The federal election is on the horizon,
Four individuals are seeking an MP position in the northern riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River.
Ahead of the election MBC has reached out to all four candidates for interviews.
Here is an interview with Liberal hopeful and current Ile a la Crosse mayor Buckley Belanger.
The full transcript of the interview is also available below.
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MBC News –We’re joined here by Buckley Blanger, federal liberal candidate for the Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River riding. We’re interviewing all candidates in this northern riding for the upcoming federal election. So, Buckley, just to start things off, what made you want to run-in this federal election, specifically in the northern riding of Desnath the Mississippi Churchill River and for the Liberal Party?
Belanger – Well, Joel, I’ve always felt that there’s a disconnect between Northern Saskatchewan as a whole and between Ottawa as well. We have often, and now more importantly as a mayor of one of the communities, we find that it’s so difficult to get benefits, from the province and get a good communication line going with the with the current provincial government.
And we know because of confederation that there is a transfer of funds to Saskatchewan on a regular basis. We, don’t know what those amounts are. We don’t know what the the money is sent to Saskatchewan for, and and and we certainly don’t know, how much really reaches Northern Saskatchewan. And over time, circumstances indicated that we needed to have a better connect with Ottawa, but oftentimes, there would be issues. For example, the last several years, we’ve had a conservative, MP, you know, and and and a liberal government. Before that, we had a conservative government and a liberal MP.
So sometimes things didn’t work out for Northern Saskatchewan, so we wanna fix that. Now is an incredible opportunity for us to have a sitting MP on the government side. And, of course, during a general election people get excited about things. And what I wanna be able to say to folks is that we have the opportunity now to send someone to Ottawa to get a really solid connection going between Northern Saskatchewan and Ottawa so we can finally find out how we could benefit as a region because we certainly need attention on a number of things.
MBC News – What plans do you have to create sustainable economic opportunities that balance environmental protection with economic growth in Northern Saskatchewan, especially for indigenous communities?
Belanger – Well, as you know, Joel, we always speak of Northern Saskatchewan as one. I often tell people that there are many different communities throughout our our northern part of the province that call Northern Saskatchewan home. So often you’ll hear me make the reference to Northerners because,, they’re our First Nations, they’re our Metis, and they’re the non indigenous communities, and we all make Northern Saskatchewan our home. So it’s important that people pay attention to that reference because we’re trying to unify everyone together. So getting back to your question, Joel, it’s really, really important that we start having those hard conversations right across the North.
And part of the audience we need to bring together to create that unity is to,get to First Nations who are a very powerful and have them join the municipal structure who are a very well managed, and bring in the Metis, citizens of Northern Saskatchewan, the businesses, and all Northerners, and bring them to a common table where we start talking exactly what you referenced. The whole notion is we want in Northern Saskatchewan good solid development of all of our resources. You know, we have uranium, gold, all these minerals, rare earth, but we’re also blessed with, what what people call, nature’s gifts, like fresh water, an ecosystem of plants and animals that sustain human life. So everywhere we go, the elders always tell us it’s good to have jobs.
It’s good to see the development happen, but we also have to protect the environment. There’s a balance that has to be achieved. And sometimes, when elders tell us that we need to be balanced, we have to show that we are. So there is also the whole notion around, engagement with, folks that that live in the North that live off the off the land in a very traditional way.
So my first thing that I’d like to do, is, Joel, is to bring together folks in a series of gatherings to see what exactly it it is that they want to share with me as an MP. So I think without question that we have to sit amongst each other. And, I would call it a series of summits on on very important issues like resource development, how we participate in this this new economy, how we protect the land, how we engage the people. And those are the key steps that I wanna undertake in the first few months if I am successful in this election as MP.
MBC News – When it comes to resource development in the North, how will you work to ensure that Northern communities are properly consulted and have a fair share in any of these projects?
Belanger – There are two things that we have to express immediately. One is that the North is open to investment. People have to realize that, capital can easily move elsewhere, and that investment can easily look at different off opportunities in different parts of the country and the world. So we have to be open to the idea that investment can happen. But equally, we wanna be part of that opportunity.
