U.S. border that there’s a certain amount of angst with what’s going,” she said.
Some mayors had items on the wish list that they wanted federal candidates to take note of.
In Wawota, Mayor Kevin Kay said housing is one of those.
“Housing, of course, is always the issue,” he said. “If we can get some building here in this area—particularly here in Wawota—that would be fantastic.”
Many communities also receive federal dollars in the form of grants, and so far those commitments have remained untouched. This is something Rocanville’s Mayor Ron Reed hopes will continue.
“Ultimately, we would like to have any previous funding that has been in place for a period of time that we’ve come to rely on just stay intact, if not increase and then grant opportunities would probably be a big thing,” he said.
“Obviously, handouts aren’t normally a thing, so if you have to do a little bit of work to secure some extra funding federally, I know we’re lucky enough for the ICIP grant, both provincial and federal, to partner up as far as our pool project goes, which hopefully should be finished up this year. But it’s that type of a grant that obviously allowed our community to take on a project like we did.”
