Voters will have six candidates to choose from in the Souris-Moose Mountain constituency in the April 28 federal election. Souris-Moose Mountain covers southeast and south-central portions of the province.
Robert Kitchen, who has been the riding’s member of Parliament since 2015, announced last summer he wouldn’t seek re-election.
Steven Bonk, Conservative Party of Canada
Of the six candidates, Steven Bonk, who lives in the Wolseley area, has the most political experience. He was the MLA for the Moosomin constituency for the Saskatchewan Party from 2016-2024, and was to represent the party in the 2024 provincial election, but instead shifted his attention to federal politics. He won a contested nomination to be the Tories’ candidate last summer.
He was also the Saskatchewan co-captain for federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s successful leadership bid.
During a meet and greet in Estevan, Bonk covered a number of different topics, including what the party would do on taxes, gun control and support for the energy sector. He has also promoted the Tories’ campaign values to “axe the [carbon] tax, control the budget and stop the crime.”
Lyndon Dayman, , Canadian Future Party
Lyndon Dayman, who farms in the Windthorst area, is a longtime Conservative Party supporter who even ran to be the Tories’ candidate for the 2015 election, but was defeated by Kitchen. He was also involved with the local electoral district association and the party’s policy and constitution committee.
But Dayman publicly criticized the process that resulted in Bonk winning the Conservatives’ nomination last year, and decided to run for the new Canadian Future Party in this election. According to the party’s website, Dayman is one of 19 candidates from across the country. He said he likes the party’s grassroots approach and its tough stance on crime. He also believes the party has a better approach to handling tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump than the governing Liberals.
Aziz Mian, Liberal Party of Canada
Aziz Mian is running in Souris-Moose Mountain for the first time. The Liberals have not responded to SaskToday’s requests for an interview with Mian, and the party did not have a biography for him on its website as of April 17.
Sheena Muirhead Koops, New Democratic Party
Sheena Muirhead Koops, who resides near Macoun, says she has always had a keen interest in politics and her philosophies have always been aligned with the New Democratic Party. She is running for elected office for the first time.
After reading through the NDP policy manual, she saw the language around which she has built her life. She read about the economic hope of people working collaboratively, putting each other first and thinking about rural revitalization. She believes universal health care is one of Canada’s greatest sources of pride, but it needs to be re-imagined to be brought into modern times.
Muirhead Koops decided to run after listening to U.S. President Donald Trump, and thinking she could challenge Trump’s fear-based approach by bringing love, care and hope.
Travis Patron is back on the ballot in Souris-Moose Mountain.
Patron, who was the founder of the now-defunct Canadian Nationalist Party (CNP), ran for the party in Souris-Moose Mountain in the 2019 federal election, finishing last in the six-candidate field.
He is running as an independent this time around, but he has publicly identified himself as the leader of the CNP even though the party has been deregistered by Elections Canada.
In a post on his website, Patron accused the federal government of facilitating a radical demographic change in Canada’s population.
“This hypocrisy of biblical proportions aims at reducing Canadians to a dwindled minority in their own country in order to transition us into ‘the world’s first post-national country’ as communicated by the Liberal government shortly after their election to the Prime Minister’s office in 2015,” Patron wrote.
In order to do so, Patron claimed the Liberals are depriving Canada of any meaningful democratic channel, those who advocate the ideology of nationalism are excluded from public property without due process.
Since the 2019 election, he has been charged with and convicted of several criminal offences, including assaulting two women, wilfully promoting hate against Jewish people, criminal harassment and impersonating a peace officer. He has maintained his innocence.
Remi Rheault, Green Party of Canada
Grenfell resident Remi Rheault is running for the party for the first time in Saskatchewan and the second time overall. He was the Greens’ candidate in 2021 while he was residing in Kenora, Ont.
He has had Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic Party memberships in the past, but now sides with the Greens. He decided to run for the party because of its political structure, which he believes would allow him to properly represent the people of Souris-Moose Mountain, since he is not required to tow the party line. He compared the structure of the Green Party to that of a co-operative, and he has 18 co-op memberships.
He hopes to see a strong voter turnout for the election, which he believes would be needed to win the riding.
The constituency has long been a stronghold for right-of-centre political parties. It was formed in 1987 by bringing together the Qu’Appelle–Moose Mountain and portions of the Assiniboia ridings.
Lenard Gustafson, who was first elected as an MP in 1976 for the Progressive Conservatives in the Assiniboia constituency, won the first election for Souris–Moose Mountain in 1988. Gustafson did not seek re-election in 1993, as he had been appointed to the Senate.
Bernie Collins was elected in 1993 for the Liberal Party – the only time a non-right-of-centre party has been represented in the riding. He was defeated in 1997 by Roy Bailey of the Reform Party. Bailey was re-elected in 2000 for the Canadian Alliance and did not seek re-election in 2004.
Ed Komarnicki was elected for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004. The riding was thrust into the national spotlight that year, as Grant Devine – who represented the Estevan constituency provincially when he was Saskatchewan’s premier from 1982–91 – ran as an independent. Devine had entered the race to be the Conservative candidate, along with Komarnicki and two other hopefuls, but the party blocked Devine’s nomination.
Komarnicki was re-elected convincingly in 2006, 2008 and 2011. He opted not to run in 2015, and Robert Kitchen was elected as the riding’s MP for the first time, also decisively. Kitchen won again in 2019 and 2021.
Redistribution impact: Souris–Moose Mountain was a vast constituency before the redistribution took effect for this election. The riding’s boundaries have been expanded to the west to include the Assiniboia area. According to Elections Canada, the riding’s population now stands at more than 80,000 people.
Estevan and Weyburn are both cities, while Moosomin and Assiniboia are towns with more than 2,000 people. There are several towns above the 1,000 mark, and the riding has many other towns, villages and rural municipalities.
Economics: Souris–Moose Mountain is a resource-rich constituency. Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the lives of people in the riding, as it does in other ridings in the province, but mining and the oil and gas sector are also present.
The oil industry is prevalent throughout much of the riding. The southeast often leads the province in the sale of Crown natural gas rights.
There are also potash mines in the northeast corner, and the region has drawn considerable interest due to the presence of critical minerals.
People in the riding have expressed considerable concern over tariffs that have been threatened or implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump, due to the volume of goods exported from the region to the U.S.
There has also been plenty of opposition in the riding to the carbon tax introduced by the Liberal government. The communities of Estevan, Bienfait and Coronach, and the surrounding areas, are also worried about the potential phase-out of conventional coal-fired power that the Liberals want to see by 2030. There is renewed hope, now that the province has said it wants to keep coal in the mix by retrofitting coal power units with carbon capture and storage technology, similar to what has happened with Unit 3 at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Power Station.
Issues related to oil and gas and electricity are of primary importance in this riding — including the industrial carbon tax and electricity regulations. With the riding bordering the U.S., border-related issues and border security are also more prominent, including the impact of tariffs on cross-border traffic.
-With information from John Cairns.
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