The First Nations are are showing us a lot of good examples of how they’re doing this, but we also have to make sure that everyone’s engaged. And the moment you exclude any any community or any sector, then it becomes problematic because we’re a family of communities in Northern Saskatchewan. So we have to have full engagement. I think those two points, one is to be open to investment, and, of course, the other is to have full engagement of all the communities.
That is a good attitude to take forward. But equally, as I mentioned before, we have to be part of the ownership structure, and we have to balance our environmental needs.
MBC News – A big concern for many in the North is a lack of transportation and infrastructure development. How would you work to improve these areas, including improvements in roads, facilities, and Internet access to help better connect the North with the rest of the province and country?
Belanger – Well, obviously, a direct connect to Ottawa would really help, in reference to some of the issues that we’re grappling with. Safe roads, safe housing. I know there’s a lot of investment by the federal government towards Internet and broadband expansion on the East Side. So the federal government has not, ignored the needs of Northern Saskatchewan, but clearly, they’ve gone through, different parties like the Saskatchewan party government.
We don’t know what they get, for example, when they collect gas taxes. There’s gas taxes that are collected nationally, of course, and of course, provincially. So, from my perspective, I don’t know exactly what the federal government transfers from those gas taxes to the province. But clearly, once the province gets these revenues, they decide where the money goes. And this is where Northern Saskatchewan gets shortchanged.
So these are some of the things I need to do is go to Ottawa and find out these basic questions as to what the province of Saskatchewan is getting on our behalf and why haven’t we seen those improvements to the extent we should have over the last twelve, fifteen years. And that’s a key point.
MBC News – What steps would you take to help northerners have better access to health care services and facilities?
Belanger – In recent, weeks as we’ve been traveling through some of the northern communities, we’re hearing a lot of, things that concern folks. People are still having to travel south for things like Dialysis services. People are still having to travel south to go and see, specialty, clinics and doctors. You have to travel south.
And there are some really big technological advances that we’ve witnessed in terms of trying to bring the specialists through the to the patient via the internet. So there’s some progress in that
regard. But by and large, what we’re seeing is that everybody to Prince Albert or Saskatoon, and there’s some folks that travel steady. I know of a gentleman that travel three weeks or three days a week back and forth to his home for dialysis. And, you do the the the math in terms of of how many miles that gentleman travels, it gets really tough on the patients.
And the other factor is it’s very, very expensive. So somehow we have to demand that there are certain services that have to come to our Northern Saskatchewan communities. We can’t have it all. I understand that. But there are some basic service that services that must come, to our communities because the stress and cost of travel to all these places is just absolutely tremendous.
MBC News – Mental health and addictions are another growing concern for Northerners. What measures do you think are necessary to improve mental health and addiction services in Northern Saskatchewan?
Belanger – Well, absolutely every community in our Northern part of Saskatchewan suffers with mental health in the addictions issue. We we see it in every single family as well. We are all impacted by this addiction crisis.
And what we have to know on that front, that if we are going to heal, then our communities must take, proactive stands on many things. I wish I could have a healing center for every community. I think that’s what it’s going to take. We cannot police our way out of this crisis. They have to, of course, continue doing their job, but we gotta be proactive in in the community levels to provide supports for families or people that wanna get off this drug train because there are many that wanna get off the habit and the crisis that they’re in.
But there’s not a lot of off ramps, and it goes back to my point earlier when it comes to physical health that there aren’t the services out here to help communities recover from this drug crisis and also support those that have mental health issues.
We need the mental health supports in our community so that we can be accessible to folks, from all over the the the community. So I know as the mayor, as I looked at my own community, we are being very proactive in terms of of offering some of those off ramps.
