As the 2025 Federal Election approaches, five candidates are confirmed to be running in the Yorkton—Melville riding, with individuals representing the Conservative, Green, Liberal, Libertarian and New Democratic parties, all vying for a seat as a member of parliament.
Valerie Brooks, Green Party
Brooks is a professional educator and holds a Master of Education degree with a thesis titled “Treaty Education and Reconciliation: Things non-Indigenous People should Know but Don’t about Treaty 4”, and is committed to helping people and organizations decolonize.
Worried about the upward trend in divisive politicking, Brooks is committed to working towards implementing electoral reform with Proportional Representation. She served a two-year term as a director holding the position of co-chair for Fair Vote Canada, a non-profit, non-partisan organization lobbying for electoral reform in Canada. Brooks wants all voters to feel that their vote counts and to be active participants in their democratic system. She believes that honest, collaborative, transparent work from elected representatives is the only way to re-instill trust in our democracy.
According to Brooks’ bio on GreenParty.ca
Read our interview with Brooks.
Alec Guggenmos, Libertarian Party of Canada
Guggenmos is a six year resident of Yorkton—Melville and is a lifelong prairie boy. Having gone to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, he currently works as a Crew Chief in the Land Surveying industry, spending much of his time working all around the riding. Guggenmos is an active member of his church, an avid sports fan, and is continuously trying to find more ways to be involved in both his community and the Canadian Liberty movement.
Guggenmos’s main areas of focus for the 2025 election are:
- Fighting inflation with the abolition of deficit spending and the Central Bank;
- Cutting the deficit immediately by cutting corporate welfare, the support of foreign wars, and other unnecessary forms of government spending;
- Implementing free trade to get our local resources to the most profitable markets;
- Ending Provincial Equalization; and
- Election reform.
According to Guggenmos’ bio on Libertarian.ca
Luke Guimond, Liberal Party of Canada
Guimond grew up in Regina and attended Campion College at the University of Regina where he received a BA Honours in Political Science and a minor in French. Following this, Guimond attended the University of Ottawa where he received a Master’s Degree in Political Theory. After graduating, Guimond stayed in Ottawa and worked for MPP Lucille Collard before moving to work for MP Anthony Housefather. Over the past two years, he has worked in several ministers’ offices, notably on the Official Languages file.
Passionate about having Saskatchewan’s voice heard in Ottawa, Guimond has worked hard to make sure that, despite not having an elected Liberal, Saskatchewan’s interests have been defended and heard within government. He is running now in Yorkton–Melville to provide a strong, young, bilingual voice for Saskatchewan.
According to Guimond’s bio on Liberal.ca
Michaela Krakowetz, New Democratic Party of Canada
A proud advocate for individual choice and freedom, Krakowetz believes everyone deserves a voice and that every worker deserves a good life here.
Krakowetz believes we already have the solutions to the affordability crisis and the impacts of Trump’s tariffs — we just need the political courage to implement them. We can solve these problems without costing the average family.
Born in Saskatoon and raised in Lintlaw, she is proudly of and for Saskatchewan. Krakowetz is ready to work hard for her community, and as your candidate she hopes to bring her passion and energy to fight for rural Saskatchewan in Ottawa.
Cathay Wagantall, Conservative Party of Canada
Wagantall is the incumbent candidate, with this being her fourth time running in a federal election, having represented the constituency since 2015.
“It’s an honour to have been the Member of Parliament first of all, and to have won three opportunities to represent the riding, and I’m just very passionate about it,” she said when asked about her decision to run again. “For 10 years, I’ve been in the official opposition and doing my best to represent the concerns, and I believe we make headway here and there, but to be able to be more engaged in actually seeing results for Canadians is really exciting for me.”
According to a recent interview with SaskToday.ca
Read our interview with Wagantall.
Riding history and redistribution
Yorkton—Melville has been a conservative stronghold since 1993 when Garry Breitkreuz won the race as a member of the Reform Party. Breitkreuz was re-elected again in 1997. In 2000, Breitkreuz ran under the banner of the Alliance Party and was re-elected. In 2003 Breitkreuz ran under the Conservative Party of Canada and was once again re-elected. In 2015 he chose not to run for re-election.
Prior to the Conservative dominance in the region, the NDP’s Lorne Nystrom held the seat from 1968-1993.
According to Election’s Canada, the electoral district of Yorkton–Melville is located in the Western Region, covering a vast area of 45,608 square kilometres. With a population of 73,189, the district includes 53,432 registered electors. Major census subdivisions within this district include the municipalities of Yorkton, Melville, Esterhazy and Canora.
With a large canola crushing presence in the riding, the tariffs from China on canola oil and seed is an issue of major importance to the area. Issues involving agriculture as well as affordability are also major issues for the electorate in Yorkton—Melville riding.
-With information from John Cairns.
Comments