The new federal electoral map proposed last week by the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan has drawn the ire of a local MP.

Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre Member of Parliament Tom Lukiwski said the new map creates an “us versus them mentality” between constituents in urban and rural ridings, not to mention increasing the size of the rural districts to such a point that it will reduce the effectiveness of a MP to be responsible for their whole area of coverage.

“The best way to have representation, effective representation in Saskatchewan, is to have members of parliament to have both portions of urban and rural in their ridings where possible, because the economy of Saskatchewan is so intertwined in the rural and urban centres,” said Lukiwski, Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader.

“It just makes sense to have MPs who are totally conversant and knowledgeable about issues in both the urban and rural portions of the province.”

The proposed electoral map up for consideration at public hearings this fall is set to establish two exclusively urban electoral districts in Regina and three in Saskatoon. The remaining nine ridings will remain primarily rural, including Lukiwski’s.

The difference is Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre would almost double in size taking over the majority of the Blackstrap riding currently held by Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, as well as an area around and including Moose Jaw, currently named as the Palliser riding and held by Ray Boughen.

“Constituents want to personally meet with Members of Parliament,” said Lukiwski. “They want members to attend certain events in their home communities and by increasing the size of the rural riding by such a dramatic amount, it really would reduce the amount MPs could spend in all the areas of their riding.”

Under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, every 10 years in Canada since Confederation, an electoral boundaries commission is set up in each province to redraw electoral districts according to population shifts. This is done after each census is completed, the last being in 2011, which noted Saskatchewan’s population has increased from 978,933 to 1,033,381 over the last decade.

John Courtney, a member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan, said the new electoral map was proposed due to the change in population densities in areas within the province. He said communities of interest, historical factors, transportation lines and natural geographic boundaries such as rivers and mountains are also taken into consideration when creating a new map.

“Some areas obviously grow, some decline, others remain stable and some parts of the country are overrepresented and some are underrepresented,” said Courtney. “It’s simply to try to keep, in tandem with the population shifts, the parliamentary seat distribution pretty well equal from decade to decade.”

To read more please see the August 13 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Prairie Central under-14 basketball team competing at the 2012 Saskatchewan Summer Games in Meadow Lake July 29 to August 1 may be underdogs, but they are not shy about getting into battle against meaner competition.

The team boasts five ballers from the area on the 10-player roster including shooting guards James Morrison and Mark Rettger, centre Ben Nykiforuk, and point guard Huck Rettger from Davidson as well as forward Austin Evans from Kenaston. Assistant coaches Ian Kadlec, from Bladworth, and Davidson’s Luke Edwards are helping skipper Ken Rettger, a junior basketball coach at Davidson School, to prepare the team for the tournament.

“We have a great group of kids,” said coach Rettger. “You never know going in as we have all kinds of kids from different towns and they don’t know each other, but there is some very nice team chemistry.”

Rettger said the four players from Davidson have been playing together for the past five years, so they have a “pretty good idea” of what each other is up to on the court, plus the player from Kenaston used to play with them on a Basketball Saskatchewan team a few years back. He said their main obstacle is they are an inexperienced team as a whole compared to their opponents.

“We’re young but we’ve got some pretty good ball handlers and some good shooters,” he said. “We have a couple of big kids too, like we’ve got a boy from Osler who plays centre as well and he’s six foot four. We have a little bit of everything, some big guys who play well inside, some very good ball handlers and some shooters. They’re coming together. The last couple practices they really started to play as a team.”

The main competition at the tourney will be the city clubs from Saskatoon and Regina, which seems to be the case at every tournament due to their higher number of players available. Team Saskatoon appears to be a real threat, considering the team is made up of almost exclusively club players from the Saskatoon Slam.

“I’m hoping we can learn to play against them,” said Rettger, adding the team will have a chance to match up with Saskatoon during exhibition play before the tournament at the PAC gym at the University of Saskatchewan in late July. “I don’t know if we could legitimately go in there thinking we could win, but I just want to play well against them and show them what we’ve got.”

On Friday, July 6, members of the Hanley 4-H Beef Club moved into Prairieland Park for their Regional 4-H Show. Stalls were set up and animals settled in for the busy days of competition ahead.

Saturday morning began with the multi-species judging competition.  Members judged beef heifers, dairy heifers, sheep, light horse and quilts.  Members from the club placed well in the judging competition.

Saturday afternoon members competed in the Stockman’s competition by giving a presentation to the judges on showmanship, grooming, or selecting their project animal.  These scores were combined with judging scores, and Calina Evans placed in the top 10 overall, and was awarded a monetary prize.

In Team Grooming Saturday night, the junior team  of Kennedi Libke, Kaitlyn Yelich, and Kassy Read won their age group, and Calina Evans, Leah Libke and Anne-Marie Collins placed third in a large class of juniors. The senior and intermediate teams represented the club as well.

Sunday morning began early with showmanship competition.  All members competed and Calina Evans was Champion Junior Showman and Shelby Evans was Champion Intermediate Showman. Once all champions were named, they went back in to compete for the Supreme Showmanship title. The Senior Champion was named Supreme Showman, and Calina Evans was honored to be chosen Reserve Champion Supreme Showman.

The Heifer Show was next and Shae-Lynn Evans had Champion Charolais Heifer, with the Reserve going to Calina Evans.  Reserve Champion Cow/Calf went to Calina Evans’s two-year-old pair.

Monday was the day of the big steer show and sale.  Hanley club members winning their weight classes were Wylie Vermette, Kassy Read, Harley Libke and Shelby Evans. Wylie Vermette also went on to have his steer named  one of the Lightweight Division Champions. The steers sold Monday night, and members packed up to head home.  It was a very successful weekend to wrap up a great year. Thanks to everyone for their hard work and to leaders Travis and Shannon Libke for all their organizing and hard work.  4-H begins again in the fall!

Like most young people in the summer, Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre MP Tom Lukiwski has come home after school, or in his case a session of Parliament, only to find out spending two months basking in the rays at the lake is not to be and a summer job is waiting.

“The summertime is probably as busy a time as (Members of Parliament) have during the year,” said Lukiwski, who holds the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. “Many people who have not had the opportunity to meet with me while I’m in Ottawa have that opportunity now that I’m back in Saskatchewan. My calendar has been extremely busy so far and it will continue to be through the course of the summer.

“There are more events like barbecues and centennial celebrations, but also a lot of individual meetings with constituents and organizations.”

Lukiwski said his and the government’s focus at the time being is on reducing the size of the deficit, which means reducing the size of government among other things. He said after the global recession of 2008, the government was forced to bring in a stimulus package costing about $15 billion and that needs a trim.

As a result of this, the government was forced to end its involvement with managing community pastures, a topic near and dear to rural Saskatchewan’s hearts.  All 62 pastures in the province, which are used as grassland for cattle by area farmers and are rich in resources and endangered wildlife, will be discontinued under federal management by Agri- and Agri-Food Canada as of 2018.

Lukiwiski said he believes the community pastures are not going to be eliminated entirely just because the feds have drawn back their involvement with them. He said that hopefully someone or something else steps in to keep them going, but it was a necessary decision in order to keep up with the government’s priorities.

To read more please see the July 16 print edition of The Davidson Leader.