It’s an it’s uncanny in the sense of of how deep the struggles are because I’ll give you an example. As, suppose you or I were in the detox center trying to recover here in my community. You’ll stay in that detox center for seven, up to fourteen days. But once you come out of that detox center, then the supports kind of end. There’s no home for a lot of these folks to stay. There’s no job to go to. There’s no programs available that they can take. There’s no central space they can go for or place that they can go for supports. So that is where the critical flaw in these Northern Saskatchewan communities, and I look at the example that LaRonge has presented to us with that health center that’s focused on healing.
So all these these issues, when somebody comes out detox for drug use or they’re suffering from mental health, there’s not a lot of off ramps available to support them. So I always tell the folks wherever I go is we need to reach out and try and salvage these good folks that got caught up in this addictions issue because, they are worth it. You know, there are grandkids or nieces or nephews or sons or daughters. So these folks are really worth it.
But what we have to understand is that the road to rebuilding their lives is filled with a lot of potholes. So they have a tough, road ahead of them in terms of recovery, but we have to build a good system that supports them. We also have to make sure that we have options available to secure our community as well because we wanna target the people that want to recover, but you also wanna help those that are suffering in silence, and you also wanna make our communities more secure.
I know that the Prince Albert Band Council obviously are doing a lot of work around that, and they’re doing a bunch of, research on how they can create their own, community safety plans for many of their band members. So as we go down this path, it’s a complex issue. It affects us all. We just gotta figure out what services we need and start putting them together, start working together, sharing best practices, and giving hope to those folks that are suffering from mental health and or addictions issue.
MBC News – How would, you work to improve housing shortages in the North as well as housing conditions in northern communities?
Belanger – Well, as you mentioned, our prime minister made some solid commitments toward, meeting the housing needs. I look at the fact that right now in Canada, we ship a lot of our softwood lumber to the to The US.
We’ve been doing that for years. We’ve been sending raw product to The US. And, our prime minister, Carney, who’s a very sharp, man, basically said instead of us shipping them to the to The States, why don’t we start building homes for our own people? And this is why he made the commitment to build thousands of new homes across Canada, and that’s the most basic fundamental need of anyone in the country is to have safe, affordable homes. Northern Saskatchewan is not any different.
We have the same aspirations for our children and grandchildren. And many times when you have overcrowded housing, then things like, COVID, TB, measles, all of that becomes more of a problem because we all share the the same home. So there’s a lot of folks out there that tell us it’s difficult to continue under these overcrowded conditions because there are so many other problems that can occur if we don’t address this. So at the very least, I wanna say that, our prime minister Carney has come up with a plan. He’s gonna commit to building thousands of new homes.
We wanna be part of that commitment and get our share of of that of that effort to make sure that we see homes being built in our Northern Saskatchewan communities.
Simply put, we have to be at the table. We have to be there to negotiate an allocation of those housing dollars to make sure that Northern Saskatchewan, again, gets its fair share.
MBC News – How will you, if elected as a member of parliament, ensure treaty rights are respected and upheld by the federal government?
Belanger – One of the, notions that we have to embrace is the, treaty document, is something very, very powerful.
Over the years, the First Nations communities and many of the leaders have explained to me how solid and how important these treaty documents are. And I’ll give you the most recent example. When when Trump, made reference to Canada being the fifty first state, and Trump saying he wants our water and our and and our resources and so on and so forth. We have some western premiers that kinda cozy up to him.
We have to have some ways and means to protect our land base, to protect our water, to protect our forests, and the best way to do that is through the treaty strengths. We have a lot of treaty people out there that are aware of how strong the treaty documents are. So this is one example why treaty treaties are so important, why First Nations are really important. We wanna see the same solid path for the Metis, and we wanna see the municipal structure put in place.
So when you have a strong municipal sector, a strong Metis sector, a strong First Nations sector, we bring them together and unify them under one clear message is that you’re not gonna take our water, Mr. Trump. You’re not gonna take our minerals, Mr. Trump. And you’re not gonna take all the wealth we have in in Northern Saskatchewan for your benefit.
We need these for our own future growth. And if some of our leaders and I’m disturbed to hear our premier speaking of joining the The US. And if he wants to join The US, by all means, see you later. But you’re not taking Northern Saskatchewan with you because we’re gonna stand against any exploitation of all the resources that we have for the benefit of Donald Trump and and his Canadian conservative friends.
