She currently lives in Winnipeg, but northern Manitoba MP hopeful Rebecca Chartrand says she’s no parachute candidate.
“My family’s from the North,” Chartrand, Liberal candidate for the Churchill-Keewatinook Aski riding, said during a recent visit to Thompson. “I’ve lived and worked in different parts of the North. My son’s family, for example, is from York Landing; his grandma lives right here in Thompson. I also have family in The Pas.”
Chartrand, a teacher and community development worker, hopes to retake the vast riding for the Liberals for the first time since Tina Keeper lost to the NDP’s Niki Ashton in 2008.
In the riding’s larger communities, Chartrand cites the economy as the dominant issue.
“The mining industry isn’t doing as well as it used to, so employment in those areas has been decreasing,” she said. “So there’s definitely different issues depending on where you go geographically. It’s really important to take a look at what people are doing in different regions to address those issues and to really get behind that and to support those initiatives.”
In the Island Lakes area of the riding, Chartrand said community isolation is a key issue.
“You can only get there by fly-in or by winter roads, and because of global warming the winter road timeframe is decreasing,” she said. “So there’s a need to invest in infrastructure so that communities from the North have access to urban areas.”
Further south, the big issue is flooding, in Chartrand’s view.
“Lake St. Martin, for example, is a community that’s been displaced for the last four years,” she said, “and it’s something that, although it’s a provincial issue, the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to intervene when First Nations people are affected by whatever issues or challenges they’re dealing with.”
Chartrand first ran for office in 2014, losing in her bid to join Winnipeg city council.
She sees parallels between that campaign and the one she has embarked on in northern Manitoba.
“Once I got in and started running in the civic election and door knocking, it really lit a fire in me,” Chartrand said. “I was running in the Point Douglas area, where there’s a large population of Aboriginal people and a very low turnout, which is very similar to the Churchill riding, you know, because in the last election there was only 43 per cent turnout. It’s important people get out and vote and get involved and voice their concerns, that people are heard.”
Chartrand believes voters are frustrated with the current federal government and that the Liberals are the best alternative.
“I think people have lost faith in our government and there’s a need to restore trust in our government, and I think the Liberals have the best plan in place to restore democracy,” she said.
The current northern Manitoba riding of Churchill will expand and be renamed the Churchill-Keewatinook Aski riding for the October 19 federal election.
– Thompson Citizen, with files from The Reminder
