Regina residents will be heading to the polls in September.
On Thursday, Premier Scott Moe announced a byelection for Sept. 12 to fill the vacant Regina northeast seat. The seat had previously been held by Kevin Doherty, who had resigned as an MLA back in March.
While recent polls from Mainstreet Research have shown the Saskatchewan Party lagging behind the NDP in urban areas, they have won recent rural byelections. Most notably, Todd Goudy winning a March 1 byelection in Melfort after Kevin Phillips’ sudden death vacated the seat.
The Sask. Party candidate will be Gary Grewel, Yens Pederson will run for the NDP, Jessica Schroeder is the Green Party nominee, Reid Hill will be the Saskatchewan Liberals nominee and Ken Grey will represent the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan.
Grewal immigrated to Regina from India in 1983.
He’s gone from driving a cab to owning hotels, motels and Quiznos sub locations in the city. Now he wants to give back.
“This community has given me a lot. I am a successful businessman today and now I think it is the time for me to serve the people of Regina,” said Grewal.
Grewal said he has been door knocking since the end of May, receiving positive feedback.
“All the constituents here in (Regina Northeast), they think that carbon tax is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
Yens Pedersen hopes third time’s the charm. The NDP candidate has run unsuccessfully twice before in the Regina South riding in 2007 and 2011.
He’s a bee keeper and lawyer who likes craft beer. He’s also knocked on 1,500 doors leading up to this byelection.
“People on the doorstep don’t want to talk about pipelines and carbon tax, they want to talk about what’s impacting them on a day-to-day basis,” said Pedersen.
Pedersen said the SaskParty wants to distract voters from their financial record and breaking promises on crown corporations.
“I think the two cuts that people are mainly affected by is the loss of busing services and cuts to programming for special needs kids,” he said.