So, again, I go back. If we don’t have those treaties on our side, then we are at a huge disadvantage. So let us celebrate the fact that we have these treaties in front of us, and the First Nations know how to use them properly.
MBC News – Speaking of Canada-US relations, with the ongoing trade disputes and tariffs from The United States, how would you plan to protect the interests of Northern Saskatchewan businesses, especially those that rely on cross border trade?
Belanger – Well, this is where the value of our prime minister, Mark Carney, comes in.
People across the, Northern part of Saskatchewan, I think they fundamentally understand that Carney is was really good at negotiating a number of crisis that we faced over the last decade. Obe being that crash of 2008, who was who was there to help recover from that? Mark Carney. And, you look at the Brexit issue at at in in England, who was there to recover from that? Mark Carney.
So Mark Carney was the Bank of Canada governor for our country, of course, and he’s also the Bank of England’s, governor. So Mark Carney has got some worldwide experience. Mark Carney is a very educated man. Mark Carney knows how to calculate and anticipate business flows. He’s also very adept at managing money.
So people in their minds, they understand that Mark Carney is a very impressive, educated, disciplined individual. So if we have that type of individual as our prime minister, then he’s best suited to take on Trump. He’s best suited to know how long this crisis could happen, and he knows how to protect Canadian interests, and he will.
And that’s why I wanna tell everybody in Northern Saskatchewan, you know, tell the world, women and children, that we are Canadian, and we will protect our resources with strong allies like the First Nations and their treaties with a well organized municipal and Metis sector in Northern Saskatchewan. We can help, the fight that our prime minister Carney has undertaken now to make sure that in the whole scheme of things that we are not taken advantage of and we are not left behind. And this is the reason why I keep following our prime minister because he knows what he’s doing. Poilievre doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.
MBC News – Final question here, Buckley. You mentioned this a bit in your opening remarks, but a common concern for many Northerners is a feeling of being forgotten by Ottawa. If elected, what would you do to ensure the voices of Northern Saskatchewan are elevated on Parliament Hill?
Belanger – Well, I think it’s first important to tell the people, who I am. You know, I talk about being a navigator. I believe in free enterprise.
I believe that we have to attract investment. We have to stimulate, local businesses. We have to support regional, joint ventures to make sure that we all benefit from the activity in our backyard. The second thing that I also say is that social programs are valuable. For example, I look at the housing, the health care, the mental health, all those have to be, incorporated in our economic approach.
Sooner than later, we are going to have to build a brave new north. And, we we simply can’t build a future just on social programs. We also gotta have an economic plan as well. Because some of those social programs I mentioned like housing, childcare support, these are all key things to get a lot of, men and women who are single parents back into the workforce. So there are there are very valuable aspects to the arguments that that I use is that we need a strong economy, but we also need a strong social fabric to protect families and to make sure that they’re able to participate in that economy.
It all works together. Now as an individual, we’ve seen, the values a lot of these wraparound services. One of the I’m a big fan of the Kids First program, where they support vulnerable children. That is where I think from my perspective, I’m very, very defensive about their future role. They’ve gotta be engaged.
So as I go to Ottawa, those are the values that I’m taking. I’m not one to shy away from a debate, but we also have to make sure we know what we’re talking about. And I go back to that navigator, and that unifier role. There’s quite a bit of work that has to be taken immediately because it’s gonna be a huge task. But I’m going to go there with the the single sole, focus is to bring our stories, to tell of our triumphs, and to tell people who Northern Saskatchewan is.
So as I move forward, I’m telling people right across the North, whether you’re NDP or whether you’re leaning towards the conservatives, give us this opportunity to show you that we can do good work. We can navigate the maze in Ottawa and bring some of those benefits home. And the best way to do that is have a direct link and have someone that, can look and and research some of the investment that Ottawa wants to share and, again, bring all those benefits to our northern communities because we certainly finally have an opportunity to be recognized.